Firefox vs IE vs Opera vs Safari vs Netscape

[jon123]

FF for me too.
I use FF, IE and Opera to test websites. I upgraded to IE7 last week and wouldn't you know it, more css problems. Now having to rewrite my IE hacks to accomodate IE7 as well.
There is nothing good to say about the new IE, same old same old as far as i'm concerned, unfortunately as mentioned, there is no escaping the fact that it is still the most popular browser. I read 43% use FF though!

[kev woodman]

The secret is not to write CSS hacks Jon IE7 has much better compliance than IE6 (which was bloody awful), in fact it is probably about as compliant as FF. I spent a week some months before the IE7 release getting rid of the worst bits of hackery from quite a few sites and now find I can pretty much get by with conditional commenting for earlier IE versions.

To be honest I think FF causes me more CSS problems than IE at the moment.

Have to disagree with your stats as well mate - no way FF has more than 10% market share and the last figures I saw showed this dropping. I still use it as my every day browser because I'm used to it but I don't bother trying to convert people any more.

[jon123]

Hi Kev,
yes I think my stat was a bit optimistic, however I don't think i am that far out.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
Yes it's only one set of stats but an important one nonetheless.

I don't know how you removed your hacks and suffer no problems, I wish I didn't. I have written a CMS and problems with centreing, alignment, indents you name it. I also can't remove the hacks because most people still use IE6 and will for quite some time.

I must admit, i don't have that much problem with CSS and FF but this is mainly because i base my CSS on FF and when I have got it right, I work on the problems I discover browsing using IE.

[kev woodman]

Sadly those stats are for people visiting W3C schools and they admit themselves that this skews their results.

I develop my CSS in IE first because I know that the overwhelming majority of my end-users are going to be using it but I don't think IE6 will have a dominant share for that long. IE7 is a required download now and although large organisations seem to be the slowest at upgrading it won't be long before the majority are using it.

If you mainly develop in FF then you're not really going to notice a 'problem' with the CSS, you know how it works, but there are tests for how well browsers comply with the W3C specification and FF isn't 100%.

[jon123]

Yes I agree. I used to base my CSS on IE first then cure the problems found on FF, but I found this very difficult. From a personal point of view, I usually find that it is much easier for me to concentrate on FF first then worry about IE.
I don't use moz hacks only IE. Yes it is not fully CSS compliant but it is not far off. Basing my code on FF I usually find 100% compliance with W3C which at the end of the day, is what I am looking for. There are certain CSS rules that FF ignores which I would find useful, be I tend to stick to what i know works.

Jon

[Kleky]

I use Firefox, and it's better than all other browsers according to me. It has a lot of options and a possibility of wide add-ons choice.
I really love it, but i hate that some sites open wrong in it.

[kev woodman]

I don't really use hacks as such anymore. I'd rather just use conditional commenting and serve up a seperate stylesheet for IE. If you want the tightest compliance you might be better off developing in Opera and then seeing how it turns out on FF/IE7.

[jon123]

Unfortunately conditional commenting only works on web pages not style sheets and would create more work for me to edit every page.
I don't have many hacks, maybe three, but am quite happy to use them for the time being.
Using FF to test css has served me well recently, I am quite happy with this method. Doesn't suit everyone but works for me. It is not that I require the "tightest compliance", it is just that creating css then making sure it is 100% free from error is a MUST before tackling any IE compatability.

[kev woodman]

If you disreagrd compliance though isn't the decision of whether CSS is 'free from error' dependent on the browser you're using to view a site. If you have a style sheet that works in FF but fails in IE it is only free from error for FF and vice versa. Chances are that most of your visitors are using IE so the style sheet is definitely not error-free for them.

I'm just interested because, as I said earlier, I used to develop like you until quitre recently and then for a recent project, which admittedly has a controlled user group of a few thousand members, I developed for IE with the intention of producing an FF sheet once the application was ready. Three months into use and I haven't received a single request for changes to the UI because of FF. As part of a recent usability excercise we polled all the users and asked them what browsers they were using and what UI changes they would like to see. We had a response rate at over 80% (the user group has a vested interest in replying as they use the app for most of their working day) and not a single one used FF.

Obviously this is not a particulalry representative situation but it made me think about habits I had evolved and whether I'd got my head stuck up my arse a bit.

[jon123]

If you disreagrd compliance though isn't the decision of whether CSS is 'free from error' dependent on the browser you're using to view a site. If you have a style sheet that works in FF but fails in IE it is only free from error for FF and vice versa. Chances are that most of your visitors are using IE so the style sheet is definitely not error-free for them.

I think you misunderstand me Kev, before I can test for compliance on different browsers it is important that the css you write is free from error, I think you'll agree. Using something like the w3c to validate css is what I am referring too when I wrote "free from error".

My main focus is to make sure that all my pages look and work correctly on IE (being the most used browser), it is just that I find it easier to test css firstly using FF, make any changed that I need, validate it then check how it looks on IE and Safari, etc.
I guess it is 'swings and roundabouts' on how one arrives at the finished product.

Interesting to read your poll results. I don't know of any business that doesn't use the 'standard' browser that is shipped with the pc (IE). Most business people I meet are oblivious to any other browser available. It seems to me though that many younger people who surf regulary use FF. Infact, on a few forums I frequent it appears most use FF or so they say!

Be interesting to see some 'real' stats on who's using what from someone impartial like the BBC website.

[kev woodman]

I fall into the trap of thinking that loads of people must use x because all the people I talk to use it depressingly regularly. I have to remind myself that I spend a lot of day talking to people who eat, sleep and breathe the Web. So the fact that they are using FF2 to browse their friends MySpace accounts while chatting on an IM and catching up with the news via RSS is not indicative of the way normal people behave

[Kleky]

Originally Posted by kev woodman

I fall into the trap of thinking that loads of people must use x because all the people I talk to use it depressingly regularly. I have to remind myself that I spend a lot of day talking to people who eat, sleep and breathe the Web. So the fact that they are using FF2 to browse their friends MySpace accounts while chatting on an IM and catching up with the news via RSS is not indicative of the way normal people behave

Now that's funny.
Really, it is true.

[jon123]

What's normal?

[panicattack]

I am using IE right now. What I didn't like about firefox is that I needed to install a lot of things to view certain websites. But after I have downloaded them, shockwave, java etc.. I can't remember all those plugins. It's been working fine for me. I just don't like that option wherein it asks you to save your password. But over IE, I'll be choosing firefox.

[kev woodman]

Yeah the term normal was intended to be taken with a wry smile. Perhaps 'majority' would have been a better choice.

I've realised recently that one of the main reasons I stick with FF for every day browsing is actually the extensions. I'm not sure whether I could live without Foxmarks or Firebug. I still think that FF has lost it's way a bit though.