"To IE or not to IE?"

I would be the last person with qualified advice in the IE7 vs IE6 choices. I don't (in fact, can't) run IE7 with my workstation. I can (and do) run IE6 with a proper WINE configuration; I do run IE6 because many devices that I install require Internet Explorer to access their web interfaces.

I complain that IE (any version) is not fully compliant with the W3C DTD. This is a bit unfair, since I've yet to find any browser that is 100% compliant. However, Microsoft does push the envelope too hard.

Certainly, we've all been to some sites and tried to make sense of misaligned content. Microsoft's Internet Explorer interprets DIV and SPAN attributes differently than Mozilla's Firefox and both behave differently than Konqueror. These are cases of DTD misinterpretation and do not warrant reprisal. DTD misinterpretations abound in the dozens of available browsers.

What *is* incorrigible is the introduction of application-dependent hooks published as "HTML documentation" from Microsoft. Thousands of poorly-informed web designers waste millions of gigabits of bandwidth every hour on unsuspecting Internauts who (by configuration) can not or (by choice) will not use Internet Explorer when delivered pages use Internet Explorer API (not HTML). Worse yet … the API differs between IE5 and IE6 and IE7.

The Internet is changing, and Microsoft cannot continue writing rules that increase global dependence on their self-served interests. That policy, in more general terms, is called oppression; it is not conducive to a healthy global community.

** DISCLAIMER **
Don't misunderstand … I think Microsoft is a fantastically innovative organization. Their products are quite reasonably priced in consideration of research time that they invest. Bill Gates, too, is a wonderful and caring person — without his vision, computers would still be the advantage of a few extremely wealthy companies and governments of large populations.