Internet Explorer still dominates browser stakes

Internet Explorer still holds a dominating 60% market share in web browsers. With all the hype around Google Chrome and Firefox, its easy to forget that most users are actually quite happy with IE. With IE9 due out very soon (update: IE9 is out now), Microsoft could even increase its browser share, as IE9 promises to pack some serious performance punch, thanks to its use of hardware accelerated graphics to render web pages faster than any current browser. However, it sounds like IE9 will not run on XP, which is a shame since it may mean IE6 lives a little longer yet. IE6 is notoriously difficult to for web developers to support due do the fact that it behaves a bit differently to most modern browsers in regards to many CSS and HTML constructs. Many long hours are often wasted trying to get a website to render perfectly in IE6. The frustration of web developers has spawned a whole movement dedicated to the eradication of IE6! Update: Microsoft themselves have put out a website dedicated to the demise of IE6.

If you want to see how the web looks through another browser, why not try one of these:

So how does this relate to EPiServer website development? While the global browser market share figures are important, it is also important to consider what browsers your website's visitors are using. For instance, in an Intranet, you may have complete control over the browser your users run. This means you can potentially design your page templates to optimise for a single browser, saving on cross browser testing.

However, I'd recommend that even in that case you would still be best to take the approach of using the most widely supported web standards (eg. CSS 2, HTML 4.01) and testing on at least the 3 major modern browsers: IE8, Firefox 3 and Chrome. If you are in a position to dictate the browser to use, choose one of those (or Safari) - but stick with IE8 if your organisation is Windows based. This will ensure that your site is at least using CSS and HTML in a way that is mutually agreeable to the modern browsers. I've excluded Safari as it uses the same Webkit rendering engine under the hood that Chrome uses, and renders pages identically to Chrome in nearly all cases. I've also excluded a version number from Chrome, because it updates itself to the latest version by default. Web developers will find that IE8, Firefox 3 and Chrome/Safari will render pages nearly identically most of the time. There are a few edge cases that will be different, and this is where it pays to do some cross browser testing. You will end with a largely standards-compliant site, and you'll save the pain of IE6 compatibility.

If your website is on the Internet, not Intranet, you are stuck with supporting IE6 for a little while yet. IE6 hangs in there doggedly at around 10% market share overall - still a little too big to ignore. It seems the only thing that will eliminate IE6 is the death of Windows XP. As users migrate to Windows 7, they will get IE8 automatically. XP (and IE6) will continue hanging in there until Microsoft stops supporting XP SP3, which looks a couple of years away yet, although it seems that Microsoft have not finalised this date.