Browser compatibility for a website

[sarah844]

When having a website built, what browsers should I make sure it shows up OK in?

I know about internet explorer say 6, 7 and 8 cos 5 is on its way out - is that right?

The Operara but how far back? There seems to be loads of versions in the 9's.

Safari 3, 4 and 5

Firefox, i'd say 3 and onwards but is that enough?

have I missed one that should be included?

 

[principleweb]

The ones you have listed should be fine.

If it's built to HTML standards it should work on all browsers... the only problems will be IE as it's not built to fully support HTML standards, albeit it got better with each version.

Personally, I wouldn't spend too long make it backwardly compatible with IE 6 if you get lots of problems with that browser, as it really shouldn't be in use anymore and Microsoft are trying to get anyone still on it to upgrade.

 

[Paul Norman]

Ignore IE 6, unless you can get it to work easily. Outside of local councils, it is now obsolete.

All the others - easy enough. As stated above IE 7 can present problems, but all are solvable!

 

[toastking]

Increasingly Chrome is being used and I can see it being used more in the future...

 

[CaterTrade]

Just use http://browsershots.org/ and use the preseleted options.

 

[J-Wholesale]

Ignore IE 6, unless you can get it to work easily. Outside of local councils, it is now obsolete.

Is that a wind up?

IE6 Stats for 3 separate website of mine, 1st an eCommerce site, 2nd a software site, 3rd a non-techie forum:

10.5% , 10.6%, 9.7%

We'd all prefer that IE6 not be used by anyone, but wishes don't make it so, and 10% is not an inconsequential amount.

 

[CaterTrade]

Indeed w3schools' data for May have IE6 users at 7.1% still

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

 

[popnoodles]

You should not waste time hacking your site to work in IE6.
That browser is over a decade old and not supported by Microsoft.

The trend is to now serve a warning on your website if viewed using IE6 advising the user to upgrade immediately. You'd be doing that 7% a favour.

The only problem is Microsoft messed up with IE8, it returning header info telling your server it's IE6! But there's a hack. There's always got to be a hack with IE. *sigh*

 

[sarah844]

THanks everyone and thanks Potnoodles for the idea of the warning to web visitors, thats a good idea.

What about Opera? Which versions. Or is it guaranteed that if site is built to w3c it will be OK anyway in all of them.

 

[drounding]

E-commerce sites must be compatible with IE6, yes it's a pain, and yes it's expensive to do so, but you can't ignore 7-10% of visitors.

 

[Inkywillow]

Unfortunately IE 6 is yet to fully roll over and die. So until it does we still have to cater for its users. There is nothing to stop you from building your website correctly and to standards but in my opinion serving an additional style sheet of ie6 specific hacks with an ie 6 conditional comment is time and money well spent. In fact the last site I built only required about 4 additional rules in order to sort out ie 6. When it does finally become obsolete all you need to do is remove the conditional comment and you are back to the clean code that you started with.

I'd check Chrome too.

 

[rachelandrew]

With regard to older browsers - IE6 and 7 - there is no reason your site should completely fail in those browsers but it is perfectly acceptable to give a simpler experience to users who have those browsers.

Our methodology these days is to develop in a standards compliant browser (latest Firefox, Chrome or Safari usually) then test and fix things for Internet Explorer 8, 7 then 6. Depending on the design sometimes we drop effects for IE6 that it can't support. As an example IE6 does not have support for transparent PNG images. You can hack in support with IE filters but this can cause loads of other issues such as form elements becoming unclickable and so on, it is not worth the hours spent to get it to look exactly the same in IE6 for a dwindling number of people. However we can get a good effect if not an identical one by using a solid background and replacing the PNGs with gifs for IE6. Users get a good experience just not as pretty as the latest browser versions.

I would not show upgrade messages or anything else to users of IE6, they most likely have no choice as to which browser they use so that would just be irritating, and with a little thought you can provide a decent if not identical experience without blowing the budget.

 

[sarah844]

This thread has trailed off into IE6 so, apart from that, any suggestions about Opera and how far back?

 

[Inkywillow]

Sorry but it does seem to have that effect on people

I would think that testing in 9.5 and above would be sufficient for Opera or maybe 9 if you really wanted to really be on the ball but usage percentages are getting pretty small by that point, before version 9 probably isn't worth developing for in most cases.

I agree with Rachel that gracefully degrading the site is a much better way of handling the issue of older browsers and with the right approach doesn't usually add that much to development time.

 

[abpublish]

This thread has trailed off into IE6 so, apart from that, any suggestions about Opera and how far back?

I think most opera users tend to update very quickly. I wouldn't go back any further than 9.0.

Also, if your coding is standards compliant, the site will probably comfortably work back beyond version 5.

 

Internet Explorer.... YUK YUK YUK! Can you tell I'm not a fan

I've got Opera 9 which I've been testing in as well as Firefox and Safari. Occasionally Chrome but I tend to find that the only real problems for happen in IE.

 

[sarah844]

Thanks for all your advice, will duly follow.