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What browsers to test in? 3

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shmmeee

shmmeee

Programmer
Apr 17, 2001
104
GB
HI,
I was wandering if anyone had thoughts on which browser versions I should test my site in, it'll work in IE & NN 4.x and up but I doubt it'll still be usable in lower versions, is this a big problem as the last figures I saw said that less than 1% of users used versions lower than 4.
 
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I think you answered your own question. That one percent is most likley the government, libraries, and some schools.
 
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That's right, version 4+ browsers are all you need to worry about.

1. MSIE 5.x 160190690 (77%)
2. MSIE 4.x 19439676 (9%)
3. Netscape 4.x 18656580 (9%)
4. Netscape comp. 3871243 (1%)
5. Unknow 1009373 (0%)
6. MSIE 2.x 715107 (0%)
7. Mozilla 5.x 635279 (0%)
8. Netscape 3.x 486814 (0%)
9. Opera x.x 482470 (0%)
10. MSIE 3.x 422106 (0%)
11. Netscape 2.x 17278 (0%)
12. MSIE 1.x 997 (0%)
13. Netscape 1.x 739 (0%) » » » » » »
Mike Barone
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Where are you pulling these stats from, MikeBarone? Not questioning, just curious.
 
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That's interesting, Mike. [thumbsup2]

Shows that MSIE is still the majority.

Fight?
[lightsaber]
What fight? [shocked]
 
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A slightly more up to date set of stats dated May 2003 from the same site:


1. MSIE 6.x 22365285 (59%)
2. MSIE 5.x 12855963 (34%)
3. Netscape 5.x 717069 (2%)
4. Netscape 4.x 536637 (1%)
5. MSIE 4.x 478275 (1%)
6. Opera x.x 448098 (1%)
7. Netscape comp. 321651 (1%)
8. Unknown 259947 (1%)
9. Netscape 6.x 97413 (0%)
10. MSIE 2.x 11154 (0%)
11. MSIE 3.x 10857 (0%)
12. Netscape 3.x 10698 (0%)
13. Netscape 2.x 441 (0%)
14. Netscape 1.x 72 (0%)
15. MSIE 1.x 21 (0%)

The link Mike posted is for stats from March 2001. Funnily enough though, there is nothing newer than May 2003 there yet.

John
 
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The best bet is to design your site using a W3C compliant browser, such as the latest version of Opera, Mozilla (Firebird), Netscape (Which IS Mozilla with AOL crap blended into the mix).

Never use IE in development, as it is not anywhere near compliant and will allow really lousy code to pass, and then you will find the code does not degrade nicely with REAL browsers. However, if the site displays properly in Mozilla, you can bet it will work well in IE. Opera, I have found, is the most temeramental and strict as far as standards.

I develop using Mozilla1.3 and 1.5 (2 different computers), test in Netscape 4.7, Opera 5, IE5 and Firebird. I also test using IE on a Mac, which does display differently than on PC quite often.

If you have access to AOL, that is also a good thing to test, as AOhell mangles webpages sometimes.

When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.
 
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Thanks for posting those stats, John. The curious thing about them, to my mind, is that the most popular Netscape browser is

3. Netscape 5.x 717069 (2%)

But AFAIK there never was a Netscape 5 - they went straight from 4.7 to 6. Anyone know what browser claims to ne "Netscape 5"?

-- Chris Hunt
 
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Good catch, Chris. There is no NS5.0, nor was there ever. NS4.7 was the predecessor to NS6, which was a travesty.

When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.
 
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Netscape 5 probably represents all Gecko (Mozilla) based browsers except Netscape 6 (but including Netscape 7) which has it's own entry.

Those browsers send an identification string which starts with Mozilla/5.0 followed by more specific information. If the parser doesn't recognize the browser using the extra information (as it does with Netscape 6), it would default to Netscape 5.

(at least, it's how it looks like according to the results and the way other parsers I've used works)
 
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Is it really too much to ask users to use a specific browser? I really hate the idea that I have to write the same code several different ways to accomodate several different browsers.
I code for Mozilla (latest release) and it's free to download. So if someone calls me and says: website is screwed up, I'm using IE...
I reply:
point your browser to mozilla.org, and download that browser, then use that browser, all of your problems will vanish into thin air. MSIE has a lot of bling blingy features, but standards are what matter, not blingbling.

--jim
 
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I think it is asking too much. I know several people that have avoided sites asking them to download a Flash plug in. Can you imagine these people wanting to download a whole new browser?! It would be nice, but...
 
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"Is it really too much to ask users to use a specific browser?"

Yes it is.

If I'm Joe Surfer, and happy with what I'm getting from IE, why would I want to muck around with it just to see your precious web site? No thanks, I think I'll take my money elsewhere.

IE represents 80%+ of the marketplace. You or I might deplore that, but there's nothing much we can do about it. Life sucks sometimes. Fortunately it's not that bad a browser - code to web standards, hack your CSS where necessary, and you should find you have a site that suits IE and all other modern browsers.

-- Chris Hunt
 
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It's a shame that TheCounter stats you posted don't show operating system, too.

I wonder what percentage of the IE 5 and IE 6 users are running on Windows, and how many are running on MacOS.

Dan
 
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Dan

Replace "browser.php" with "os.php" in my previous links and it gets you the use per operating system. Unfortunately you can't correlate it against browser version, but its better than nothing.

It's interesting that Win98 is still the most popular OS with 40% of the total hits, despite Microsoft discontinuing support for it imminently.

John
 
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