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I was reading this article on browsing testing javascript and css over at 456 Berea St and found it interesting to see the browser test ordering for a Mac user - FF, Safari, the rest...'the rest' included a bunch of browsers I didn't even think of. Goes to show my lack of true Mac exposure.
Doing most of my dev in Windows, the Mac unfortunately comes last in test. Starts with FF, then IE (7 then 6), quick run in Opera then over to FF Mac, Safari and Camino. Trying to support Safari has been a little problematic, mainly because of the rich text editor we're using - but we're working on that one.
How comprehensive is your browser testing these days?
"doesn't work in FF (Unix version), then it's not good" ... is that good?
works for me!
no, i dont do web dev ...
Who else hates IE?
*raises hand*
First post, *also raises hand*
My browser testing is similar to yours. Unless the client stipulates compliance in older/certain browsers (and then therefor it's factored into budget), I stick with the main ones.
Just quickly looking at the stats for the last week on a 'typical' website: IE - 85.7%, FF - 10.7%, Safari - 2.8%, Opera 0.5%. Cover 99.7% of people hitting the site.
Yeah, IE is still up there...at least IE7 is an improvement.
I also hate IE, but I have to admit IE7 is getting better.
I'm about the same, rhands. I know there are still (unfortunately) a lot of IE5.x and previous, IE Mac, FF 1.0.x, etc. users, but they are a minority by a long shot. DaRKoN_'s browser stats look right (though different versions of each rendering engine aren't included), and I think covering 99.7% of your users and asking the others to move to more standard/current browsers is fair. Unless of course you work for the government, and then you gotta remember about text-based browsers, aural browsers, etc. It gets pretty ridiculous.
Just checked out our stats here and we have FF coming in at 72%, IE 19%, Safari 4%, then Opera, Camino and Konqueror
With FF, FF2 is way ahead at 80%, IE 6 usage is still ahead at 65%
Any site related to web dev or standards will have significantly higher FF usage due to the, shall we say, enlightened users of such sites.
heheh, can't argue with you there
I have to shamefully admit, though, that I'm using IE7 right now. Just to see the differences in how it renders the site, of course...
of course
"DaRKoN_'s browser stats look right (though different versions of each rendering engine aren't included)" - True
I guess the big concern is how prevalent is the older versions of IE are. I'm going to use the same stats from the same site (it's not a technology based site, so hence probably a bit more indicative of real world values). All of this is pinched from Google Analytics:
IE6 - 77.33%, IE7 - 21.74%. = ~99%. The final percentage point of IE usage is a mix of 5.01 (0.48), 5.5 (0.22), 5.23 (0.09), 5.17 (0.09) and finally 5.0 (at 0.04%)
Concluding thoughts are: With regard to IE, design for IE6 and 7 and forget the rest. 
Agreed.
Especially since IE Mac will no longer be developed or supported. Speaking of, have you all seen the old 1997 keynote where Steve Jobs announced that IE would be the default browser for Mac OS? Hilarious! I've never seen a keynote with so many "boo's" before!
Gotta check that out...i'll embed for the benefit of others...
I follow the same pattern as you, Rhands. But we also have to cover IE5.5 at work (although I don't for personal projects)
Still, at my last job I regularly had to consider Netscape 4.72, so I'm willing to accept testing to IE5.5
Whoa, Netscape 4.72...lucky you moved on
Since I installed IE7, I've found it a little more effort to test earlier versions (6 & 5.5) - I've tried to use things like Multiple IEs, and for the most part they've worked, but here and there I'd find weird problems going on with javascript that I couldn't figure out. But when I use a true installation of IE 6 (on another machine) the problems don't appear. Just takes away my confidence during testing.
Should use the IE team's special VPC instance. Hang on, I'll find you a link
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/11/30/ie6-and-ie7-running-on-a-single-machine.aspx
Brilliant stuff. Exactly the same as a true install
Ah yeah, I've used that method too. Worked well but became really annoying since it took too long to start up and then run my VPC instance (on my old laptop). Might give it another try with my *new* machine. Even try it with Virtual PC 2007.
I've been bad recently, well the last few months! ever since I got a mac and I've been at uni I've not been able to test sites in IE.But asz long as its all valid its usually fine though I can imaging if I was doing more than really basic javascript I might kill someone with all the IE annoyances!
"I've not been able to test sites in IE.But asz long as its all valid its usually fine"
You have actually used IE before right?
lol yes! but I wouldn't say any of the sites I make are hugely complicated lol! They work "usually" lol! Occasionally theres some sort of error with margins etc.
Browsershots a good different browsers testing tool
Thanks for the link Nithar, I've been looking for something like that. However, these are all just Linux browsers, and the wait time is awful.
I need these things immediatly, theres no point waiting ages for something that your going to move 5px to the left!
+1, You need to be able to make a change and verify immediatly. There is a service (the name escapes me at the moment) that allows you to run other browsers in a VM sort of enviroment. Not free sadly, but is a good idea.
Update, it's not actually VM, it was a web based service.
Are you Tangler guys doing any automated browser testing? If so, what are you using?
Nope, haven't evaluated any good tools for that. Plus you unfortuantely can't use them to test css rendereing across browsers.
Thanks for the Apple video, I had not seen that. I like the way B Gates says Macintosh.
I am always surprised that my websites have a higher percentage of visitors using Firefox than might be expected; my sites are not technical in nature at all. I was also quite surprised that I had no glaring problems to deal with when I first viewed them in IE7. Must be dumb luck but I am not complaining.
My big worry is that I am unable to test in Safari. I tried http://www.danvine.com/icapture/ but it seems to be broken for me. Old machines are not a problem for me, I have lots laying around running different stuff but I haven't been able to afford a modern Mac yet. Maybe I better step up on the billable hours...
i hate IE... totally. especially when im the coder.
for cross browser viewing, you guys might wanna try this out.
I use Sitevista ... it is a pay service, but it is super fast and super easy. I love it.
@vishal: i do hate IE, but when you are developing/designing a web site you *must* consider the browser 80% of ppl use
^^ Absolutely. What I think the point most of us are trying to make is that there is no point doing browser testing in 15 different obscure browsers. IE(6/7), FF, Safari and Opera will get you 99.7% of people hitting your site. Unless there are some requirements for specific browser compliance, I would not even consider testing in anything else - all it does is drag the the project out.
I'm in web design/development to make a living - to do that I can't spend hours testing in browsers to cater to 0.3% of web users that want to be a bit different. Chances are if they are having troubles with your site, then they would be having trouble in a lot of sites out there.
I tried Virtual PC 2007 on Vista and totally fucked up my system, luckily I had system restore
Now I'm using VMware and works fine
