Statistics from the exo.performance.network indicate that over half of computer users (50.6 percent) are now using the Firefox browser, InfoWorld reports. Despite this, Internet Explorer is still widely used, with 84 percent of users still turning to it “regularly.”
These numbers indicate that a large number of people use more than one browser. This is hardly surprising, given the addition of newer browsers like Google Chrome and Safari for Windows, and the recent upgrade of Opera.
It’s evident that web designers and developers will continue to need to support multiple browsers, and while modern browsers are generally more compatible than they have been in the past, developers will need to plan testing of their applications accordingly.
Which browsers do you test your sites for?
We’re living in a cross-platform and cross-browser world. Most web workers aren’t one-browser-fits-all.
I have two computers: a MacBook Pro and an iMac. Even though Firefox 3 is my default browser on both computers, I regularly have at least three different browsers open to do what I need to do in my work day. Certain sites only work in Internet Explorer, while others simply behave better in Chrome or Safari. Other sites are bookmarked in Safari solely for the iPhone.
Foxmarks has long been the free go-to utility for syncing bookmarks between multiple instances of Firefox. I’ve long preferred Foxmarks to Mozilla Weave which, while it syncs more information between Firefox browsers, I’ve found to be less reliable. For non-Firefox browsers, I’ve had to use my.foxmarks.com to access sites using IE or Safari that are bookmarked in Firefox.
No more. Last week, Foxmarks introduced syncing for both IE and Safari (I can’t wait for a Chrome version).
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Now that Internet Explorer 8 is in serious beta, web workers who develop or design web pages are faced, once again, with a knotty question: which browsers (and which versions) do you design for? The basic problem is understanding your market: browser usage statistics are unreliable, but they all seem to agree that the market belongs to Internet Explorer and Firefox, with a smidge of Safari thrown in (Opera advocates, I know you’re out there, but with a usage number rarely cracking 1% in any survey, it’s tough to justify spending time on Opera-specific testing).
Even within those broad categories, though, the market is more fragmented than ever before: Firefox 2 and 3 are both in substantial use, as are IE6 and IE7. It’s worse in some markets; I have one customer who requires IE5.5 compatibility due to restrictions on browser version at a government agency. Some people want to address this by campaigning against IE6, but that still seems quixotic to me. With no end in sight to new versions, and intense competition in the browser market, it seems like this problem will only keep getting worse.
If you create web pages, what’s your testing strategy? What browsers do you consider important enough to check?
WordPress, the open source blog management software, has released version 2.5 of their popular web application. WordPress has been quickly adopted because it presents a very flexible and easy to manage web publishing system. Out of the box it is a fully functional blog management system, but can also be used as a content management system (CMS) for a website as well.
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Statistics from the exo.performance.network indicate that over half of computer users (50.6 percent) are now using the Firefox browser, InfoWorld reports. Despite this, Internet Explorer is still widely used, with 84 percent of users still turning to it “regularly.”
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
