Top 7 Ways To Crash Internet Explorer
Microsoft Internet Explorer aka Exploder is a funny browser. Even a guy like myself who is no hacker at all can crash it with ease, at least version 6 (IE6).
In fact one line of code is enough, even less. It’s ridiculous.
The most ludicrous fact about it: There are manifold ways to do just that: Crash Internet Explorer by just opening a web page.
So I present to you the 7 best methods of crashing Internet Explorer 6! IE7 is immune against most of them, but not all.
- <STYLE>@;/* Source offline
- <input type crash> Source offline
- <body onLoad=”window()”> Source
- <style>*{position:relative}</style><table><input></table> Source offline
- <script>for (x in document.write) { document.write(x);}</script> Source
- Event handler crash, example longer than 1 line: Source
- Ordered list crash, example longer than 1 line: Source, the only one that does not always work, you have to mouse over or click the first item of the list.
For me on my Internet Explorer 6.00 all of them worked fine. I couldn’t upload them to my server though as my hosting provider probably filters such “malicious” code out.
By demonstrating those seven methods to your peers you can maybe convince them to dump Exploder and start using a browser.
Last update: September 7th, 2010 – Removed broken links.









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Hehe. Am just away to try and find some more ways to break IE. Did find a strange CSS bug before but am going to have to try and find the old css sheet and page. Cheers
If you find any new methods contact me or add it in the comments, you will be credited as the source.
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Hi,
I have IE6 and used all that options in a normal HTML file. No one of them could crash my IE, except for one, the numbre 4:
*{position:relative}
That piece of code crashes my IE (just the window where the code was).
Anyway, just one of the 7 ways did crash my IE, so this information is either out of date or just another one full of lies against IE
Carlos, which IE 6 version do you use, which Windows XP? IE 6 is not IE 6, I have an old version without any fixes I guess.
For testing purposes I would take each code snippet on it’s won. It’s possible that they interfere with each other.
Maybe that’s the reason, I have my PC completly up-to-date. My actual IE version is:
6.0.2900.2180
I tested each code separately, I even thought it wouldn’t crash if the file didn’t contain some other code, so I tested again each with some aditional HTML normal code, but still none of them could crash my IE.
Now, about the code number 4, it crashed my IE both standing by itself and being part of another HTML file.
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damn it all! i can’t make it crash with any method…. and i want it to go boom and give me error messages and “do you wish to debugg?” messages…
[…] seen quite a few articles on how you can crash IE6 using very little code. Granted someone would need to purposely insert the code, isn’t that a sign of a dead […]
Expressions are only supported by IE, but even valid expressions will easily crash the browser.
Not sure if this counts as one line though
div#homeBody{width:expression(document.body.clientWidth
For some reason my last post was truncated. Here we go again:
div#homeBody{width:expression(document.body.clientWidth
ACCCK!
It ate my words again (usually Im the only one who has to do that :))
1) wrap the code in a style tag
2) add code in last post
3) Add a ‘greater than sign’
4) Add the following
1070 ? “1070px” : “100%” );}
Really short, maybe the admin could put it together correctly
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Hi!
let’s try :) in ie 7
function getX( oElement )
{
var iReturnValue = 0;
while( oElement != null ) {
iReturnValue += oElement.offsetLeft;
oElement = oElement.offsetParent;
}
return iReturnValue;
}
Firefox is definitely the way to go. I hate IE. This post further convinces me.
Tad, just to be clear, the comment above is not made by me, your regular reader :)
Anyhow, ever since I found that there are other surfing software out there, I have not used explorer (except for testing my web pages for compatibility). My explorer always crashes and it gets worse as Microsoft upgrades to higher version. Version 7 is the worst (which I am sure version 8 will beat it in the instability league). I started switching to Opera in my non web designer days, and when I started my web designing projects, I found Firefox. Its the main browser I use now. Its stable, has many security features and also developer plugins.
sure, these will crash internet explorer, and IE sucks, but you may be reaching on the scripts.
Most are not entirely IE’s fault. What you’ve put up are infinite loops. Putting
while(1);
will crash most browsers too.
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i found that great! start using a browser could also be linked to safari or opera btw and not only to ff, althought ff has some great plugins for seo…
Why this Firefox promotion? There are better browsers, e.g. Opera.
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Why all this code ?
for (x in document.write) { document.write(x);}
This is more than enough
for (x in open);
All you have to do to crash FF is start it up and use it for a few minutes, then boom crash. I think the fox is getting fat, out of shape and Senile.
You may add a new item to your list. Simply place a 1px by 1px image in the html body, and resize it via html width and height tags to something large like 10000 px by 10000 px and IE will crash. Moreover, if the PC is not that powerful (RAM memory) you may even get a BSOD.
My website, whoobie.com, crashes in IE7 everytime. I built the site, but am not really sophisticated to know why it’s crashing. I’ll look at your tips above. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve
Steve: I guess it’s number 2 “input type crash” judging from your hidden input fields lacking quotes.
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good job finding that code, so let everyone know to not use those codes to avoid crashing ie6 so we can can all use it without problems.
IE7 may be immune to crashes but it is still pretty degenerate in terms of standards compliance. And the “compatibility mode” in IE8 is not exactly the same as IE7 as I have discovered things that don’t work quite properly (e.g. spacing, margins/padding) only when I am actually in an IE7 browser.
Firefox is a necessity. Especially when you work online and are doing seo. I like to the seobook toolbar and seo for firefox so it really is the best.
There are certainly more than 7 ways to crash explorer, and another is to right click on an invalid or corrupted zip file. Unless you have another handler for zip fillies, the crash is imminent.
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Of the three browsers that I use for testing my website, only Chrome has not crashed on me. Firefox prior to version 7 was crashing on me from time-to-time, hence I upgraded to Firefox 7.
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