Every web developer I know of has disdain for Internet Explorer. Although we have made some strides with Internet Explorer 9 (Even scoring a 100% on the Acid3 test recently), most users do not necessarily run the latest version of their browser.
There are some techniques that web developers can use however to bring some of the older versions of Internet Explorer up to par with their modern counterparts.
ie7-js
ie7-js is a a JavaScript library to make Internet Explorer behave like a standards-compliant browser. It fixes many HTML and CSS issues (like :hover on any element, min-height, :focus, opacity and more), and makes transparent PNG work correctly under IE5 and IE6. I would recommend using IE9.js at this point.
opacity on IE7
CSS3 PIE
CSS3 in IE7
PIE makes Internet Explorer 6-9 capable of rendering several of the most useful CSS3 decoration features that we are accustomed to in modern browsers like border-radius, box-shadow and even linear-gradient. PIE stands for Progressive Internet Explorer and utilises the behaviour tag like this: behavior: url(PIE.htc);
Google Chrome Frame
IE running with Chrome Frame
Google Chrome Frame is an open source plug-in that seamlessly brings Google Chrome’s open web technologies and speedy JavaScript engine to Internet Explorer. With Google Chrome Frame, you can start using open web technologies – like the HTML5 canvas tag – right away, even technologies that aren’t yet supported in Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8, or 9., and take advantage of JavaScript performance improvements to make your apps faster and more responsive.
