Wednesday 19 December 2007

A reason why IE truly sucks

I have Hotmail (sorry, Windows Live mail) open and am composing a message to a friend, a response to an invite to his for beers and televisual entertainment. The email includes various examples of 'Oooh! I'll put that in.' because a few noteworthy things have happened in the last couple of days.

I need an image for a project at work, so I have another instance of Explorer running with a pageful of Google image results, several of which look quite promising and useful.

Now I need to figure out how to pass GET variables from a Flash movie to a PHP script. So I spawn another instance of IE and Google an appropriate phrase then follow a link to Adobe's website. Which must have dodgy Flash or Javascript on it, because IE promptly hangs.

Ok, I'll just go away and leave it to it. Let it clear its mind enough to — horror of horrors — render a web page.

I go back to Firefox (which I use for casual — read serious — browsing at work) and do digg for a short while. Heading back over to IE, I give up and close Adobe's window and click the End Now in response to IE having soiled its underwear.

I simultaneously, and without warning, lose my email message, my Google images and of course the Adobe page.

Imagine if those three windows had had several tabs each open, as well? And what's with locking the whole of IE, even if only one of the tabs is in the grips of some awful modal dialogue?

Internet Explorer SEVEN.

How many times does Microsoft insist on overlooking these awful problems with one of the worst web browsers on the market?

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