Browser Compatibility

[David]

The browser statistics at w3schools.com (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp) do make very interesting reading.

I guess the dabate that Francis and James B are currently conducting boils down to this: Idealism vs Pragmatism.

I fall on the pragmatic side, as you know. When I'm designing a site I have to weigh up the cost/benefit of all I do. If I consider that it's extremely unlikely that users will browse with anything other than IE, I can't justify the extra time involved testing all browsers and tweaking for compatibility.

This isn't necessarily a good thing but it is pragmatic. In an ideal world with an unlimited budget I would test every browser on the planet and code accordingly.

[francis]

There are lies, damn lies and statistics, so this is all theoretical. But, to take JB's "0.5% Moz usage" stat and then this page http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online/ (http://http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online/), with internet useage stats from Sept 2002, the Moz usage works out at 3.028 million users. Add to this the growth in usage (http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html (http://http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html)) since those stats were produced, leaves you with a large amount of users. Obviously, in the grand scheme of things, it is tiny, but then add on Opera for PC and Mac, and the new Mac browsers, and all of a sudden things are more important. There is some initial pain in getting things to work across different browsers, but once you're over that, it's not too bad.

My Green Farm site was developed in IE6 and Moz. I fired up Opera and it looked identicle - I had to do no extra work. As the rendering engine for some Mac browsers is also Gecko based, I can be pretty positive it will work in them too.

"Create once, publish many times". This is Adobe's current thinking and how they sell their Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign/Acrobat suite. This should be the same for the web, but because of Microsoft's blase attitude to standards, this currently takes far more effort than it should. To quote someone else, Microsoft helped write the standards, so why don't they bother to implement them?!

Browser's are free - just download them. You don't need an unlimited budget, just coffee, a couple of good books and a good mailing list or two. Read, learn and discover. Don't just pander to whoever happens to be the market leader, because sooner or later you will come unstuck. And then, I will truely understand the meaning of the word schadenfreude (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=schadenfreude)!

[David]

There's no doubt that you are on the side of the angels. One day (I hope) we will live in a world where standards rule and this debate is long forgotten but until that happens we all need to develop strategies to deal with things as they stand.

[James]

You do make some good points Francis, and I am in agreement that it's no bad thing to achieve compatibility in all browsers. I will be tweaking my Green Farm site to work in Opera and Mozilla.

However, I really really think it is a complete waste of time to use code that will ONLY work in non-IE browsers (about 5% of users). What is the point?

Eventually, new releases of IE will recognise CSS3 etc and your opacitic PNG will work across the board. But by then, CSS4 will be available in Mozilla only and your argument against IE starts all over again.

As Mozilla is open source, it is maintained by enthusiasts like you and it is very quickly upgraded when new standards come in so will always be latest standards compliant. Internet Explorer is not updated as quickly, it does not make commercial sense for Microsoft to do so. I know you hate Microsoft (so why do you use Windows?!) but their dominance (which will last a long time) needs to be accepted when it comes to the real world.

[Phil]

In ignoring non PC-IE users, though, shouldn't you consider who you're ignoring. Lets face it, everyone knows that Mac users are the elite of the design world ;)
Joking aside, if you are aiming your website at designer types chances are it's going to get viewed by an iMac with Safari. One could argue that these sorts have a disproportionately large influence regarding "what's cool"

[francis]

Ah - a Mac user! Obviousy has too much money ;) Safari is taking over, which is a good thing if the reports about IE5.2 for the Mac are true.

I'd agree with Phil - any kind of site that is aimed at designer types will have to work across the board. If it doesn't, you might as well have not bothered working on it.

JB's argument that "Moz is maintained by enthusiasts" doesn't hold water. Opera, Safari are all full commercial products maintained by Opera and Apple respectively. They are standards compliant (although Opera still has some JavaScript issues) and get frequent updates. Opera relies on people paying for the browser to keep them in business, and they are still around.

Yes, these browsers may not have the dominance of IE, but you can't afford to ignore them.

[David]

Phil, do you think it's possible to set-up a cross-browser test PC with IE6, Mozilla 1.5, Netscape 7.1 and Opera 7.22 (no Francis, I think we can leave Firebird for the moment :)) in the T205 lab?

What browsers are we running on the Macs?

As you all know, I'm rather dismissive of "other" browsers but I'm sure Stuart has been putting you right on that one. BTW, where the heck is he?

[francis]

I subscribe to Mozilla on an annual basis and have a CD with Moz 1.5 (for PC and Mac), Camino 0.7 (Mac) on it. Firebird is built from an offshoot of Moz but without all the cool developer stuff - at the moment it's not worth bothering with as it renders the same. I can bring that in next week (or burn a copy of it) if that helps.

[James]

Francis said:

<JB's argument that "Moz is maintained by enthusiasts" doesn't hold water.>

But then he goes on to talk about Opera and Apple and gives no back up to his own statement. So Francis, can you clarify why my original statement does not hold water? I repeat: Modzilla is maintained by enthusiasts.

When you reply please tell me about Modzilla, not Opera or Apple.

Thanks. ;)

[francis]

Sorry.

Okay - I took your "Moz is maintained by enthusiasts statement" to mean that, as it apparently isn't a commercial piece of software (which is incorrect), they can update it when they feel like it and that, as they aren't a $40 billion concern as MS is, then that's why they can update more frequently.

The reference to Opera and Apple was to point out that these companies are large commerical entities and still manage to produce standards compliant browsers. The updates to these products are frequent. Apple may not be on exactly the same scale as MS, but they are still very definately a huge concern. Their approach to the development of Safari was used to try and show that a large corporation can give a commitment to its users.

Don't get hung up on Mozilla - this is a standards compliance issue. Mozilla happens to be my browser of choice, but with Opera shaping up the way it is, moving to that wouldn't be a problem. It's got an amazing feature set and I would gladly pay the 30 Euros to get rid of the banner ads. If I had a Mac, I'd be using Safari. It's down to the company concerned and their commitment to their users. As I have already said, Apple have already produced an excellent browser and are showing a commitment to their sizable customer base by continuing to issue updates for it.

[David]

So Francis, where exactly does Netscape fit into your browser heirarchy? Is there a future for it? Here's a news article (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/developer/0,39020387,2137725,00.htm) for those of you who need some background.

[Phil]

Ok, I shall load up a few different browsers on some machines in T205. As you walk in, on your left there's a bank of machines - two Macs, two PCs. On the Macs I've put the latest version of IE for MacOS9 - IE5.1.7. On the two PCs there's dull old IE6 plus Mozilla 1.5 and Opera 7.23.

For the Macs, later versions of IE and also Apple's own Safari only run on MacOSX. If you want to see these you can go next door to the Macs in T202. Safari is very good; quick with tabbed browsing, intergrated Google search and pop-up blocker.

-phil

[francis]

Where does NS fit in? In terms of standards support the 7.x ones were good - they were based on Gecko and have/had pop up blocking and (I think) tabbed browsing. I've got 7.0 at home but don't use it unless I want to test something. From memory it has quite a large footprint. I can't be consigned to the dustbin of history yet, but Firebird (like Moz without the cool developer stuff and mail client) seems to be coming along nicely. Hopefully people will jump over to that, Moz or Opera, which is getting better by the day.

[Phil]

ok, francis, I've put Firebird 0.7 on those PCs as well now. I think it's a very capable browser and I used it for a while, but I missed Mozilla's better form handling (and the favicons never stayed in my links bar), so I'm back to Moz now.

One other point to throw into the compatibility debate: there *is* a way to ensure uniform display on all platforms and that is - whisper it - Flash. New topic anyone?

-phil