SpiderServe Web Design

If you know me, you will know how much I despise all versions of Internet Explorer. Not only are they highly insecure browsers, but they make their own rules up as they go along.

Take today for instance.

I have been developing a new version of a website on a different domain instead of a sub-domain. I needed to get the users to update their information on the new site, so instead of directing them to the development domain, I used a frame to pull in the pages I needed on the old domain.

Every browser, including IE8, worked with this frame without a problem.

I then got a phonecall from the client who was freaking out because people were logging in then getting redirected to the homepage instead of the page that follows the login procedure.

I couldn’t replicate this at all. Until, all of a sudden, it stopped working on my version of IE8 and I could see the problem.
It was a fairly easy fix in the end. IE blocks cookies over frames, so I changed the CMS to use sessions and all was right with the world.

But once again, this episode shows why web standards are so important if development of websites is to improve.
If we are constantly having to make concessions to each browser, we will never move forward.

There is no perfect browser, but the likes of Firefox and Chrome are a lot closer to where they need to be than Internet Explorer is.

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