The problem is IE's fault for not supporting transparencies. There's not much the Combine can do about it with the way the display is designed to work.
The login page for the bugbase is probably because he linked to a bug report and not to a forum thread. Having a bug base account can be useful, and it's quick and easy to set up if you don't have one.
And finally, in terms of looks and use, I find Firefox nearly identical to IE, with additional features (which you are free not to use) and without annoying security issues and lack of functionality (such as the transparency issue).
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"May the Grace of Ara go with you, and His Vengeance be wrought upon your enemies."
-- and the password issue. IE and FF store passwords differently, which is the reason we recommend players with login problems switch to FF when other options fail.
However, this is not some intentional programming implemented to allow it to work on Firefox and not IE, or something like that. Ideally, the programmers would of course prefer all features to work across browsers and platforms, but unfortunately that is not always possible.
If nothing else works for you, all you can do for now is either live with it or switch to a different browser, at least for SWC on days you need to do such travel.
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't implying this was intentional (though it would be kinda cool, cause no one adores MS). Making something like this work can't be easy.
This just creeped me out because the game worked perfectly for me for over a year now, and then, suddenly this happened.
"If nothing else works for you, all you can do for now is either live with it or switch to a different browser, at least for SWC on days you need to do such travel."
I figured this myself, and that's what I'll do.
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Lieutenant Commander Faldang Lukas;
Tresario Star Kingdom