Browsers

The browser is what you view a web page through. What you are looking at right now is the display of this web site through a browser. The most common browser on the market is IE, that is, Microsoft Internet Explorer. At the time of this writing Netscape is the second most used browser. The AOL browser is right up there too, but that's another issue. AOL now owns Netscape so you'll be seeing a lot of changes in the future with the AOL browser. Opera is another. Matter of fact there are too many. From a web designers point of view, there should only be one browser. Why? I knew you'd ask. Well, it's because each of these browsers displays each and every web page differently. No two browsers are going to display exactly the same. It's a webmasters nightmare. The only thing we can do is to design with IE in mind, since it's by far the most used browser, while keeping in mind there are certain things that Netscape won't display.

Early on in this tutorial I told you to use IE as your browser. No other browser will display the HTML Area boxes we've used throughout the site. The bordercolor attribution to the <table> command I've used in this tutorial does not work on Netscape. So ... you see the dilemma.

For the most part you can concentrate on what you site looks like in Netscape and IE. Shoot for everything to display in both browsers. How to you accomplish this? Well, do your work, and then check it in both browsers. Yes, that means keeping both browsers on your computer and using them both. They are both free so it's not really a problem. As to the rest of the field ... well, I have to admit I do not even try to use them, or care about them. Most other webmasters tell me this is not a good practice. I'm apt to lose some visitors because they may not be able to see what my site holds for them. Well, I know they are right, to an extent, but ... and you need to make this decision for yourself ... the number of people visiting using Opera and the other oddball browsers are few and far between. It's just easier for me to let those visitors see what they see, than it is for me to go through all the extra time and energy to design and check for those browsers. I have other things to do.

Some webmasters use a script to detect what browser is being used. Then they redirect you to the page that is designed for that particular browser. So if you were using Netscape they'd redirect you to their index2.html page designed for Netscape and if you used IE you'd see their index1.html page designed for IE. Lot's of work. You decide if it is important enough to persue. Personally, I don't do it.

I'm certainly not a fan of MicroSoft products, but there is not much a webmaster can do about this problem. Time will undoubtedly fix many of these indiscrepancies, but of course, time will also create a lot more problems too. Do I sound pessimistic? Well, time will tell now won't it!

Well, a lot has changed since I wrote this. I'm updating this page today, 11-05-2006, to include some very new information about the browser wars.

Netscape has pretty much fallen by the wayside. I haven't heard of anyone using it in quite a while now. Replacing the Netscape itself browser is Firefox, a very good browser, based on Mozilla, and handles things pretty much like Netscape.

From a developers point of view, and that's you by the way, it is a great tool that many a webmaster has said "I wouldn't develop without it". I will be adding a new page pretty soon about Firefox, and all the plugins that are available for it, and that you, as a webmaster, just can't do without. Meanwhile why don't you Google to Firefox, download and install it.