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Kernel Sanders
December 21st, 2008, 01:21 PM
So i've decided to block IE. The reason being that my website/blog looks borked in IE (even the latest "standards complient" IE8 ), with random centering of text and massive gaps all over the place. In stark contrast, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Konqueror el al renders my website/blog PERFECTLY.

So i've had enough. I really don't see why I should even try and support a browser that is broken by design just because a large number of people use it. If every single other browser can render my website/blog properly, then why can't IE? So from now on anyone trying to view my website/blog in IE gets instantly redirected to www.mozilla.com/firefox

Am I evil? Is what i'm doing "wrong"?

Eisenwinter
December 21st, 2008, 01:25 PM
no, you're not evil, and what you're doing isn't wrong.

your website, your choice, just like I heard about MS blocking non-IE users from viewing some parts of their website (or something like that).

Giant Speck
December 21st, 2008, 01:34 PM
It's not evil, but why not allow IE users and just give them a warning that your blog is best used by an alternate browser? If they don't want to take your suggestion into consideration, they can suffer with a crappy looking website, or leave. By giving them a suggestion, you don't alienate the IE user, and you could even get them to switch browsers. :)

Kernel Sanders
December 21st, 2008, 01:42 PM
My only problem with that is, if an IE user comes to my website/blog and sees a broken website, in their mind this is MY FAULT, and they will think negatively of both me and my site because of it. After all, many other sites have IE specific code and work fine in IE, so why am I so lazy/stupid as to not support the most used browser in the world? Obviously i'm a moron and therefore my website is a waste of time anyway. Then the user leaves never to return and thinks badly of me and my site.

You see where i'm going with this? So i've decided to avoid the headache totally. If you want to view my site, then use anything other than IE and it will render perfectly. Use IE and you are about to be confronted with the virtues of Firefox! :P

Giant Speck
December 21st, 2008, 01:53 PM
Eh, if they want to see your website that badly, they'll just have to edit the user-agent.... wait... no... :p

earthpigg
December 21st, 2008, 01:56 PM
sounds reasonable to me, sanders.

especially since the firefox page renders perfectly on IE 6, hehe.

wanna see some total bs (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956197)?


Some Web sites are designed for older browsers. You may experience compatibility issues on these sites until they are updated for Internet Explorer 8.

i wonder what the official guidance is from microsoft to webmasters to 'update' their site for IE 8.

edit: nevermind, i really dont care what they have to say. the standards exist, it is MS's responsibility to comply or GTFO the web browser game.

mr.propre
December 21st, 2008, 01:56 PM
You shouldn't do that even when it is your own website. People who use Ie have the same right on information as other people. If you see it from an ethical point of view, you are discriminating people and that goes against the human rights.

People don't always have the knowledge or the option using a good browser like firefox or opera. Think about company PC's , internet cafés or libraries. Another example, my father in law, 50 years old, just started to learn working on a PC. He uses IE because they are using that in school. He is using IE 6 because on Windows 2000, that is the last version. Can you blame him or other people and should you exclude them from information, in my opinion: NO

I you are lazy you can always make a design optimised for text browsers (and blind people) and use that for IE.

joshdudeha
December 21st, 2008, 01:56 PM
The only problem with you blocking IE users, is that you're potentially losing a lot of hits?

Ng Oon-Ee
December 21st, 2008, 01:59 PM
I'm not exactly sure this qualifies as discrimination, as he redirects them to the Firefox website (therefore ensuring that they now have the information required to choose a browser his site supports).

And I doubt human rights extend to 'right to view any web-site I choose regardless of the writer/author's time limitations and personal preference'.

earthpigg
December 21st, 2008, 02:03 PM
also, Kernel Sanders... what is your blog's url? i use ie6 at work, i am mildly curious what it looks like (if it isn't set to redirect yet :) )

lukjad
December 21st, 2008, 02:08 PM
I would not block any browser from my website. What I would do, however, is put a nag screen saying something like "You are using a browser that is not standards compliant. It is recommended that for optimal viewing you use alternate browsers." and then add a few links. Opera, Firefox, etc. I'll tell you something. When I get a site that tells me I HAVE to use IE on it and refuses to use anything else, I scream bloody murder. I really lay it in on that site. And I can tell you that there are more angry and touchy IE users out there than Firefox users. Even if they don't care about your site, the very fact that you denied them access is what will set them off.

earthpigg
December 21st, 2008, 02:13 PM
When I get a site that tells me I HAVE to use IE on it and refuses to use anything else, I scream bloody murder.

you know there's a firefox addon for that, right? ;)

its called "user agent switcher"

http://chrispederick.com/work/user-agent-switcher/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59

super breadfish
December 21st, 2008, 02:22 PM
Am I evil? Is what i'm doing "wrong"?

Well providing you never post here moaning about how site XYZ blocks Linux/Firefox/etc....

billgoldberg
December 21st, 2008, 02:25 PM
I would redirect them to a special page.

There you could give them the option to see the site using IE but that it will be badly rendered by that browser.

Or give them the option to go the firefox site and download the newest ff browser.

Kvark
December 21st, 2008, 02:28 PM
My only problem with that is, if an IE user comes to my website/blog and sees a broken website, in their mind this is MY FAULT, and they will think negatively of both me and my site because of it. After all, many other sites have IE specific code and work fine in IE, so why am I so lazy/stupid as to not support the most used browser in the world? Obviously i'm a moron and therefore my website is a waste of time anyway. Then the user leaves never to return and thinks badly of me and my site.

You see where i'm going with this? So i've decided to avoid the headache totally. If you want to view my site, then use anything other than IE and it will render perfectly. Use IE and you are about to be confronted with the virtues of Firefox! :P
It is still your fault regardless of if you let them see a broken site or if you block them from seeing the site at all. Being blocked entirely doesn't make me any more eager to visit some half-assed site that doesn't even work properly.

But if you don't support all browsers then the least bad solution is to redirect to a page that explains the situation, recommends a supported browser and most importantly lets me try to visit the site anyway with my unsupported browser without having to change user agent.

Mazza558
December 21st, 2008, 02:32 PM
How about redirecting IE users to a special page which works with IE - explaining that their browser is not standards compliant? That way, they can't blame you if they ignore this message and contine on to your site.

Delever
December 21st, 2008, 02:39 PM
Redirect to IE-compatible page, and blame yourself sarcastically.

"Author of this page is very lazy so he designed his page only once. Sadly, IE would require to design it twice, therefore IE version is not available."

handy
December 21st, 2008, 02:54 PM
My only problem with that is, if an IE user comes to my website/blog and sees a broken website, in their mind this is MY FAULT, and they will think negatively of both me and my site because of it. After all, many other sites have IE specific code and work fine in IE, so why am I so lazy/stupid as to not support the most used browser in the world? Obviously i'm a moron and therefore my website is a waste of time anyway. Then the user leaves never to return and thinks badly of me and my site.

I haven't read much of the thread, so the following has probably already been stated:

Instead of sending them to Mozilla.org you could send them to a page that you made especially for them which explains why they can not view your website, also explaining what they have to do (with a link) to be able to see your website, you could explain some of the many benefits they will gain by using Firefox & you could also point them to the add-on page.

koenn
December 21st, 2008, 02:55 PM
So from now on anyone trying to view my website/blog in IE gets instantly redirected to www.mozilla.com/firefox

Am I evil? Is what i'm doing "wrong"?

Since you're already redirecting, I'd suggest redirecting to a page with a short explanation why you're redirecting them, and offering links to ff, opera, ... there.

Simply dropping them on the firefox home page will just leave them wondering what the hell happened, or will give the impression your site is only there to redirect users to mozilla.org (they don't know only IE users get this treatment).
I doubt that will encourage them to install a standard-compliant browser.

ajcham
December 21st, 2008, 03:07 PM
My only problem with that is, if an IE user comes to my website/blog and sees a broken website, in their mind this is MY FAULT, and they will think negatively of both me and my site because of it. After all, many other sites have IE specific code and work fine in IE, so why am I so lazy/stupid as to not support the most used browser in the world? Obviously i'm a moron and therefore my website is a waste of time anyway. Then the user leaves never to return and thinks badly of me and my site.

You see where i'm going with this? So i've decided to avoid the headache totally. If you want to view my site, then use anything other than IE and it will render perfectly. Use IE and you are about to be confronted with the virtues of Firefox!

Personally, I feel that being redirected to a page other than the one requested would be far more damaging to people's opinion of you and your blog than seeing the page they wanted, albeit rendered poorly. No matter how useful the page you redirect to may be, if it's not the one the user was expecting to see, you may as well have Rickrolled them.

A small message at the top of the page explaining why the site may look odd to IE users is sufficient to explain your position and, if your blog is truly worth reading, will likely convince more people to switch than having it foisted on them.

Kernel Sanders
December 21st, 2008, 03:12 PM
you may as well have Rickrolled them.

Now there's an idea! That would be awesome! :P

My blog - where IE users get Rickrolled 8) :P

ajcham
December 21st, 2008, 03:14 PM
Now there's an idea! That would be awesome!

My blog - where IE users get Rickrolled

If you do that, don't even think about attributing the idea to me! :)

Polygon
December 21st, 2008, 04:10 PM
there was a website that had what you were looking for, and it even had certain levels, like one was just a banner on top of the page, another was a page telling about why IE sucks and you had to click a button to continue to the site, and the last was it would not let you into the site unless you are using firefox.

i cant find it tho =/

ill keep looking

lukjad
December 21st, 2008, 04:15 PM
you know there's a firefox addon for that, right? ;)

its called "user agent switcher"

http://chrispederick.com/work/user-agent-switcher/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59
Yes, but that's not the point. I don't have in installed because I didn't get around to it. And I don't want to have to now. It's just the principle. I don't like people telling me how to browse the 'net. It's my box, and it's a website. A suggestion is fine, but it can only be a suggestion. It's not up to me to reverse engineer every site I go to. If I'm on a friends PC, they won't like me installing programs just to show them a blog/site.

speedwell68
December 21st, 2008, 04:23 PM
My personal opinion is this. Why not get your site to work in IE. If you are trying to get your message across, excluding the majority of the planets Internet users isn't the way to go about it. If you are going to develop a website then unfortunately you have to cater for all comers, that is a fact of life. I manage a couple of small sites, simple club sites. In the beginning I had a right ballache getting it to work in all browsers, but over time I began to learn what worked and what didn't. Now I have a site that works satisfactorily in all browsers.

blueturtl
December 21st, 2008, 05:16 PM
So i've decided to block IE. The reason being that my website/blog looks borked in IE (even the latest "standards complient" IE8 ), with random centering of text and massive gaps all over the place. In stark contrast, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Konqueror el al renders my website/blog PERFECTLY.

So i've had enough. I really don't see why I should even try and support a browser that is broken by design just because a large number of people use it. If every single other browser can render my website/blog properly, then why can't IE? So from now on anyone trying to view my website/blog in IE gets instantly redirected to www.mozilla.com/firefox

Am I evil? Is what i'm doing "wrong"?

The whole point of world wide web is to allow information to be shared. What makes the web wonderful and different from traditional solutions is the fact that because it is open, it does not matter which client the user chooses. The worst thing that can happen, is that the formatting is slightly different than what the author intended. Formatting is not important though, the information is.

If you design the site to be viewable to a standard, you can rest assured people can access what you've created. It's up to Microsoft devs to fix IE, but to deny all access to users of IE based on issues of formatting is to undermine what the Web is. You might just as well post a Word document online.

Sealbhach
December 21st, 2008, 05:23 PM
If you design the site to be viewable to a standard, you can rest assured people can access what you've created. It's up to Microsoft devs to fix IE, but to deny all access to users of IE based on issues of formatting is to undermine what the Web is.

They have the option to view the site in Firefox.


.

MikeTheC
December 21st, 2008, 05:28 PM
But... why stop at redirecting them to Firefox? Why not have it wipe their computer and install Ubuntu? That way, they can have a standards-compliant browser running on a standards-compliant OS.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha...


</sarcasm>

init1
December 21st, 2008, 05:29 PM
So i've decided to block IE. The reason being that my website/blog looks borked in IE (even the latest "standards complient" IE8 ), with random centering of text and massive gaps all over the place. In stark contrast, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Konqueror el al renders my website/blog PERFECTLY.

So i've had enough. I really don't see why I should even try and support a browser that is broken by design just because a large number of people use it. If every single other browser can render my website/blog properly, then why can't IE? So from now on anyone trying to view my website/blog in IE gets instantly redirected to www.mozilla.com/firefox

Am I evil? Is what i'm doing "wrong"?
By redirecting to the Firefox download site, you're assuming that IE users can simply change to Firefox. As much as I dislike IE, I'm forced to use it at school, so that's not always an option for me.
If I access a site with IE and it looks weird, I'll think "IE is messing up the layout of the site". If I access a site with IE and get a redirect for another browser, I'll think "Wow, the creator of this site is an elitist *****"

ajcham
December 21st, 2008, 05:33 PM
if i access a site with ie and it looks weird, i'll think "ie is messing up the layout of the site". If i access a site with ie and get a redirect for another browser, i'll think "wow, the creator of this site is an elitist *****"

+1

Sealbhach
December 21st, 2008, 05:37 PM
If I access a site with IE and get a redirect for another browser, I'll think "Wow, the creator of this site is an elitist *****"

You'd be amazed how many peeps think there's only IE. They think IE is the internet.


.

zmjjmz
December 21st, 2008, 05:42 PM
By redirecting to the Firefox download site, you're assuming that IE users can simply change to Firefox. As much as I dislike IE, I'm forced to use it at school, so that's not always an option for me.
If I access a site with IE and it looks weird, I'll think "IE is messing up the layout of the site". If I access a site with IE and get a redirect for another browser, I'll think "Wow, the creator of this site is an elitist *****"

Firefox Portable.
Chrome Portable.
Opera Portable.

There's no reason that anyone should be forced into using IE.

Giant Speck
December 21st, 2008, 05:57 PM
Firefox Portable.
Chrome Portable.
Opera Portable.

There's no reason that anyone should be forced into using IE.

There's also no reason that anyone should be forced into using another browser to view a website in the way the author of the webpage intended.

An Internet Explorer user shouldn't have to switch to Firefox to view a particular page, and a Firefox user shouldn't have to switch to Internet Explorer to view a particular page.

hrod beraht
December 21st, 2008, 05:59 PM
...my website/blog looks borked in IE...

I'm curious...how are you creating your blog? Are you using some standard blog software such as Wordpress? If Wordpress looks borked in IE, there are bigger problems here than just your site.

Bob

-grubby
December 21st, 2008, 06:07 PM
If there's anything I hate it's websites that block browsers. Please don't do that.

Add this instead :



<!--[if IE]>
<p>This website is better viewed in an alternative browser, such as <a href="http://firefox.com">Firefox</a> or <a href="http://opera.com">Opera</a>.</p>
<![endif]-->

Kernel Sanders
December 21st, 2008, 06:23 PM
Does this really seem that elitist? :(

Tbh, I think of it like this:

My blog is a small yet tastefully decorated hut in the desert. IE users are traveling to it on a broken bicycle, while Firefox/Chrome/Safari/Konqueror/Opera users travel to it in their free air conditioned Ferrari's. So what i'm doing is stopping the people on broken bicycles and telling them that they can't come to my hut unless they too arrive in free air conditioned Ferrari's, which they can pick up right away from 6 feet ahead of them. So no more pedaling necessary, and the free air conditioned Ferrari can be used to drive to other huts too! Not just mine!

I would like to think that those who aren't in to self torture would thank me for pointing them in the direction of their free air conditioned Ferrari ;)

doorknob60
December 21st, 2008, 06:25 PM
http://www.crashie.com/

There you go, one line of code will crash most IE users :-D

v8YKxgHe
December 21st, 2008, 06:28 PM
removed

dannytatom
December 21st, 2008, 06:33 PM
AlexC said everything I was gonna say. ;(

Using separate stylesheets for IE: http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2004/02/css-ie-only

koenn
December 21st, 2008, 06:34 PM
There's also no reason that anyone should be forced into using another browser to view a website in the way the author of the webpage intended.
you got this part right. That's why there's standard html, css, etc : to allow for platform-independent, browser-independent access to web content



An Internet Explorer user shouldn't have to switch to Firefox to view a particular page, and a Firefox user shouldn't have to switch to Internet Explorer to view a particular page.
hm, no.
IE is broken (by design or or by incompetence, who knows ?) so that standard-compliant web sites are not rendered correctly (or at least that's the op's claim)
A web author should not be forced to produce bad html/css just because there exist broken browsers that can't handle standard html correctly.
Or : if a program is broken to the extent that it can't do what it's supposed to do, it needs to be fixed, or replaced by an alternative.

koenn
December 21st, 2008, 06:44 PM
Hum, Website A doesn't support those on a Linux based operating system - all hell breaks loose, people go insane. Yet you (the OP) think it is fine to block MSIE users? See the irony in that?
Well, there's a subtle difference between creating IE-only websites and thus supporting microsoft's embrace/extend/extinguish strategy of standard protocols and thereby pushing standard-compliant software out of the market, including operating systems where IE won't run on,
and
telling people that they might better use a standard compliant web browser that happens to be readily available, costs nothing, and also runs on the operating system they happen to be using.

dannytatom
December 21st, 2008, 06:52 PM
telling people that they might better use a standard compliant web browser that happens to be readily available, costs nothing, and also runs on the operating system they happen to be using.

He's not putting a "GetFirefox" ad on his site, he's redirecting anyone who uses IE to firefox (without them seeing his content). So I'd say it's pretty similar.

v8YKxgHe
December 21st, 2008, 06:53 PM
removed

koenn
December 21st, 2008, 06:59 PM
He's not putting a "GetFirefox" ad on his site, he's redirecting anyone who uses IE to firefox (without them seeing his content). So I'd say it's pretty similar.
You'll notice that the OP asked for feedback on her intention to do so,
and some people, inclusing me, have suggested to provide some sort of explanation in stead of a straight redirect.

And no, it's not pretty similar. It just looks similar to those unaware of platform-independent design.

dannytatom
December 21st, 2008, 07:02 PM
You'll notice that the OP asked for feedback on her intention to do so,
and some people, inclusing me, have suggested to provide some sort of explanation in stead of a straight redirect.

And no, it's not pretty similar. It just looks similar to those unaware of platform-independent design.

When I said she was, was hypothetical, I was assuming that's what she'd end up doing. Sorry I didn't make it clear.

& for those of us that are unaware of platform-independent design, please do explain. I think you're confused on what it means. ;)

Wouldn't it be platform-independent to include a seperate stylesheet for IE so that her blog works in all OSs and browsers? What you're saying is the exact opposite of platform-independent design as far as I know.

koenn
December 21st, 2008, 07:06 PM
There is no difference. The moment you start forcing a user to do something, is the moment you fail.

Personally, I feel a straight redirect without some explanation would be a bit rude. I've also always been of the 'viewable with any browser' persuasion.

On the other hand, why should a web page solve the problems apparent in the program used to view it ? Why not just fix the program or replace it with one that works ?

Given that a web page is data being processed, and standards exist about the format of the data to allow processing by any program that implements those standards, why would you have to mangle your data or maintain multiple sets of the same data, just because someone failed to implement the standards correctly in his program ?

v8YKxgHe
December 21st, 2008, 07:13 PM
removed

koenn
December 21st, 2008, 07:22 PM
& for those of us that are unaware of platform-independent design, please do explain. I think you're confused on what it means. ;)

Wouldn't it be platform-independent to include a seperate stylesheet for IE so that her blog works in all OSs and browsers? What you're saying is the exact opposite of platform-independent design as far as I know.

That's one way of looking at it, or one way to achieve it. Problem there is it doesn't scale. Hypothetically, if all browsers deviated from standards the way IE does, but all in a slightly different way, you end up with conditionals and seperate styles for each and every browser (in all versions) in existence. And then, as soon as a new version of an existing browser, or a new browser all together pops up, and it has yet another way of interpreting your site's code, you can add new conditions and styles for that one to. And so on, ad infinitum.

So, obviously, that's not the way to go about it. It's a heap of workarounds rather than design, really.

As it happens, there's standard html (or a couple of standards, and standard ways of telling the browser what standard you adhere to), standard css, and so on, so if both web pages and web browsers adhere to those standards, independent of what web server is serving them, what browser is rendering them, or the operating system the web server or the web browser are running on, then you have a truly platform independent system : your website will work with any current or future browser that (correctly) implements the agreed standards,

dannytatom
December 21st, 2008, 07:34 PM
if both web pages and web browsers adhere to those standards, independent of what web server is serving them, what browser is rendering them, or the operating system the web server or the web browser are running on, then you have a truly platform independent system : your website will work with any current or future browser that (correctly) implements the agreed standards,

Well yeah, and that'd be great, but it's not the case. And this is why we need workarounds. Plus, a seperate stylesheet isn't hours of work. You don't have to rewrite a whole stylesheet, just the parts that are messing up, and place the link to it under the link to the regular style.

This way it takes everything from the first stylesheet, then looks at the second (the ie one) and replaces the things that overlap. I'm horrible at explaining things, so example:

a.css


body {
background: #fff;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}

p {
font-family: tahoma;
color: #efefef;
}


ieonly.css


p {
font-family: arial;
}


Now, in IE, paragraph will use arial as it's font. So yeah, it's not a lot of work, you only have to rewrite what's messing up.

koenn
December 21st, 2008, 07:42 PM
You need to understand more of how browsers work, really. All your arguments are pointing towards this 'standard compliant' browsers, and that a website (which compiles to W3C standards) will look perfectly the same in all of these 'standard compliant' browsers. I'm sorry, but you're highly mistaken.

I never said a website which compiles to W3C standards will look perfectly the same in all of these 'standard compliant' browsers.
I know they won't. But they'll at least render in an acceptable form. Whether you choose to deal with the differences in browsers by conditional statement or by reducing to a subset that renders acceptable in all known browsers is a design decision, and as I explained, scalability may be an issue to consider.


This is still, imo, very different from deliberately breaking standards because of incompetence or for strategical reasons, or whatever



Yes, MSIE *can* be a pain at times, get over it.
or replace it.

koenn
December 21st, 2008, 08:03 PM
a seperate stylesheet isn't hours of work. You don't have to rewrite a whole stylesheet, just the parts that are messing up, and place the link to it under the link to the regular style.

This way it takes everything from the first stylesheet, then looks at the second (the ie one) and replaces the things that overlap. I'm horrible at explaining things, so example:


I'm aware that the first c in css stands for cascading, and what it means.
You'd still need to track all the issues, and come op with a way to work around it, and maintain multiple versions of your stylesheet (or stylesheets, if you already use the cascading mechanism to apply style modifications to different parts of the same site)

Also, changing font-family or colors is trivial. THe real pain is when you want to do positioning and things like that. Not only you'd have to watch out for what it will look like on a bunch of different resolutions and screen aspects, or for users that change your font sizes because their eye sight isn't what it used to be, but once you've gotten it right you'll have to redo it all because of quirks in IE.

And you'll never know whether it'll still work after the next IE update ...

No thanks.
Maybe I'd feel different if I were doing web design for a living - I understand that you can't tell your customer or your employer that his website will look like sh+t in 70% of his prospective customer's browser, but other than that ... no.

dannytatom
December 21st, 2008, 08:15 PM
I only used font-family as an example, as I'm too lazy to write a bunch. Finding a work around is easy, and it doesn't require much thinking. If she doesn't want 70% (or so) of the internet seeing her website, it's all good. I'm just saying it's not worth losing the audience because you're too lazy/proud/whatever to spend a hour fixing it.

Half the job of a web designer is making the site look good in all browsers at all resolutions. It's been that way for a long, long time, and I doubt it'll change soon. Everyone knows this, and most people choose to adapt to it. Wether she wants to is up to her, but if she wants people reading her blog, I'd advise not going the route she brought up.



Maybe I'd feel different if I were doing web design for a living - I understand that you can't tell your customer or your employer that his website will look like sh+t in 70% of his prospective customer's browser, but other than that ... no.


And I guess this is why we have two different opinions. ;)

Barrucadu
December 21st, 2008, 08:18 PM
It's not really that difficult to make a design work in both IE and other browsers; half of the time just using correct XHTML and CSS will give you a mostly working design.

koenn
December 21st, 2008, 08:53 PM
It's not really that difficult to make a design work in both IE and other browsers; half of the time just using correct XHTML and CSS will give you a mostly working design.
it's the other half of the time that is actually the problem :)

linuxguymarshall
December 21st, 2008, 09:36 PM
What is your site's URL?

And if you want to block them then go ahead. One more kick in the *** to M$

lukjad
December 21st, 2008, 10:39 PM
You don't win debates by refusing to show the arguments to those that are not in agreement with you. If you refuse to let people see your site, you are only going to be hurting yourself and the images of Forefox and Firefox users, not winning people over. I think I've made my point of view clear enough, but in case anyone missed it, here is is in a nutshell:

Don't block or force a browser on someone, simply suggest another browser for optimal viewing. (Check out the wesnoth.org site for a good example.)

Cope57
December 21st, 2008, 11:06 PM
I try to make my websites compliant with W3C, and have found if you use a mulitple of font choices, for example "font-family:verdana, arial, times, georgia, sans-serif;" You will have a better chance to have a web browser be able to render your site correctly.

Then you also have to consider what is the resolution that visitor uses with their monitor. That is why I have my site to have a variable width instead of a fixed width.

You might be thinking that variable width site is not worth it, but did you forget that this day and age, many cellphones are also accessing your website? How does it look through that iPhone, Blackberry, and so on?

Now, what browsers do those phones use, it does not matter does it?
If your site is to target cellphone users, you will make your site available for them.

Make it compliant, and inform your visitors that using a non-compliant web browser will render the site incorrectly, and they should switch to a web compliant browser.


Maybe post a image something like this on your site.

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/3886/msfreekw1.png

handy
December 22nd, 2008, 01:03 AM
Redirect them to the start of this thread. :lolflag:

Kernel Sanders
December 22nd, 2008, 01:08 PM
That's actually not a bad idea! :lolflag:

-grubby
December 22nd, 2008, 09:28 PM
IE is broken (by design or or by incompetence, who knows ?) so that standard-compliant web sites are not rendered correctly


It depends on the page. All display engines have bugs, some worse than others. Likewise, my page is valid XHTML 1.1 and displays fine in >= IE 6 (Haven't tested the others) with the exception of one non-critical bug. I haven't added any Internet Explorer specific code.



One more kick in the *** to M$


Did you mean: Microsoft Windows

gjoellee
December 22nd, 2008, 09:35 PM
I did that before using this script:

<script>

var browser_type=navigator.appName
var browser_version=parseInt(navigator.appVersion)

//if IE 4+
else if (browser_type=="Microsoft Internet Explorer"&&browser_version>=4)
window.location.replace("http://firefox.com/")
</script>however when I saw that as many as 70% of the computer users use IE, I was about to puke.... There are really so many people who don't know what they are doing?! Millions of websites have viruses and most of them work with IE only!

However I decided to make a little notice instead, as done on www.crystalxp.net (http://www.crystalxp.net) where there comes a messege when people are using IE about how bad the browser is. This messege wont be even shown in other web browsers. You can Google tat script... (i think it is PHP, smart to avoid JS)

-grubby
December 22nd, 2008, 09:43 PM
I did that before using this script:

<script>

var browser_type=navigator.appName
var browser_version=parseInt(navigator.appVersion)

//if IE 4+
else if (browser_type=="Microsoft Internet Explorer"&&browser_version>=4)
window.location.replace("http://firefox.com/")
</script>however when I saw that as many as 70% of the computer users use IE, I was about to puke.... There are really so many people who don't know what they are doing?! Millions of websites have viruses and most of them work with IE only!

However I decided to make a little notice instead, as done on www.crystalxp.net (http://www.crystalxp.net) where there comes a messege when people are using IE about how bad the browser is. This messege wont be even shown in other web browsers. You can Google tat script... (i think it is PHP, smart to avoid JS)

You can just use IE's comment clause



<!--[if IE]>
whatever here
<![endif]-->

MikeTheC
December 22nd, 2008, 09:45 PM
There are really so many people who don't know what they are doing?!
Yup. Got it in one.

Scary, isn't it?

jpmelos
December 22nd, 2008, 10:23 PM
Anyways, that's not just as important as that for some sites. For example, for a technology site, we can assume most visitors are intelligent (technologically speaking) enoug to use something better than MSIE.

But if your site is to sell cookie recipes for grandmas, it's absolutely dumb to block MSIE and, as a consequence of your field, you must struggle to make your site IE-compliant.

If you really want a standards-compliant site that won't kick away your MSIE visitors is to set a page, before they can reach yours, explaining why they should replace their browser, and suggesting a browser of your choice. DON'T give them loads of links. If they use MSIE, they clearly are not smart enough to decide what browser is the best by themselves. You'll just confuse them. And give them the option to access your site with MSIE anyways, but let them know what they will see is their fault.

A tip: I convinced my father to use Firefox by telling him that using MSIE he could get his bank accounts hacked easier because MSIE has a weaker security. Explain to your users why they should change and use some arguments like that.