Internet ExplorerThe Microsoft Internet Explorer Team needs to pull their collective head out of their ass and get with the fucking program.  IE6 has long been the bane of many a web developer and designer and it looks like IE8 is going to be the same way.  First, let’s take a look at CSS3 selector support: No Surprises Here! You could also take a look at this page: CSS Browser Compatibility and see just how many red NOs there are in the Internet Explorer column…

It’s sad that Internet Explorer is the only browser to come preinstalled on so many computers and even sadder still that it’s so widely used.  I would love for someone to calculate the amount of time wasted on IE6 compatibility over the years by developers and designers around the globe.  What I’m really after is the dollar value that can be assigned to all those lost hours.  I’m sure Microsoft has cost this industry $Billions in lost hours when it would only take them $Thousands to do something about it.  Any company that stands idly by while that happens and has the resources to do something about deserves a public beat down.  I hope they get one.

So who’s doing it best?  Apple’s WebKit is holding it down at the number one spot in my book and thankfully it’s garnering a large amount of industry support rather quickly.  Currently Apple, KDE Project, Google, Nokia, Torch Moble, and more are actively contributing to Apple’s WebKit.  WebKit has a GNU style license with a few parts having a BSD style license and thankfully my personal favorite browser for PC (Google Chrome) uses WebKit.

So here’s my advice to you Microsoft, if you’re not interested in keeping your browser up to date with the latest open standards support then adopt WebKit. Every web developer and designer in the world would rejoice if we could have one standard library rendering everything on the web. Tens of thousands of development hours would be saved every year, progress wouldn’t be halted due to one major browser falling behind, and you can still keep your own branded browser to deliver to the masses… every day you stand idly by I lose respect for you.