Why dont they just make:
Look like this?:
Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 is supposed to be the first browser to fully conform closely to the various internet standards, particularly those described in W3C. Previously each browser vendor has run with their own interpretation of the standards to which web pages are made, making many web pages appear or behave slightly differently on different browsers, or worse some websites simply don't work on certain browsers.
This creates a problem, either developers have to test their code across many browsers (and in some cases write specific code for each browser), or accept it only works on one browser. If the latter is chosen this will normally be IE (Internet Explorer) because that's the most popular.
Microsoft have tried to get us out of this mess by changing IE to interpret the web standards correctly, but that means that sites which previously worked with IE 7 or older may no longer work (because they were developed against specific bugs or standard non-compliance no longer present in IE 8). Hopefully most new websites will be tested on IE 8 and hence will function and comply with the Internet standards.
But what about all the old websites which used to work? Well, for those websites which no longer load correctly in IE 8 there is a Compatibility View button. This button switches to the old 'buggy' interpretation of the standards present in IE7. For most users this button will seem the most pointless thing because they have to regularly press it just to get a page to work properly. It may as well be called "Make Internet Work". What's more some of those pages work on other browsers such as Firefox straight off, making IE look bad.
In the long term Microsoft really are doing us a favour, moving everything towards a correct standard which when other browser vendors choose to implement will make the Internet a more accessible place. Pages will load and run correctly whether using Google's chrome browser or the browser on my mobile phone. Crucially the cost of developing websites will be far less because they won't have to be tested against all the various browsers.
But in the short term, it's bad news for Microsoft. People won't understand the "Make Internet Work" button, and they will lose more users to the likes of Firefox and Chrome, with many more choosing not to upgrade to IE 8.
So why doesn't "Make Internet Work" press itself for every page? Because then they may as well not bother with the stricter conformance to the W3C because it would never be used, and the internet would never move forward. If someone wrote a plugin which pressed the "Make Internet Work" button for every page, would I use it – Yes. But I would hope most people don't, otherwise we are back to IE7.
Microsoft has only been able to pull this off because they are still dominant in the browser market. No other browser vendor could pull this off, thus forcing people across to the correct standards. M$ are surely doing us all a favour, but could they have done it in a better way?
For more on IE8 and the Internet standards problem read Joel's article.
Posts
