As a web designer I blamed some months ago about Internet Explorer, the worst browser ever. Version 6 is plenty of defects: very bad CSS interpretation, lack of coherence with web standards, no support for PNG complex transparency, etc…
Internet Explorer 7 seems to have solved some of these issues, but the previous version is still the most wide spread release: this is probably due also to genuine windows copies control the new release performed before installing.
Now Internet Explorer 7 is available as a free update also for irregular windows users, and doesn’t perform WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) controls any more.
If you really want to use this browser, please, at least upgrade to the latest version! (it is also supposed to be more secure…).

P.S. In case you need a more flexible, easy-to-use, secure, fast, reliable, free browser, I suggest you to try Mozilla Firefox.

Here is a useful tip for web designers and developers who want to test their website with different versions of Internet Explorer.

As a web designer you’ll have to test your website with multiple browsers in order to check the correct behavior of your pages on different platforms.
Whether you like Internet Explorer or not, you’ll have to carefully test your new pages with this browser, which sucks doesn’t respect many international web standards, but unfortunately is still the most popular among internet surfers.

If you update your copy of Windows XP, IE 6 will be replaced with the new version 7. Anyway you may need also the previous version (which is currently the most wide spread) to test your web pages.

Now there is a simple way to install standalone copies of Internet Explorer!

Just download the multiple IE installer at this page: http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

You’ll be able to easily install old Internet Explorer versions (3, 4.01, 5.01, 5.5 and 6) and run them side by side with IE 7.

The installer currently supports only Win XP and doesn’t work under Vista.

I haven’t been using Microsoft Windows since 2003; I’m a happy Linux and Mac user.

Why should I talk about Internet Explorer then?

Internet Explorer is the most popular browser among internet surfers; do you have a website? Just check your stats and you’ll find that the average of visitors adopting this browser is around 70-80%.

Visitors don’t use IE because it is a good piece of software; I prefer to think that the majority of non-expert users don’t choose it, they just find the icon on their Windows desktops (I also believe they don’t even choose Windows, as they simply find this OS already installed on their computer… but that’s another story…).

IE users probably won’t experience very serious problems while surfing the net. However, from a web designer perspective, Internet Explorer is a real nightmare: you design and validate your web pages following carefully w3c recommendations in order to have a clean and accessible code… You separate the structure from the graphics using CSS… Then you test your work with different browsers and… boom! You find out that something in IE doesn’t display correctly because it doesn’t support important web standards and CSS specifications.

That’s the paradox: the most wide spread browser in the world doesn’t follow international web standards defined by the World Wide Web Consortium!

Let’s consider two examples with IE version 6 (or lower):

1. A CSS2 declaration called max-width allows to apply a value to the maximum width of a container (e.g. <DIV>) in order to create a fluid layout which resizes and fits lowest monitor resolutions (800×600 is still common, especially in old computers), but don’t exceed in width with higher resolutions. This is an elegant solution to design a dynamic layout, but unfortunately IE 6 doesn’t support it, it just ignores this declaration. These specifications have been written in 1998 by w3c (please check yourself the date at the top of the page), this means that for almost 8 years “developers” at Microsoft simply IGNORED these standards…

2. Have you ever heard about PNG image format? It’s really cool as it supports alpha channel transparency, you can obtain very nice effects on your webpages using this format. Internet Explorer doesn’t support it! In the example picture posted here you can see the same web page (containing a simple PNG with alpha channels I created) displayed in IE and in Mozilla Firefox: the first one just shows the PNG image creating a white background, while in Firefox (and other browsers) this PNG blends perfectly with the blue background. Here’s the potential of transparency! It would be great to use PNG on websites to create alpha channel shadows or web elements… But we just can’t… because of Internet Explorer.
(Web designers can adopt GIF format as a kind of replacement for PNG, but that’s not the same. GIF has many limitations as it supports just 1 color transparency and you can’t create antialiased web elements which are independent from background).

Internet Explorer 7 seems to have solved some of these CSS and graphic issues (at least the two ones I mentioned here), clap clap clap So why I am complaining about it?

Internet Explorer 6 is still the most wide spread browser in the world and version number 7 performs an authenticity control and can be installed just on genuine copies of Microsoft Windows.
We all know there are millions of users out there with a non genuine copy of Windows, aren’t there? (no, I’m not among them, I have a genuine copy: I HAD to buy it because it was included with my laptop…). Although on the net can be easily found procedures which explain how to avoid this control (and install IE7 on a non-genuine copy of windows), I suppose that many users won’t be able to upgrade their software: and that’s the point! (I’m not arguing about the importance of buying original software).

As Internet Explorer plays such an important role on the practical application of web standards, it is Microsoft’s duty to correct these errors and promote the switch to the new version of their browser. If they offer IE 7 as a limited upgrade, I expect many internet surfers will go on using version 6 for some years… [Update 5-10-2007: since october 2007 Internet Explorer 7 is available as a free update also for irregular windows users.]

Alas, what can we do?
It’s simple: do not use Internet Explorer!!!
Unfortunately I’m blowing in the wind: if you are a newbie user or an “average passive windows user” you won’t read this post or similar articles, and even if you came here accidentally, you would get tired and wouldn’t read till here

As a matter of fact I see you are not reading this page with Internet Explorer and don’t need to be “converted” Well, spread the word…