Denouncing Internet Explorer

If you're having problems viewing this blog - awkwardly aligned pictures, strange margins etc - chances are you belong to the shrinking population of Internet Explorer users. While I feel obliged to cater to the needs of all potential readers, I'm quickly running out of patience tweaking the template to run properly in IE. Earlier, it took me two frustrating hours before I eventually got the layouts of the div components right. Now, I'm having problems with the alignment of images.

Alright. That was the last straw. I hereby pronounce this blog IE-unfriendly!

IE is a major headache for all web developers. (No wonder the folks call it "the cancer of the web".) Even the pros are having a tough time with IE, not to say an amateur like me. I'm totally a PHP illiterate; neither can I perform fancy magic with JavaScript and XML. The only trick I've got up the sleeves is CSS. Unfortunately, IE is as much a retard in CSS as I am in art. Especially when you're dealing with the margins and paddings of div components, IE can be very cantankerous. Of course, it's possible to work around those problems - ironically - by utilizing IE bugs , but why take the trouble, I say.

The design of a website depends on the target audience. All this while, I've strictly kept my blog to 800 pixels wide for the sake of those with low-resolution monitors. But check out this latest statistics provided by W3school. While they may not be 100% realistic figures, they at least give you an image of it.


Obviously, more than 90% of the computers nowadays have at least a 1024x768-pixel display. That's why I set this blog at 1000 pixels wide. Now my blog can afford to spare a bigger piece of the real estate for the photos I intend to post.

Now, check out the browser statistics.


As you can see, both Firefox and IE share almost the same size of the pie. But there's a steady trend in the dropping percentage of IE users - down by about 10% compared to last year. I guess that justifies my decision to stop wasting my time tweaking my template to suit IE.