How to remove dotted border around active hyperlinks in IE8 with CSS

Active hyperlink texts are highlighted with dotted border. When using effects on such hyperlinks (fadeIn/fadeOut) it produces strange effects. How do I disable/remove the dotted border?

Solution 1:

Try this CSS:

a:active, a:selected, a:visited { 
    border: none;
    outline: none;
}

Note that this has to be after any a:hover rules. Thanks to PEra in the comments for suggesting using the a:selected selector as well.

NOTE

The above does not work in IE 9. Removing a:selected causes it to work in IE9.

Solution 2:

Typical and safe way to do it is this:

a:active, a:focus {
   outline:  none; /* non-IE */
   ie-dummy: expression(this.hideFocus=true); /* IE6-7 */
}

Since expresssion() has been gutted in IE8, you may need a script:

if (document.documentElement.attachEvent)
    document.documentElement.attachEvent('onmousedown',function(){
         event.srcElement.hideFocus=true
    });

If you're going to remove the default focus outline, you must define your own distinct style for :focus, otherwise keyboard users will have a hard time using your site.

Solution 3:

Be careful. The dotted-border is a valuable part of keyboard-browsing. It highlights which link will be clicked.

a:active { outline: none; }

Author Nathan Smith gives a more thorough discussion of this, and various related issues on his blog.

Solution 4:

a:active, a:focus {
    outline:none;
}