There’s a constant battle online over browser supremacy - which is better than the other and why that may be the case. Being a web developer, I’m stuck in the middle of all these browsers as I constantly have to check the sites I’m developing to make sure that they all play nicely across different platforms and browsers alike. It usually involves many a long day swearing at Internet Explorer and wondering what exactly was crossing the minds of the young Redmond programmers when they made it behave like that.
We all know that Microsoft like to create their own standards and then ignore even the most established practices (Silverlight, anyone?), but when it comes to web standards, what are some of these browsers trying to prove? With the recent release of the Acid 3 test, an online set of tests that put a browser through it’s paces, you can start to quantify the usefulness of each browser in today’s Internet hungry world. With demand for Web 2.0 apps only going to increase, it’s vital for the modern browser to be able to keep up with the latest technology.
Steven Noonan has compiled a list of browsers and their scores on his blog, and it doesn’t take long to realise just how wide the playing field is. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Safari is at the top in both the beta and released version - it’s the browser I use every day and it really is up there. Mind you, I’m in the minority with Safari being mainly used by my Mac counterparts out there. Firefox is the weapon of choice for the largest percentage of Internet users, and in my case, a good alternative. When it comes to standards, if your site works in Safari and Firefox, it’s got a good chance of appeasing the other browsers too. Opera is also giving the Acid 3 test a run for it’s money, but I’ve never been a fan of the somewhat cluttered interface it offers. I guess that’s more personal preference than anything. The real challenge is when you take aim at Internet Explorer. As you can see from the results, the below 15% results that it achieves, even in the very latest releases, mean you have a rocky road ahead. It’s an endless source of frustration, particularly when you are looking at CSS and you end up with elements that position themselves in places that you couldn’t hope to position them in even if you wanted to.
When you look at the stats above (of the browsers that are used to access this site), you can see that Internet Explorer, although it’s share is slowly declining, is still using a good 35% of the market. It’s a pity really, I’d love to just be able to ignore it and spend my time doing better things. Maybe I’m just being pedantic, maybe I’m demanding too much from my poor browsers, but maybe, just maybe, the Internet Explorer fan clubs out there are missing out on the best parts of the web that are on offer because they just don’t see them in all their glory. I’ll leave that for you to decide…