Browser Wars Episode VI: Return of the Mac

brad@bradbice.com (Brad Bice) — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve switched over almost completely to Google Chrome after being a Firefox loyalist since it was first called Firebird. I even contributed to the Firefox 1.0 project and got my name in the New York Times.

But after a while Firefox’s memory leaks and constant slowness got to me and sometime around the beginning of last year I changed over completely to Google Chrome. What sold me on it was definitely not the UI (aka the “chrome”) but rather Google Sync, which allowed me to have my bookmarks sync across any computer I was signed into (home, work and phone.) Also, Chrome uses Webkit so they were usually leading the charge in supporting new web standards.

I’ve been looking for quality alternatives to pretty much any Google product lately, so I’ve been browser shopping. Lately I tried a complete switchover to Safari, seeing as how I’m pretty much married to Apple products (our household has 2 iPhones, 2 iPads, a Mac Mini, a Macbook Air, and an Apple TV… all marvelously synced in the Apple-ecosphere. Oh, and yes we have home owners insurance.) However, Safari turned out to be very slow, a pretty significant UI changeover from Chrome, and had a few other minor annoyances that I just could not get past.

I went crawling back to Chrome for a couple of weeks, but I’m trying Safari again. I’m not entirely sure why but maybe the minimalistic nature of it appeals to me. Some of the small unique quirks of Safari are growing on me, but there a few things I would like to see either changed or made optional:

Resizable tabs - If I have 4 tabs open, don’t stretch them to fill the full width of the window. Or at least make this a setting.
Right-click, Open in New Tab - Allow me to put this option above Open in New Window in the right-click menu
Sync settings - iCloud syncs bookmarks and tabs, well how about browser settings? I don’t want to have to remember settings for each of my computers
Allow me to move the refresh button - I’m not sure why they would bury it in the address bar ala Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer 6 compatibility

brad@bradbice.com (Brad Bice) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Internet Explorer 6 is the bane of web developers everywhere, much like Netscape 4 was in the early 2000s. How do we support IE6 users without going crazy?

There is a growing campaign in the web development community calling for the death of version 6 of the Internet Explorer browser by Microsoft. Introduced in 2001, it had ruled the market share of browser usage for years until the coming of Mozilla’s Firefox and Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer 7.

I did a quick Google search for the term “ie6” and found a startling six “death to ie6” websites on just the first two pages of results. These include:

Bring Down IE6
STOP IE6
IE6 Update
IE Death March
DearIE6
Stop IE6

And one likely parody, SaveIE6.

Update 2023-03-05 All but one of those no longer exists, appropriately, since IE6 is no longer a large issue.

One of the main reasons for the IE6 hate is its lack of support for web standards such as full CSS 2.1 compliance and PNG alpha transparency. Another is its many security issues which come with being the top browser for approximately 5 years. While no browser available supports every standard, even IE7 at least supports a larger contingent of CSS 2.1 selectors, PNG alpha transparency and is a little better on security.

While it may seem easier to point visitors to new browsers like Mozilla’s Firefox, Opera, Google’s Chrome, Apple’s Safari or even Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8, it is important to note that some people either can not or will not upgrade. Many business computers still run IE6, and will do so for years to come. So what is the solution for web developers who want to escape having to “fix” their websites for IE6?

Andy Clarke, a member of the Web Standards Project and a former invited expert to the W3C’s CSS Working Group, provided a solution that I find appealing. Since the content of a website is most important, make sure that content is viewable and accessible to users of IE6 by providing them with an IE6-only CSS stylesheet. This renders the page in a very readable and organized yet generic design while separating the main design for others using more current and advanced browsers.

This is done by inserting IE conditional comments into the <head> portion of your website’s HTML, like so:

<!--[if IE 6]><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="ie6.0.3.css" media="screen, projection" /><![endif]-->

The stylesheet code is available on Google Code for anyone to use for free. I am using it on this website as a mere 10% of my visitors are currently browsing with IE6. It is important that designers and developers view their logs and stats to determine what browsers to support. I will usually adapt my design for IE6 (or any other browser) if more than 30% of my visitors are using it.

As Jeffrey Zeldman said when referring to Clarke’s method, “no solution, however elegant, will work for every situation.” But work like this will allow for an easier transition as the world upgrades.