Years ago, there was only one web browser that mattered, Internet Explorer! I know, shame on me. Today, you say the “IE” word around any web designer and they will cringe with bitter angst due to countless hours spent staring monotonously at their monitor trying to figure out WHAT IS WRONG!
With word of Google Chrome entering into the web browsing market, it really put a sour taste in my mouth. As designers, we follow a specific set of web standards to ensure that our websites will look identical from browser to browser and operating system to operating system. The problem is, with all of the newcomers to the web browsing industry; we have to keep debugging new issues!
Let’s back up a bit. Internet Explorer 6, in its day, was the only web browser to use. Microsoft had a monopoly on the web browsing market, so whatever Internet Explorer did became the standard. Because of this, sites were built specifically for Internet Explorer 6 and did not follow valid HTML rules, and bad code was interrupted as “working” code.
Then comes Mozilla’s Firefox into the equation! Great! Finally a web browser that follows the W3C Standards. Mozilla decided that it was going to follow the proper rules set out by all of the standards boards. Now the fun begins!
So, bring in Firefox 2, don’t forget that every browser will need some sort of upgrade at one point. Now we have Firefox 3! Great, IE 6 is around but don’t worry, IE 7 will maybe kinda sorta help clean up some of those bugs. Oh no, here comes IE 8 which is released in Beta! You also can’t discount all of the new users who have moved over to Apple because they have Safari 2 on their machines which has just been replaced by Safari 3! If you’re head’s not spinning already, don’t worry because now we get Google Chrome, WHICH by the way, is only released for XP and Vista, not Apple. Did I mention Apple iPhones or BlackBerrys?
That was a mouth full!
The issue isn’t that we have a plethora of great new browsers; the issue is that the old disheveled web browsers are still being used.
According to w3schools.com, 24.5% of all users online are using IE 6, as of August.
On a daily basis, we consistently have to code, re-code, hack, and re-hack valid XHTML & CSS to fit every browser across the board. The biggest of which, happens to be Internet Explorer 6.
As a project manager and designer, I can honestly say that for an average website, it can take 6-8 hours to create XHTML and CSS for basic templates. Then, it will approximately take another 2-3 hours, depending on the complexity of the site to get it to work in all browsers, specifically IE 6. We’ve spent countless hours, re-coding for IE6, so much so, I probably don’t even want to know the true number.
We keep adding web browsers to the equation, but haven’t taken any away yet. With 24% of the market using a tool like IE 6, which must be getting close to 8 years old, we’re still forced to find new ways to hack backwards and make them work on old browsers.
Personally, I use Firefox 3 and tend to like it the most. Safari has had some compliancy issues in the past with forms and simple WYSIWYG editors that really turned me off of their browser.
I wish I had a solution and could wave my magic browser wand and get everyone to upgrade form IE 6, but who knows when we’ll get to stop pulling our hair out supporting IE 6.
Can’t we get everyone to upgrade from Internet Exploder 6!