browser compatability

[bobmurphy]

what is the easiest way of checking your page in different browsers/platforms/computers -- i suppose some smartalec will tell me to download all the browsers but seriously is there a good website or better still a bit of software ( preferably free or cheap) -- i tried http://www.delorie.com/web/wpbcv.html but i found it very time consuming to use ...

also ... most people using my site use MSIE 6.0, 5.5 or 5.0 --- i'm not too worried about alienating some of the others (though i plan on having some kind of browser detector to switch to a plain text page anyway) ... but what are the other major browsers used ? ... as i look into the site logs on the server and there are some browsers in there an a load of search engine bots; but it's hard to tell what is definitely a browser -- are there any definitive lists of commonly used browsers ???


thanks:D

[spufi]

Considering how many people use IE, I would argue no other browser is really "commonly used" because the next most used browser after IE 5 and IE 6 doesn't even ballpark 10% use, 5% maybe. The other ones to know about are Netscape, Mozilla, and Opera. Netscape and Mozilla are basicaly the same thing. I would look at older versions of Netscape for comparing old browsers, and for newer ones, I would more worry about Mozilla. Just note that all three browsers I listed in even somewhat current versions are still better than IE 6.

Spufi(uses Mozilla)

[AdamGundry]

By far the most common browser is IE - see http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2003/May/browser.php. I also use Mozilla, which should render pages similarly to recent versions of Netscape. The easiest way I find to make pages compatible with older browsers is code to standards - fully compliant XHTML and CSS make your page work on most browsers. It may not look pretty, but it should work.

Adam (uses Mozilla)

[DaveSW]

A couple of pcs works best for me

Dave (uses Opera 7.1)

[bobmurphy]

...... is it just to thumb your noses at Bill Gates or is there some better functionality in the others .... excuse me but apart from an hour using opera, a bit of a go on nn4.7 i dont really know much -- ( i recently downloaded mozilla 1.4 and nn 7.1 to test the site on --- tell me what things i should be looking out for to convince me to change .... if you have a minute that is ...... thanks)

:cool: :cool: :cool:


ps thanks a mil for all your replies to the origional question --- very helpfull ..... thanks again !!!:)

[AdamGundry]

Reasons why Mozilla is better than IE, in no particular order (my personal biases): Tabbed browsing
Better standards compliance
Web development tools - e.g. JS Debugger
Finer Javascript control
Popup blocking
Open source :cool:
More secure

...need I go on?

Adam

[Charles]

Originally posted by bobmurphy
what is the easiest way of checking your page in different browsers/platforms/computers --Make sure that you page validates as HTML 4.01 Strict, XHTML 1.0 Strict or XHTML 1.1 (http://validator.w3.org/) and make sure that you have followed all level one and level 2 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/full-checklist.html). Do that and your page will work on all browsers.