“Please switch to Firefox / Safari”

Just to be honoust:

All webdevelopers hate IE in general. Ofcource there are the hardcoore developers programming in .net .. that will always only work in IE.

I’ve been coding in perl and php for many years but ie has been my fave since netscape. i never really liked firefox. i’d prefer chrome if i need a second choice. but that’s beside the point. hate it or love it, what browser the users use should be their own choice to make, why bother?
i commented out these two lines in the code, then everything actually works fine on ie, so why the stupid act?

if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']) && (strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'MSIE') !== false))
die('Please switch to Firefox / Safari');

That code only checks for IE, not specific versions of IE. Everything may work in IE8, but it probably doesn’t in IE6 or IE7. Rather than spend time changing perfectly valid output to work with IE idiosyncrasies, many plugin developers prefer to just get their plugin out there. Often they’re sharing something written for their own use.

The reason devs don’t like IE is because stuff doesn’t work in it. I doubt many stop IE usage just because of personal preference – it will be because they suspect some part of it won’t work in some significant way. Perhaps they tried a warning in an earlier release, but still got lots of support requests from IE users anyway.

You don’t have to use the plugin, the plugin author doesn’t have to make it work for your choice of browser. Those are the real choices here.

Market share is only relevant on the frontend. Stop IE users from seeing something and they’ll go elsewhere. Requiring a compatible browser for the backend is no big problem – if you need to use it, you can use it.

But you’ve found that one particular plugin does work in IE8. Great. Rather than label this a stupid act and rail about the trend here, why don’t you instead take some positive steps:
* Tell the developer it works in IE8.
* Suggest that the developer changes the check so that it allows IE8 usage.
* Offer to beta-test future plugin releases in IE8.

And for plugins that don’t work if you comment out the check:
* Figure out what the problem is, and solve it.
* Double-check that your solution doesn’t affect users of other popular browsers.
* Give the developer the fixes.

And for plugins that work in IE8 and don’t have a “please switch” screen:
* Thank them, pointing out you’re an IE8 user. This will help motivate their future IE8 testing.

I must say your attitude is most gentle and positive, unfortunately I doubt how many of these developers I’m refering to actually share your view. First thing, the plugin I talk about is certainly not for personal use. Second, no one browser can claim to adhere 100% to the standards and renders everything correctly, but most of the time such differences are trivial. In cases where they matter, there are usually workarounds. If there’s a large market share for IE, and you code for other browsers instead of IE, it can hardly be called a non-personal preference. And hey, when Microsoft ships IE with Windows, do you say “You don’t have to use the OS, the OS author doesn’t have to make it work for your choice of browser. Those are the real choices here.”

Second, no one browser can claim to adhere 100% to the standards and renders everything correctly, but most of the time such differences are trivial.

I have to disagree here.

Compare IE 6, which has a distressingly HIGH market share, still, to Firefox 2 and you will CRY. IE is still the low man on the totem pole, and many web developers just want it to go away and die. It keeps to very few of the same standards as Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc etc. IE 7? Not much better. Now, IE 8 I will happily say is a LOT better than IE 6 or 7, but still, it’s vastly different from Firefox 3+

All that said? It’s pretty a**-hattery of a developer to say ‘I don’t support IE at all.’ I can get behind not supporting IE 6 (I don’t support it either), but ALL IEs? Bad form.

When we already have IE8 I really see no point why we should pay too much attention to IE6, especially when even Microsoft itself urges users to upgrade. A lot of the standards we can’t do away with now come at least partly from IE non-standards, iframe is an example. It’s just that when macromedia invented flash, we called it innovation, and when apple does anything we call it a miracle. (I know, it’s not entirely the same, but the consequence is no different – you can either view the contents with the suitable software, or you cannot)

but yeah, you’ve made my point. I might sound like a die-hard IE supporter, but I’m not. All I want to say is there are a lot of IE users and they are happy with their IE, so don’t force them to firefox or whatever using such tricks I described.

When we already have IE8 I really see no point why we should pay too much attention to IE6, especially when even Microsoft itself urges users to upgrade.

Eh. This is why we still have to care about IE 6 – https://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Yes, it’s 9% right now (thank GOD), but I know many companies, big ones, still on IE 6 :/ It’s a troubling 9%.

Until it’s 2%, we have to care somewhat. Mostly we care to hate ??