When trying to fight against a bad browser, such as Internet Explorer, I find that I have 3 options.

1. Just keep debugging until my problems are fixed
2. Ignore Internet Explorer. Why should I bother developing for such a bad browser?
3. Discourage people from using it.

You could probably come up with a few more, like crashing Internet Explorer, but come on. That’s just mean, and definitely not too user-friendly.

Below is just a list a resources and methods for each of the three ways I use for Fighting Internet Explorer.

1. Debug

If I had to describe these three different ways I fight internet Explorer, I’d say that one was assertive, one was passive, and one was aggressive. This would probably be the assertive one. You aren’t just doing nothing about it. But you’re also not going out of your way to make the lives of IE users just as miserable as they’re making yours.

Of course there are several ways to debug in Internet Explorer, but I won’t just talk about IE specific methods, even it almost always Internet Explorer that is actually causing the bugs.

#1 — Xenocode Browser Sandbox

Xenocode Browser Sandbox

If you want to debug anything, this is definately you’re best bet. I’d rather not go downloading every single version of Internet Explorer just so I spend all day looking at how badly my sites function in it. Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t need to install anything? If all you had the do a pop open a single standalone program, and browse away. Well, Xenocode let’s you do just that using IE 6, IE7, IE8, FF2,FF3,Chrome, Safari3, and Opera 8. I use this almost religiously.

#2 — IETester

Debug in IE

This serves the same purpose as the browser sandbox. You can run any version of Internet Explorer from one window.  It’s was built specifically for debugging in Internet Explorer, meaning it’s probably the easiest to use. Unlike Xenocode, IETester is pretty well known, and probably not anything new to most of you.

But for those of you who haven’t heard of it, I highly recommend checking it out, it is really a great program.

#3 — Browsershots

Browsershots

Yes, I know this is pretty popular. Why is that? Because it allows you to see how your site looks with almost any browser, on almost any operating system. If you want to see how your site looks in Internet Explorer 5 running in Windows 2000, you’ve got it. The downside is, it’s just screenshots. It’s hard to really debug anything if all you can see is a screenshot. Personally I like to get right into the source code. But hey, it’s still worth using, just to make sure everything LOOKS ok in those oddball browser/OS combinations.

Well, that about wraps it up with debugging. Debugging something that doesn’t seem to follow by the rules is pretty difficult and frustrating, but since it’s the most user-friendly way to deal with Internet Explorer problems, and I suggest doing it. Even though I have to admit, I don’t debug lower versions of IE.

2. Ignore

This is by far the easiest, and probably most popular way of dealing with bad browsers like Internet Explorer. Just simply ignore them. Who cares if you site doesn’t work in Internet Explorer?  All those people using Internet Explorer don’t even deserve to have your site display correctly.  Of course there is a small side effect to ignoring IE.  Even though Internet Explorer is so bad, most people use it, and none of those people will visit your site if it doesn’t display correctly.  On the other hand, if they want to see the site display correctly badly enough, they might even upgrade to a better web browser. What does that mean? It means it’s a win for our side.

So yeah, there’s a lot of give and take, but if you just simply don’t want to do anything about Internet Explorer, this is probably the best way.

3. Discourage

All these people in the world are using Internet Explorer. Why is that? Well, it’s because it came preinstalled when they bought their computer, and is the easiest browser.  Most of these people don’t know about how Internet Explorer affects web designers lives. They just go through day to day life thinking they’re just innocently browsing the Internet. But of course they’re not ( you can tell I strongly dislike IE ).

The obvious way to stop this is to tell them “DON’T USE INTERNET EXPLORER!!!”. It’s that simple. Tell them about other browsers maybe.

I myself ALWAYS put an image of caution tape along the top of my website asking IE users to upgrade to Safari or Firefox. I put links to the download and everything. It’s actually extremely effective. People see the caution tape immediately, and they know caution tape = bad.  As always, when ever something bad happens, someone wants to fix it.  In many cases, the user will simply upgrade to a better browser, even if it’s just to get rid of the annoying caution tape. I would really appreciate if others would follow the example of putting this message on their websites, the code is even available for download at the freebies page.

Warning Message in Internet Explorer 7

If you’re a bit…meaner, then you can choose to just crash Internet Explorer. There are scripts that you can put on your website that will crash Internet Explorer the moment it lands on the page. It may seem a bit harsh, but it gets the job done. Here’s the code, just put it in the head of your webpage -

<script type="text/javascript"><!--mce:0--></script>

Thanks to Crash IE for the code.

Crash Internet Explorer

Wrapup

Well, there you have it. Hopefully next time you’re building a website, you’ll find some of these tips pretty useful. I know from experience that when something doesn’t work the way it should, it can be incredibly frustrating. Just stick to it, and it’ll all work out.

Jesus, I sound like a fortune cookie all of a sudden. Anyway, enjoy kicking Internet Explorer’s ****.