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Internet Explorer 5.0

28

I usually don’t get annoyed about browsers, but the IE family strikes a nerve.

Yesterday I tried to view my site at school with IE 5.0. That’s a thing I don’t like about my school’s computer policies. We have 166/233 MHz boxes on 800×600, instead of something better. Anyway, I fired up “Internet”, pressed ESC, F6 and then typed my address into the URL bar. What was shown to my very eyes? Crap!

What was wrong? All the backgrounds on heading disappeared. All padding on links disappeared. Auto-aligning a box to get it centered failed. What happened to the specs? What happened to implementation making sense?

Or, of course, my school could update their browsers, to something like Firefox. It’d make school a better place to learn.

P.S.: Fuck IE 5 ;)

Posted on 2004-11-23 while enjoying evening coffee.

28 comments

  1. Turnip 2004-11-23 #1

    I have yet to try my site in IE5. I’m going to, but if it’s too bad then I don’t think I’ll bother with it.

  2. Joseph Lindsay 2004-11-23 #2

    Forget about IE5. I have. IE6 is the new NN4

  3. Gabriel Mihalache 2004-11-23 #3

    margin: auto doesn’t work on IE5... well known fact (bug) :-) The box model issue is a IE5 original too.

    I see box model hack written all over this site :-) Use a different CSS file for the hack and use Microsoft conditional comments to include it. That’s the best you can do. OR hide the stylesheet from IE5, which is not ok since it CAN render most stuff, with a bit of hacking.

  4. Mark Wubben 2004-11-23 #4

    Wow, F6 worked for you? It didn’t work for me today in IE6, at school... when Firefox is released in Dutch I’m going to request its installation, no, I’m going to demand it!

  5. Mark Wubben 2004-11-23 #5

    Oh, Rob, does IE start with “Startpagina” at your school too? ;-)

  6. Rob 2004-11-23 #6

    Gabriel, no BMH for me :P

    Mark, I’ll suggest it to the team. Smart move that would be. But our IE starts with the school’s site.

  7. Rogier 2004-11-23 #7

    That’s why I always fire up Firefox, IE 5.0, IE 5.5, IE 6 and (ocassionally) Opera when I’m building sites with xhtml/css.

    Check and double check :-)

  8. Vidar 2004-11-23 #8

    Heh, well I have already taken that step with my site.
    I havent checked it with IE5 and I dont intend to so if it looks bad, well sue me. Whatever :D

    Joseph Lindsay: A-fucking-men

  9. Rob 2004-11-23 #9

    Who said fuck?!

    Oh, and Rogier: I check IE6, Opera and FF. The other browsers I’ll know about by email :P

  10. Joen 2004-11-23 #10

    A pain indeed. Have you gotten yourself some standalone browsers to check out your site on? A bunch of IE versions are available at
    http://browsers.evolt.org/?ie/32bit

    Additionally, you may get a few things working simply by applying the bunch of Javascript snippets that is dubbed IE7
    http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/

  11. Stu Schaff 2004-11-23 #11

    I don’t know if I’m going to be unpopular for saying this, buuuuuuuuuut.... if you don’t like something, wouldn’t it be best to try and change it? If you gave your school a solid case for doing so, I bet that they would consider changing to, say, FireFox, or at least upgrading their IE. Tell them that it’s a security risk.

    If you need any advice on how to get them to make the decision, let me know. I’ve been pretty successful in my efforts so far!

  12. Rob 2004-11-24 #12

    Joen, I’ve been struggling with that for a while, thanks for remotivating me :)

    Stu, that is my main point, of course :D This is not my point at all, this design issue, I just want the school to think. Or else I’ll do it! Of course, I don’t know if they’ll believe me, so I’ll mail you on this sooner or later.

  13. Seth Thomas Rasmussen 2004-11-24 #13

    I thought I had managed to attract no IE5.0 users with my site. Then, out of nowhere, it appears on my ShortStat page. An abysmal 1%, but still. That leaves all versions of IE5+ represented. :...(

    Were you aware that you can get standalone versions of IE5? They’re invaluable for testing!

    Check it out, yos.

    I had a rough time learning CSS early on. Mainly because I was taking it upon myself to squeeze it in at work, whilst stile keeping up the same old same old. What made things worse was working in an office where all of the consultants and my boss were running IE 5.0. They were always saying, “This or that looks screwed up,” and I’d be thinking, “WTF!?!1!? incalculable rage”

    Then again, it was sort of like having rigorous IE5 user testing too. Even though IE5’s numbers are dwindling, that’s still valuable I suppose.

  14. Seth Thomas Rasmussen 2004-11-24 #14

    Hahaha.. I just noticed that you have a category named “Anger”...

    P.S. Your banner is a lot stronger now. I dig the upgrade. The pope hat is a nice touch. (For the color as well as the obvious: that it’s a pope hat.)

  15. Charl van Niekerk 2004-11-24 #15

    Wow, more and more of these posts are jumping up on weblogs world-wide every day! I’m very glad to see this!

    Just search for Dump IE and you get approx. 23 500 results! (My post should be in there some place...)

    So, why not get a proper message showing?

  16. Rogier 2004-11-24 #16

    Pope hat? LOL

    I think it’s more a sinterklaas hat ;-)

  17. Ben 2004-11-24 #17

    Actually, Seth, it’s not the pope’s hat, but a bishop’s hat, in this case St. Nicholas’ hat, which is celebrated in the Netherlands as something similar to Santa Claus (guess where he got his name from...)

  18. Seth Thomas Rasmussen 2004-11-24 #18

    Yeknow, I knew it wasn’t like the Pope’s hat, just similar. But... bishop or Santa Klaussenpheffer hats aren’t funny.

    But yeknow, that’s fine! Step on my dreams and wipe your bum with my spirit. That’s cool.

    JERKS!

  19. Seth Thomas Rasmussen 2004-11-24 #19

    Aw, “JERKS!” was supposed to be all small like so as to emphasize it’s jokeness. Meh...

  20. John Serris 2004-11-24 #20

    I still test all my sites in IE5 using that “multiple IEs” install that was going around a while ago. Actually I check in about 15 browsers to make sure everything is at least usable:

    • IE4,5,6 PC + IE5 OSX
    • Op5,6,7.2,7.5 PC
    • NS4.8,6.0,7.0 PC
    • Moz1.8 nighlies + FF1.0 PC
    • Safari1.2
    • lynx

    It can be tough sometimes, but it’s doable. A quick look at my stats makes you wonder why I bother though :P

    P.S. After I installed XP SP2, I cant get IE5.5 to work anymore... Anyone know whats up with that?

  21. Seth Thomas Rasmussen 2004-11-24 #21

    IE 5.5 works?

    rimshot

    Thank you. I’ll be here all week.

  22. Mathias Bynens 2004-11-24 #22

    Well, there is a lot that IE 5 doesn’t seem to render. You’d think IE 6 is better, and it is, but it’s still crap.

    Don’t get me started on IE 4 and less. I remember sitting next to my dad browsing disney.com on a Win 3.1 286 PC using IE erm... 2.1?

    P.S.: I just wanted to drop a note saying I love the Sinterklaas hat implementation :) Somehow you manage to fit all this extra stuff in your design very nicely.

  23. cHaRaJ 2004-11-25 #23

    Why don’t you just install Firefox on the school computer? I did it... Mathibus tried ... and it didn’t work on all of the computers, but on mine, it went well... so now I’m happy with my Firefox at school :)

  24. William Bowers 2004-11-25 #24

    IE makes me mad too. Life would be so much easier if all browsers would render pages the same. One can only dream...

  25. Mathias Bynens 2004-11-25 #25

    Yeah, I’m jealous at your school PC, Charaj.

    Rob, you didn’t take a screenshot or what?

  26. Rob 2004-11-25 #26

    The computers at school are scarily shut. First of all, WinU. Second of all, WinU. Not getting through that. One can’t even Ctrl-C, so let alone taking screenshots or even installing another browser. Depressing.

  27. Seth Thomas Rasmussen 2004-11-26 #27

    What the hell is WinU?

  28. Rob 2004-11-26 #28

    WinU is a full Windows user interface replacement with security access control, timeout, logging, web-browser monitoring, remote administration, and many flexible configuration options.

    WinU

    Ergo, it sucks.

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