To the 22.4% of you reading this on Internet Explorer: Please Stop.

Joel Farr

September 27, 2011

According to W3 Schools, 22.4% of all internet users are still using Internet Explorer (IE) to navigate around the web.  While Microsoft is still dominating the world with their operating systems, IE is slowly fading out. Just 4 years ago, IE had a strong hold on the market with 56%, but has slowly been fading ever since.  Firefox currently dominates the browser world, ranking number one, with 40.6%.  Chrome is gaining ground on it, however, with 30.3%.  Safari is far behind bringing in only 3.8% and Opera even less with 2.3%.

Web developers everywhere are guaranteed to have one thing in common.  I’ll give you the recipe to figure out what that one thing is:  Start with a giant pot of sewage water that is getting ready to boil over at any moment. Round up 1/4 cup of some of that scum sticking to the tiles in your shower and mix it thoroughly with 4 cups of arsenic. Mince up 2 cups of roadkill and add to mix.  With a syringe that has the biggest gauge needle you can find, inject the most powerful molecules of rage and frustration known to the human race and you have the recipe for Internet Explorer. Season to taste.

I truly don’t know a single developer who hasn’t had problems with IE when building a website.  Firefox and Chrome are light-years ahead when it comes to displaying the websites you love and enjoy how they were intended to be displayed.  Not to mention that they house way better development tools and features.  They also just look better.  So what I’m wondering is why 22.4% percent of you are still reading this post in IE?  Why? Really, I demand you tell me.  Is it because you are afraid of change?  Is it because you have a deep and profound love for Microsoft?  Or is it because you just love things that break all the time and make things look ugly?  My guess is that it is merely because you haven’t been exposed to something better yet.  Click here, download, install and never look back at the deep cavity that IE has drilled into the web and your mind.  You will thank me one day.

Honestly, I couldn’t be happier about these latest statistics that will eventually make my job easier.  The more of you I can convince to never use IE again, the faster it will fade into oblivion and the easier it will be for me to efficiently build web sites.  Pass the word along and make the world a better place.