Cross-Browser Compatibility: Now There's No Excuse

Good for Google, great for business, better for everyone

At the start of 2004, Internet Explorer 6 and its earlier versions had a near monopoly on browser market share. It was assumed that a website which worked well on Internet Explorer was 'the perfect website'. So Internet Explorer was seen as the de facto standard.

In the middle part of the same year came Mozilla Firefox, which rose from the ashes of Netscape Navigator. By the end of this year, designing websites for one browser ceased to be the rule.

We as designers till then became complacent and designed sites for the most popular browser with a 'devil may care' attitude to Mac users and Linux users (where Internet Explorer was unavailable). Five years on, cross-browser compatibility has become mainstream. Our browsing habits have changed since then; netbooks, mobile internet and Wi-fi has made it possible to browse our favoured sites on the train as well as at the desk. The success of Apple's iPhone has also seen a favourable shift towards mobile browsing.

Apple's iPhone and Google's Android is a world away from five years ago when mobile browsing was considered the exception rather than the norm. Internet access on mobile phones (if you were lucky) was slow and offered no real alternative to broadband or dial-up.

Nowadays, designing a website for use on one browser is both narrow minded and foolhardy. Current trends point the way towards websites which work well on mobile phones as well as PC/Mac web browsers. This can be done by creating alternate CSS styles for use on printed media and mobile phones as well as PCs.

For several years, cross-browser compatibility has also been a condition of entry into some web directories and search engines. Google is no exception to this, and rewards websites which work with Firefox, Safari, Opera, and its very own Chrome as well as Internet Explorer.

Cross-browser compatibility is also good for business. If the website loads quickly on his/her iPhone as well as his/her new PC, and has good quality content, he or she will return. If it works on his/her mobile phone, Linux box, iMac or Vista powered PC with Firefox, conversions on other browsers besides IE will improve. With the dominant browser losing share to Firefox and the iPhone, now's the time to test your site on as many browsers as possible.

What's more, you don't even have to install Safari, Opera, Firefox or Chrome onto your PC. For years, BrowserCam.com has offered a browser testing, albeit at a cost. In the last month, Gomez.com has launched a free equivalent to BrowserCam. A future posting on this blog may focus on Gomez.com's new service in the form of a review.

For further information, I recommend reading the Google's Webmaster Central blog's article entitled 'Working On All Browsers'.

Mancunian1001, 21 July 2009

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