Internet Explorer has always been a headache for me because there always seems to be some difference in the way my website displays. In most cases it has to do with spaces. Recently I tried to update to the latest version of IE and everything got screwed up. For some odd reason I can't get IE to work at all anymore. Since I still want to check to see how my website looks in IE, I searched for an alternative which I found. It's called NetRenderer.com and it shows you how your website looks in ALL version of IE going back to 5.5. I actually found that my website looked a little different in 5.5 which I quickly changed. This tool is extremely valuable since there could be a problem with older versions. I highly recommend you try it out!
!bump. Very valuable tool indeed. Thanks for sharing! There is another site i use and it has multiple browser testing. It tests your page in a bunch of browsers for bouth linux and windows and across nearly all versions of all browsers including IE, FF, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Avant, Netscape, Flock, SeaMonkey, Konqueror, Epiphany and others. browsershots.org
I usually use browsershots.org once i complete a new website design and get confirmed that it works fine in all the browsers.
If you have IE9 you can hit F12 which will pull up the "Developers Console". From there you can select to view the current page as IE7, IE8 or IE9 Strict or Compatibility modes. IE is by far a pain in the butt to design for. I tell my designers to design for all major current browsers in mind but make TINY sacrifices so the site is at least viewable in IE6. As for 5.5...don't waste your time. The majority of browsers out there are current or at least upgraded with in the last few years. There's no need to sacrifice the quality of the majority of your traffic to fully support the minority of your traffic who have a problem visiting EVERY web site.
And to add... If your site views great in IE7/8/9 and FireFox odds are it will be fine in Chrome and Opera and viewable in dated browsers.
I find we have a lot less problems with compatibility when we use: <!doctype html> on the first line of all HTML pages to enforce strict guidelines and create all layouts using proper CSS. As for working with JavaScript we specifically use the jquery framework to ensure crossbrowser support.
I would think this is a huge waste of time. At my office it is preferable (but not all that important) that the site displays properly in IE8 while it must look properly in IE9, IE10, FF, Chrome and Opera. It is a huge waste of time to make it look right in IE8 alone i cant even imagine the wasted work hours per person per month to make it work in older versions that are really only used by 2-5% of the visitors.