If IE didn't exist, what css, js or html features could we use that currently are not really usable?

Question

In a world where IE didn't exist, what things would be easier, less hacky, less buggy and generally more used.

What could the internet have been if all features were available cross browser?

List one point per post.

This is community wiki, so feel free to amend the question/answers for clarity.

Answer 1

"In a world where IE didn't exist, what things would be easier?"

Web Programming

Answer 2

Better adoption of PNG due to support in earlier versions of IE.

Answer 3

1) :before and :after psuedo elements.

2) 'content' attribute.

3) :hover on any element (not just anchors).

Answer 4

Lets starts with javascript EcmaScript: today you have to make one version for Mozilla/Opera/Safari and another version for IE.

Both Opera and Firefox support some CSS3. Guess what: IE don't. What about the CSS2-standard? No, IE still not ready to use that one. I'm not sure about how much of the CSS1-standard IE7 support, but I do know that IE6 didn't support it completely.

Today you can't use xhtml properly: IE doesnt suppert documents beeing served as xhtml..

A solution many webdevelopers does today, is to create a lot of nested <div>-tags to force IE to display the page properly. Most modern browser (not IE6) support css-rules on the 'html' and 'body'-tag, and therefor div-mania can be avoided. (Well; div-mania can be avoided on IE today, so this last point isn't that relevant)

PNG-pictures is also an issue, as Rich Bradshaw pointed out.

Answer 5

Just easier? Anything involving floats, or box-models

Possible? display:table and :focus would be nice but the real biggie would be min and max dimensions which just worked.

Answer 6

Standard box model, of course.

And we would get rid of colorful scrollbars, VBScript (I saw page on the Web scripted only with that!), hacks with VML, and so on.

Answer 7

IE is the bane of my life. Its a pain in the back-side having to work around all the unsupported features and the misinterpretation it does.

IE's like my mother, it doesn't hear what you ACTUALLY said, it hears what it THOUGHT you said.

You end up having to practise some bizzarre reverse psychology on it until it does what you want it to.

Answer 8

Canvas... they've just decided to skip it in ie8 too