The Situation
Its been a while since everybody stopped complaining about the standards compliancy of Internet Exporer 6. In fact there was no way of having a website that was not working in the most popular browser.
However.
Times have changed.
Light in the darkness
The introduction of cross browser compatible Javascript frameworks, like jQuery, Protoype and Mootools, using halftransparent png fixes like Supersleight as well as using XHTML as the Doctype got the mess under control.
Still the missing unserstanding of CSS in IE causes web designers headaches every day and pushes the cost of websites unnecessary up – limiting the possibilities of introducing other technologies / capabilities such as mobile browsing and accessibility.
How can this situation be solved?
At the end of the day the only substantial solution will be to force users to upgrade / switch by having websites just not working anymore.
This might force Microsoft whether to release IE7 for Windows 2000 or accept the fact of everybody switching to Firefox.
Being a Web design agency, we cant do much other than making clients happy – which implements having their website looking good even on grandmas old machine. (I actually feel bad about writing these words!)
What we can do is talking to people we meet, recommending the usage of a Standards Compliant browser, such as Firefox and Google’s Chrome.
The question is…
…should web developers / designers care about browser bugs like the opacity issue in firefox mac?
This would be like manufacturers building cars that drive through water instead of reparing the broken bridge.