WHAT WE'RE ESSENTIALLY talking about is the Web browser. The Web browser is a program which enables your computer to access pages over the Internet, using a communication protocol called HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol).
AS OPPOSED TO WHAT Microsoft is trying to advertize, the Web browser is an ordinary application program, in no way related to the underlying operating system. As clearly shown by statistics, most personal computer users are using one of the Windows family of operating systems.
“INTERNET EXPLORER” (also referred to as “IE”) is a Web browser produced by Microsoft and included in any Windows version since Windows 98. Given this, IE had quickly became the most used Web browser, such that today, virtually 95% of the Web surfers are using Internet Explorer, most of them even without having made a conscious choice.
The careful reader will notice that the key words Web browser and Internet Explorer are hereby presented separately: IE is not the only Web browser in the world.
IN THE BEGINNING, the Web was only able to serve text pages. Today, using your browser you can read your email, play a game on Yahoo with your pal overseas or see streaming videos. Given the enormous volume of technologies involved (to name just a few: HTML, XML, CSS, DOM, PNG) it had became obvious that there should be an organization which takes care of standardizing all these and makes sure that they are and stay interoperable. This organization was created in October 1994 and it is named “The World Wide Web Consortium" (herein also referred to as “W3C” or “w3.org”).
W3C is developing what we call Web standards. You should think of them as technical documents that contain complete documentation as to how should a browser be implemented in order to support the current and the future Web.
THE WEB STANDARDS also serve as guidelines for developers of Web applications: making applications that adhere to Web standards assures that they are compatible with browsers that adhere to Web standards and with future technologies. What this basically means is that one can develop a complete Web application without looking at MSDN: the Web standards say how the browser works, not Microsoft.
For any Web developer, the previous statement sounds very appealing. It means that the application needs to be tested on a browser that adheres to Web standards and if it works, then it would work in all standards-compliant browsers. Unfortunately, it were too good to be true: the most used browser on the Internet is not standards compliant.
The next section will describe the reasons why us and thousands developers worldwide are unhappy with Internet Explorer. You should read it and take action, because you can make a change, not us. We can only present facts. We can only hope that these facts will open people eyes. We do not use Internet Explorer, but we need that you don't use it either.