You know what grinds my gears? This week browsers grind my gears. All of them.
I’m not just one of those regular IE haters. Neah, I hate them all. I hate the competition, the diversity, the… differences and useless enhancements but mostly I just hate them because of the sheer lack of respect to users.
I said users, not developers because we [developers] understand the differences, the quirks, the bugs and out of place behavior these pieces of cr.. software display everyday.
But users have no idea why Opera is showing scroll bars when neither one of the other browsers does. It’s a lack of respect to assume a certain type of behavior from your user. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not absurd. If browsers were clearly labeled as to what type of user they want to cater to then everything would be each. Like if, say, Firefox would have a subtitle in the lines of: “to be used with a lot of add-ons for developing websites” then this post would not exist. Anyway here’s a list of major browsers and what grinds my gears about them:
Internet Explorer
version: 6 – countless bugs and quirks, behavior that seems to come from an alternate Universe where LOLCats have taken over the world and browse the web standing up side down; as most of you, I have the least amount of respect for this browser and consider it to be nothing more than a relic that somehow made to a time when most developers are getting spiffy with such developments as CSS3.
version: 7 – this is by far the biggest screw-up in this family. It’s a futile try at making a standards compliant software than turned out like something from a Hitchcock movie. What’s even scarier is that most home users use it. Hopefully with the rise of Windows7, which should, rightfully so, be labeled as Microsoft biggest achievement, IE8 will be dragged into users’ lives thus leaving old 007 in the dust and burying IE666.
version: 8 – the browser wars, this childish, stupid, unreasonable fight has pushed Microsoft into releasing v.8 of their beloved browser ahead of time. This one is so bug-ridden right now that I am not even going to go there. I’ll just wait for 8.1 which is said to be something of a redeemer of the entire family. I doubt it but, hey, it really can’t be worse than it’s older siblings.
Firefox
version: 2 – We all trusted the old v.2 of that faithful Fox and while it wasn’t perfect, we all forgave its tiny imperfections when we saw a float:left, margin:left element wouldn’t fly out the window. And then
version: 3 – v.3 came and surprise surprise: same bugs, more system requirements, some computers seem to hang endlessly when you’re watching something on youtube, oh yeah, and we’ve got a shiny green Back button. Just what I needed.
version: 3.5 – Just like IE 8.1 this one is going for the title. Sure, 90 something percent coverage of CSS3 selectors, all of the pseudo-classes and whatnot is all great but I betcha they are still not going to solve the rendering issue for background-attachment on large scale images. I suppose the good folks of Mozilla are concerned with bandwidths, right?
Opera
version: <=9.6 – The speed on this thing is enough to drop any jaw, as well as the stability and resource management. But the lack of respect to the user boggles the friggin’ mind! And these guys think they’re doing it to show that they care about the user. I don’t want to see scrollbars on motherfriggin’ Lightboxes you idiot, nor do I think overflow-x or overflow-y are selectors that were put there for you to ignore! Oh, yeah, and this is the only other browser (that I know, so correct me if I’m wrong, please), other than IE 666 that ignores :hover on anything other than an <a>. Are you retarded? Have these guys ever heard of an <input type=”button”/>. Oh, of course, you probably expect developers and designers to leave them to their default states. And you know what grinds my gears even more? That this could have been my browser of choice, the one to back up in front of all the FF & Safari & Chrome lovers out there. It’s just a damn shame.
version: 10 – This version is in beta mode now so not much to say. The preliminary ACID 3 test has some huge results, so perhaps this will be the one browser to rule them all? I hope so.
Chrome
version: 1.0 bla bla – Another promising young lad came to the games not long ago, considering the other competitors’ longevity, but hey, this one was backed up by Big Daddy Google so you know there are perks in it. Anyway, disregarding the early issues, this one’s made for netbooks and fashion models checking their bank account or perverts in the park watching online porn while gazing at…you get the picture. It’s just not that awesome unless you’re into a stripped down, however fast, almost reliable (crashed on me a few times) page opener.
Safari
version: <=3 – What an awesomely trendy, cool, beautiful browser. Oh, and it opens up pages pretty fast. What? You’re already 3 levels down the website? I’m still loading the home page. Ok, I’ll just close it. Why is it taking so long to close?
version: 4 – NO, I don’t want to see my favorite websites in friggin’ 3D! Oh, great, now it’s slower than the older version. Great job guys!
Well folks, there you have it, that’s what grinded my gears this week. See you again next time when I dump my payload of anger on the ever unsuspecting interwebs.
And now from a simple user’s perspective.
IE:
v.6: people also used AOL, geocities and Ask Jeeves. People also stop using products when they’ve gone bad… just like milk. IE6 is just like milk: it’s good for a few days and afterwards you’re afraid to touch the box.
v.7: This is almost as “good” as Cuil is. Flashy, blue and it takes you half an hour to figure out what you should be doing. Also, like Cuil, it is as useful as a pair of badgers shoved down your pants.
v.8: I don’t need web-slices, the accelerators bug the living cr4p out of me, and the speed, oh the speed. Oh, wait, FFFFFUUUUUU…
Firefox:
v.2: ‘t was good, but alas, since FF out-of-the-box usability is almost nonexistent and most add-ons don’t work with v.2 anymore, I must wave goodbye to this old comrade.
v.3(.5): this is a browser with all sorts of STD’s: it has leakage, and I can only get it to work (as I want it to) if I stuff chock-full of 3rd party doohickies. Fourteen add-ons later, and 480Megs down the drain, I wonder: “was it worth it?”
Opera: It has it all. The awesome-bar, Speed dial, Mouse gestures, Voice commands, Ad-Blocker, Mail and RSS clients straight out-of-the-box. But don’t try to configure them all unless you have a full day ahead of you and know a bit about those pesky *.js files. Oh, and please render those swf’s and x-streams without locking my machine.
Safari: Tried it. Uninstalled it. It’s for Macs. It should remain there. Especially v.4: I want to see my tabs; I don’t need to have to squint to see what tabs I have open. And why in ‘s name does Apple hate favicons?
Chrome: horrible bookmark management. Almost no customizing/enhancing options. Looks like it came out of a Marvel comic. ’nuff said, down the drain it went.
Another kitty saved.
Bravo, kind sir, bravo!
I really hope there will be no IE9