Readers Respond: What Web Browsers Do You Use? and Why?

When we build web pages, we are building documents designed to be viewed in web browsers. Find out what browsers other web designers prefer to use for daily web browsing as well as what browsers and versions they use for testing. And share your own thoughts on your favorite and least favorite browsers and why.

Retesting after fixes

I strongly support the documentation process! The person who does most of the testing of new platform launches has been getting a lot of criticism lately because she doesn't document her tests; she runs through a scenario, finds something broken, tells the developer what's broken, he fixes it, then she runs through a similar, but not identical, scenario and finds something else broken. She gets extremely frustrated because she feels like the problem is not getting fixed. She's been asked to document the exact steps for each of her tests, but she's been doing this for 10 years, so it's a difficult adjustment for her. One thing that's not mentioned: after you finish retesting the specific parts that you've fixed, you should run through a full test suite on your site again. It's amazing how many times fixing Bug A creates Bug B on another section of the site where you'd least expect it.

—kes_web_cnc

"Internet Explorer" has been a typo

The penultimate 'r' should more properly be a 'd', at least for any version prior to 9. (Reasonable developers may disagree about 9 itself.) One friend of mine, who runs a Web dev group for a chain of well-known stores here, has a sign above his desk that reads, "Getting things to work right in most browsers takes 90% of the time. // Getting them to work right in IE takes the other 900%." Sites that I build work properly in recent non-IE browsers. (Chrome 5+, FF 3+, Opera 9+, etc.) I do not warrant IE, even though my standards tools individually claim support for it. I will usually test in IE 8 and/or 9 to fix anything blindingly obvious if the customer specifically requests that I do so. But a prospect emailing me and saying "I need a site that works in IE6" or IE7 will receive a quote that is triple the cost of the same work without mention of IE. It is quite likely to cost me that much extra to do the work; why shouldn't I get paid for it?

—jeff_dickey

IE is a pain...

Hello! Yes, I am one of those thinking that IE is a pain in the back bone(and I kept it mild... very...). I *always* design my sites in FF first, then add hacks for specific browsers. I personally like FF better(and it's my default) because it has relatively quick updates and with the extensions allows you to do pretty neat things, while creating an extension for IE is... uh... don't even get me started on this ;-) Andrea

—Guest Andrea Raimondi

IE the bane of existence

For me, like many other web design professionals, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is the bain of our lives. We have to suffer it rather than enjoy designing for it! It is one of the most retrograde web browsers going, but trying to motivate an apathetic audience to move to using Firefox or updating their existing IE to the latest version is an uphill struggle. Of course, some users who work for the governement or NHS (or other large public sector bodies) are forced to use IE 6 because their entire IT and online security systems are geared towards this. Thankfully Safari for the Mac is, like Firefox for the PC, a “designers browser” – a very forward thinking browser. Using the Gecko engine means that things like HTML5 and CSS 3 were built in a couple of years ago whereas Microsoft are only just getting round to feeding this in. It also means that there is a whole community of developers who aren’t thinking of market remuneration; rather of real progress. Making the web a better, more cr

—Dorset Web Design Company

Designing Sites for IE old and coming up

When I design a website, I make sure it can be viewed in IE as well as Firefox and Safari. The trick is CSS style sheets! Using a CSS file like IEhacks.css with specific instructions for IE to follow is essential to proper viewing. Check out the source of www.trigwebdesign.com for an example. If you use Firefox, you can even click the CSS in my source and see the code! Feel free to use, it's for everyone! Let's make the web a better place.

—Guest Charlie Trig