The Scribo Ergo Sum team are a dedicated bunch, committed to delivering the very best a blog can offer.  Well, perhaps not, but we are keen to maintain standards.  We try to keep the website updated with quality content, and attempt to display it in appealing ways.  Our tabbed “essential reading” box, for example, allows us to shove content we like to the top of the homepage.  Exciting, eh?  There is something to be said for bloggers taking a keen interest in web design: the layout and aesthetics of a website are very important to the feel of it, and impact upon the reader’s experience.  So, please allow a temporary diversion from politics and meta-blogging as I attempt to weigh up the two mighty web browsers once and for all.

IE8 (beta)
I recently downloaded Internet Explorer 8.  It is still in beta version, but I like to consider myself one of the “web developers and designers” it suggests the release is suitable for.  Internet Explorer knows its audience: IE has something of a reputation within the “web developers and designers” community for being a bit rubbish.  Releasing a beta version for developers is their way of testing just how good the browser is - can it function according to web standards?

Web standards have been a big headache for Internet Explorer.  I am currently working on a design for a fairly complex site and have been attempting to introduce a lovely hovering menu for the navigation (made entirely using CSS, if you are interested).  Internet Explorer tries its hardest, then wheezes a little, and gives up with only a portion of it functioning properly.  Despite various get-arounds to deal with IE faults, new ones always emerge.  Every other browser can manage without trouble, but IE is incapable.  The sad truth is that the vast majority of web users rely upon Internet Explorer and the “web developers and designers” are forced to go out of their way to deal with the faults thrown up just because most people use a poor browser.  To be fair, IE8 displays my navigation menu perfectly.  The fact remains, however, that if each browser were judged on merit, IE would have ceased to be several years ago.

Internet Explorer 8 is meant to be a massive improvement on its predecessor.  It is.  The most authoritative test of browser standards compliancy, the Acid 2 Test, was the basis of the IE8 rebuild.  Unlike any Explorer browser before it, IE8 correctly displays the nifty little smiley face accurately.  Unlike most other browsers, though, IE8 struggles to display simple applications like Google’s Gmail.  Google have received requests about the problem with IE8, and the response is fitting:

Well, IE8 is not supported by Gmail yet, so you might want to use another browser - FF2.x or IE7. FF3 is not supported yet either, but we don’t get bug reports about that browser.

In other words, Firefox 3, released yesterday, works.

IE8 has its benefits.  The multi-tab view is a lovely way of selecting pages through image grabs, but is functionally redundant in all but looking fancy.  In terms of useful developments, IE8 introduces “webslices”, which are a nice little set of tools to grab useful parts of websites without visiting them.  I have subscribed to my friends’ Facebook status updates, for example.  And there’s more: if you highlight text, a menu appears offering all sorts of suggestions for what you might want to do with the chunk of text, from searching with Google to posting in a blog.  The opportunities here are immense, but I have to conclude that IE8 simply isn’t worth the bother.  It is streets ahead of IE7 but fails to display certain applications properly.  If it is still causing headaches for web developers, it is of little merit.

Firefox 3
I was a late convert to Firefox, and admit that about half of my internet usage still takes place in other browsers.  One thing puts me off embracing Firefox: it distorts some typefaces.  It’s not a big issue, and is purely aesthetic, but it is a recurring issue nonetheless.  Firefox 3 does not solve the problem.

But in every other regard, Firefox3 is perfect.  The download is speedy, pages load quickly, things display like they were designed to, and web developers can cut down on their workload.  Everyone wins, simple as.  There is nothing much more to say, except for what Mozilla boast about.  Mike Rouse has some pertinent comments:

If you are still using Internet Explorer you should ask yourself why you bother accessing the internet. If you’re still one of those mindless folk that still uses IE6 then you should be asking yourself why you even own a computer.

And you, dear reader?
Using the wonderful Google Analytics, I can see what proportion of visitors use each web browser.  It makes for interesting reading, because our statistics are very different to the average.  64% of visits to this site use Firefox: a percentage several times greater than average.  It is perhaps telling that bloggers and web nerds tend to use the better browser browser, proving that our readership is of a discerning nature.  Perhaps not…

For the 28% of you left with Internet Explorer, THERE IS NO EXCUSE!  Do everyone a favour, just get on and download Firefox!