An article on web browser compatibility, including browser recommendations

Given that website design and construction is a key component of the services offered by Lapdog Productions we felt it necessary to provide some insight into why we chose to build our site as we did — particularly for those with browsers that may not display this site as intended.

The Struggle for Browser Compatibility

Probably the greatest struggle faced by website design firms over the years has been in getting a website to look and behave the same way in various web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, and Opera, to name a few. Why the struggle? Because each of these browsers interprets the code that produces a web page differently—and different interpretations produce different visible results. The same web page might look different to viewers using Netscape than it does to those using Internet Explorer. To compound the problem each of these browsers has been released across time in different versions, each of which interprets code differently. The same website viewed with Netscape 4.0 will almost certainly look radically different (in a bad way) when compared to Netscape 7.0. If a web developer has not accounted for these differences, the layout of the site might be disjointed, its content hard to read, and the page will generally not look its best to all site visitors.

The Problem

Unfortunately, there is simply no way to build an attractive site with all the features that Internet users have come to expect and have that site look 100% perfect to everyone. Web developers can account for differences in browser interpretations to a large degree, but to build a site that looks perfect and which incorporates recent helpful developments in page design and construction is impossible. There will always be folks who have browsers that pre-date advances in web design and there will always be browsers that don't quite interpret the code as expected. So what does a web developer do? If older browsers are accommodated then users of newer browsers will have to do without the features they've come to expect. If newer browsers are accommodated then users of older browsers may have great difficulty viewing the page. If a site is designed exclusively for Internet Explorer then users of Firefox will have to tolerate layout issues and vice versa since the two are inconsistent in their interpretations of code. Obviously a line has to be drawn as to which browsers are essential to a website's success before it is constructed.

Drawing the Line

Given that everyone cannot be accommodated, web developers need to at least aim for giving the most number of visitors an enjoyable experience free of distracting visible and functional quirks. It follows then that web developers focus their quest for browser compatibility by a site's potential audience, while accommodating unpopular and older browsers only to the extent that they do not interfere with or diminish the experience for the majority of visitors.

Accommodating inconsistencies in code interpretation between the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox is a worthwhile pursuit as these browsers are extremely popular. Accommodating an old unpopular browser such as Netscape 4.0 would not only be unproductive, it would compromise the browsing experience for everyone else (especially in light of the fact, that web users can download the newest most popular browsers for free).

Back to this Site

In drawing the line for browser compatibility for this site we primarily factored in browser popularity, which neatly dovetailed with our desire to build this site as somewhat of a model of what can be done with the techniques available to web developers today. The site's code is W3C compliant XHTML, which basically ensures that it will look and function well in browsers to come. The layout of this site is controlled exclusively by Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) through which, in effect, a page's content can be separated from its design. If properly utilized CSS can be used to make global changes to a site's layout, allowing fast edits and greatly simplifying maintenance of the site. A further benefit to the full utilization of CSS is the reduction in the amount of code necessary to display a web page, especially advantageous for improved search engine indexing. We initially planned to employ CSS to replace the navigational rollovers that are traditionally the domain of Javascript—which would have resulted in faster downloading rollovers that visitors with Javascript disabled would still be able to use. However, issues with some 5.x browsers prevent such CSS rollovers from even being seen and, given the importance of a site's navigation, we chose to err on the side of allowing those with older browsers to at least be able to get around the site.

We hope that you thoroughly enjoy your visit to LapdogPro.com and, by all means, contact us if we can assist you in developing an attractive, well functioning web presence for your business, product or service.