The question of cross browser compatibility is a common topic among Web developers. Should you or should you not make your website cross-browser accommodating? In this article by Matt Benya and brought to you by the good folks at
SitePro News, we look at the age old problem of creating a site that covers all the major browsers and keeping everyone happy.
Are You Cross-Browser Compatible?By Matt Benya
The question of cross browser compatibility is a common topic among Web developers. Should you or should you not make your website cross-browser accommodating? The answer is yes and especially if you are an e-business. As Ripley would say, "believe it or not" but at the time of this article slightly more than 20% of Internet users use a browser other than Internet Explorer. This information comes from
W3Schools.com, which has been keeping tabs on browser usage since January 2002.
How Do You Shape Up?
Use of alternative browsers has only been going up, they are no longer a niche community made up of "techies" and anti-Microsoft advocates, they are your everyday user, your potential customers.
If you haven't done so already I would suggest that you look at your website in some of the other common browsers available. These include:
Mozilla: This is currently the top browser after IE6 and it is one of the most feature rich browsers available today. I would personally suggest looking into Firefox Mozilla's next generation browser as opposed to the entire Mozilla suite due to its end user friendliness and feature rich environment.
Opera: The Opera browser has been making its way up the competitive ladder of the browser arena since 2000 when Opera Software ASA released Opera 5. Though it is frëe to download and use, if you want to access some of the browser's features you are required to pay a small registration fee.
Netscape: Since Netscape provided the code base for Mozilla in 1998 when they made the source code for their flag ship product Netscape Communicator open-source there is little difference between the two browsers. Still it doesn't hurt to see how things shape up between the two, and since they are ultimately two different browsers checking them both is not a bad idea.
Additionally there are programs available that can test your site for you in different browsers and screen resolutions and return their findings. One such program is
Browser Photo from NetMechanic.
What Can You Do?
Okay so lets say that our site www.ihaveanerror.com comes up with a couple of errors that cause it to render incorrectly when we look at it in some of the alternative browsers. How are we going to fix the problem? Well the first thing we want to do is stay away from any propriety html tags a certain browser type might offer. These tags will only work properly in the browser they are designed for and may cause trouble for you in others. An example of a proprietary tag would be