Which browser do you mainly design for?

This is really a trick question because if you follow the W3C standards your site will render perfectly in any Gecko based browser (Mozilla, Firebird, Camino, Netscape etc.) or KHTML (Safari) so you don't have to choose.

The problem is that many web designers aren't doing their job and are convinced they only have to design for IE since its 95% of their traffic. However, if you think about it people would die to see a 5% improvement in their traffic. Another way of thinking about it is if you went to a site that didn't render properly, would you go back? This effects the statistics even more since people will just leave your site instead of checking it out.

If you use IE only code or active X then you are seriously compromising your cross-browser compatability so don't forget to check out your sites with other browsers to make sure your not missing out on quality traffic.

Rob

I design first for standards (when possible) ... most of the time it works in all browsers. However, there is some stuff (especially with CSS2) that older NS 4.x browsers don't support. And the other bugger is that even though Netscape sorta created JavaScript -- one has to be careful how one uses that because a lot of Frontpage and Dreamweaver generated Javascript code doesn't always work with Mozilla/Netscape stuff.

It's a royal pain to do cross-browser compatability coding, but the closer one sticks to standards, the better chance you have of getting it all to work.

(How'd I do? -- I think I said all that without being committed to a particular browser -- although, obviously, since as you stated about 95% of viewers use some version of IE 5.0 or higher why should any of us care so much? -- we really should though -- just wish the browser wars would end and give us all a standard that we can be comfortable coding for.)

I try and code cross-browser as best as I can. Admittedly there are times when my CSS coding doesn't come out quite the same in different browsers and I let that slide, but thats about it. If it is something little that doesn't really deserve a big fuss over I am not going to bust my hump trying to figure out a cross browser solution, but if it makes a big difference I will go the extra mile to fix my coding.

generally, I just design and it usually works out that I might need to
update and fix small things here and there. But usually, it's not for IE or
NS, but for Mozilla or Opera or Mac.

I generally don't go out of my way to make sure it's perfect, but someone
tells me when they see it and I fix it then.

Unflux: Netscape, Mozilla, and Firebird all run off of the same engine (Gecko) so they should all display sites the same way

OK a question, then...understanding the Mozilla/Gecko based browers...I can't see (don't have anything AOL) --can I assume AOL is Gecko based also? And re: MSN --- I think I have to assume that is IE based?


In other words, if I see it display OK in IE and Mozilla should I asume it displays OK in AOL and MSN -- that has always been a question for me.

Well now that AOL and Netscape are attached at the hip AOL has switched to Netscape as their default browser which means yes they are Gecko based now. Well I think, but who knows what the heck AOL is made out of. Probably recycled scraps from a garbage dump.

And MSN is Microsoft, Micosoft created IE so of course they use it

And last but not least, yes that is a safe assumption.

AOL planned to switch to Gecko based, and I think there was a beta version with it, but they signed an agreement with MS to continue using their bastardized version of IE for the forseeable future and have stopped Netscape development entirely.

On my system with aol 7 it displays pages much the same as the external IE but without access to IE's toolbars and favorites (you have to use aol's crap). Thankfully, I'm getting cable internet this thursday, so no more aol for me.

Are you sure about this? AOL 8.0 is what was supposed to have begun the AOL+Netscape Hybrids. And if AOL decided to stick with IE then why does netscape.net still advertise AOL stuff (like AOL Broadband) and why does AOL Time Warner still have AOL affilliated with Netscape? ( http://www.aoltimewarner.com/companies/aol_index.adp )

This confuses me.


As for your issue with IE and AOL 7, why don't you just open up the actual IE that comes installed with windows? You have to sign onto AOL, but the standard IE works after that. When I had that POS ISP I would sign on to AOL throw my away message on and minimize it then cruise using the regular IE.

I'm positive. It was an 8.0 beta that had the gecko-based browser, but I installed the 8.0 production release and it's still IE. I later uninstalled it because it didn't really add anything useful and was slower to load.

We've already had the "netscape is officially dead discussion" in the general forum:

http://www.ozzu.com/viewtopic.php?t=1131

I've been using the external version of IE since aol 3.0 many years ago, but I still use the internal browser to peek at my pages when I update them just to make sure they look okay.

As far as the other stuff, aol still owns the netscape brand name, but they've stopped development on the browser.

I just researched it a little and it turns out that the motivating factor for dropping netscape in favor of continuing with IE was the settlement of the old NE/MS antitrust lawsuit. The settlement has MS paying AOL (Netscape's parent) $750 million and giving them a 7 year royalty-free license to keep using IE. Apparently AOL decided to keep using IE royalty-free instead of paying to continue netscape development.

Kind of ironic that the settlement of the NE/MS suit actually seems to have lead to the end of netscape.

some articles that I read:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/07/16/HNaol_1.html
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2 ... 263,00.asp
http://www.wininformant.com/Articles/In ... leID=39145
http://news.com.com/2100-1032-1011296.html?tag=nl

I fully agree with this. Down with the browser wars allready!

Hi Rob,

I design my sites generally to IE - i test them in netscape but thats about it. When i first started designing it gave me a friggen headache trying to please IE, Mozilla, Opera, Netscape browsers etc and all the different screen resolutions. All my sites show 97-99% of users come via IE.

WOW...where am I Living, i didn't know aol and netscape were together

I never knew it either :/ is that true? because when i had aol a few years ago it always ran off of IE.