I just want to know why Microsoft thought they were releasing a superior browser, are they totally inept to the world around them? Is it because they think their software is so wonderful that people will just use it anyway? Or is it because Microsoft was raking in billions a day and they said “forget the consumer we don’t care what they think” so they just about forced a worthless and unresponsive browser on market. Idiots! Its not like I have a junky computer, IE runs like crap on any system. It has to be in the software code or something.

Just for fun I loaded it up today just to see if it had improved by some miracle (nope) still sucks. Then I said to myself “Why, why does it run like that” so I searched (Why does Internet Explorer load so slowly) and of course I used the Google home page search on Firefox. I ended up here after following a link from another site with an article like this on it. I got side tracked so I still don’t have my answer yet. Go Firefox Go! Kick Bill Gates in the nuts for us all one time each per person continuously. I will note one draw back to FF though, it is bad about memory consumption. Easily fixed thought, a quick, not slow restart will fix that.

Great Article!

Anyways, I have been using Linux since like 1996 (remember Caldera-when you had to let it download itself for 2 days..lol). Web browsers were never great for it before Firefox. When Firefox came out, it was the greatest thing for Linux users (Thunderbird too). Since Microcrap has always screwed Linux users, they shot themselves in the foot. I remember Firefox/Thunderbird becoming the top internet suite for Linux easily. It’s not bulky, and you can put whatever extensions you like (adblockl!). Thus, it is as light or heavy as you make it. No unwanted parts at all. The tabs are cool and small.

I am presently using Windows xp, because the ‘others’ here unfortunately made it a condition of buying this pc, so ‘they’ could use it (idiots). That is why I instantly downloaded firefox/thunderbird. When I used Windows again, I HATED Outlook express, and still wanted Firefox back, with my extensions (I even saved all the config. files and my bookmarks from Linux, and imported them into Winxp!).

Recently, my pc restarted overnight, and I had this ALIEN looking fat toolbar with HUGE tabs that won’t go away. The friggin tool bars take up 1/5 of the damned screen! I HATED it! Everyone else here hated it too. Where’s the STOP button? Nobody wants to have the browser take up so much space! Massive tabs, even when there’s only 1 page!!
What about the web page? You cannot even see it because all you see is BROWSER! It is so distracting, that I could not stand it. Microsoft conveniently has NO place to complain either. What a pile of garbled junk. My screen resolution is set at 1152×864 and I cannot imagine what it would look like at 800×6000! Would I even be able to see the page?

So 2 thumbs down for IE7! Everyone hates it, and it is the death of IE. Funny, they had an ok browser, but by copying Firefox, they now have junk. I mean.. what is all that crap on the toolbars, and where’s the rest of the buttons??

So, thanks Microsoft, you have done yourself in at last! I now spend a lot of time explaining to others who call and ask why their browser is suddenly awful and complex, and help them uninstall IE7! Nobody wants it!

Cheers!
-Jf

I just take issue with the suggestion that there is a massive movement away from IE. The stats (as far as I can tell) do not support that claim, in spite of all the designers and SEOs who claim otherwise and who endlessly promote FF. Whether they should be promoting it is another question, and you may be entirely correct about that.

As I mentioned in my comment, my source was Wikipedia – not the most impressive sounding source, but the numbers look pretty thorough…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers

Rick

I find myself having to do the same thing, Douglas. I have to put my Javascript in includes or separate JS files that are linked to my pages. Injecting it directly into my markup has a tendency to make things go haywire.

I agree with you, but there’s a cautionary tale to not caring what web designers think… and that’s that web design will continue to be an expensive venture when you have to design outside of standards to appease that 85.88% market share!

I am working on a site right now that looks perfect in FF and Safari, but IE totally garbles it… the problem? I have JavaScript within the page’s content and that’s what’s moving graphics that are 100% CSS Driven! Now I have to put all the script in an include – which won’t allow the page to load gracefully, so I have to add more code to ‘preload’ items.

Thanks again!

Meanwhile, Firefox has zoomed from 9% to 14.6% in the same time period. That’s an increase of 5.6% in roughly two years.

Safari has gone from 3.1% to 4.77% – an increase that is hardly worth talking about.

Yes Firefox is gaining on IE, but IE still apparently has more than 5x the users.

These stats are from Wikipedia “Usage_share_of_web_browsers” and of course could be biased one way or another.

Apparently most of the world doesn’t care what web designers think. I would think we should design for the masses rather than worrying about our own personal preferences.

I agree with your thoughs on IE7 and being a web designer, I was let down with a few things when IE7 was released. I’m currently in the process of building a new website and I’ve come across some issues with divs but nothing major (thus far). I’ve only used IE7 minimally but I was expecting a huge jump from 6.0 in reference to CSS support, etc.

I’ve been a Firefox user for years and have recruited quite a few new users along the way. I think the thing that most attracts me, and a lot of other FF users, is the fact that it’s extremely web designer/developer friendly and the customization drives it. I think IE will continue to plummet and I think Microsoft will need a miracle at this point. The momentum that Firefox has gained and Safari is slowly gaining, is outdoing IE and the fact that they keep falling short on producing a web standards compliant browser, isn’t helping them in the least.

Us web designers can only give them so many chances