I think nobody here missed out on Mozilla/Firefox passing the 10% mark (or slightly below it according to some reports), but in case you didn't know the #3 browser on the web is by now Safari, Apple's Mac-only web browser. According to this report (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0), Safari has now a 3.07% market share on the web, and is the only browser whose share has been constantly growing every month all through 2005.

So the question is, have you tested your website for visual errors, navigability problems and especially functionality issues with Safari? :)

p.s. I use primarily Safari for testing my websites so I can vote a confident "yes" here. ;)

Reports of web browser use can be misleading. One of the sources of web browser market share I see quoted regularly is Alexa, the company whose SpyWare (according to SpyBot) comes bundled with Internet Explorer. Obviously Alexa will be detecting mostly Internet Explorer usage since it's not embedded in other web browsers, so I always write them off as an objective source on this matter.

The most reliable source for me has been my web server logs, however I've noticed that some web sites will incorrectly detect Opera as Internet Explorer, probably because Opera identifies itself as Internet Explorer by default (see the "Network" section of the Advanced Settings), so I have good reason to doubt other claims of web browser popularity.

For web site design, I develop my web sites using Opera to test as I go (I code HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PERL with a regular text editor because WYSIWYG tools are counter-productive and create more HTML tags than are needed), and then test in older versions of Opera, plus current and older versions of Netscape, Firefox, Mozilla, Internet Explorer, Safari, HotJava, and Lynx.

A responsible web developer will make sure their web sites work with current and slightly older versions of these main web browsers, and not get emotionally involved with what some marketing company thinks is the most popular web browser.

For those of you on Windows that can't really test in Safari (like me), here's a useful tool:

http://snugtech.com/en/safaritest/

It gives you a full length screenshot of your web page as viewed in Safari. But generally I've found that using xhtml strict and proper css usually makes your pages compatible in Safari. I say this because I've developed several sites without Safari in mind and they come out fine when I use the tool mentioned above.

P.S. Shouldn't this be in the Web Design forum?

http://snugtech.com/en/safaritest/

very useful site!!!!!

Mine sure is, as I do all my design/dev on a mac. My biggest trouble is that the IE for mac and PC are different, so I always have to check it on a PC.
Do you know of a tool like that for IE?

That's a great web site. Thanks for the link.

Yeah, I agree with you -- this thread probably belongs in the Web Design forum as you suggested.

Mine sure is, as I do all my design/dev on a mac. My biggest trouble is that the IE for mac and PC are different, so I always have to check it on a PC.
Do you know of a tool like that for IE?

The last time I checked, IE for Mac accounted for a quarter of one percent of the visitors to my sites. IE for winblows otoh, was at ~43%. I think almost everyone on a mac is using safari or firefox.

Yes, we are. The majority of the work was done during our last design when we created a cross platform W3C compliant web site. After that, additional testing per browsing platform found some specific bugs that could be fixed via CSS.

After even MS officially says that Mac users should switch to Safari from IE, I think there is no point in trying to optimize websites for IE Mac. ;) Especially that it's less compatible to Windows IE than 3rd party browsers... A good example is the SohoLaunch admin interface that currently works 100% right only on IE Windows: while I can goad some functionality out of it in Firefox and Opera on Mac, IE Mac simply crashes the moment I try to start sohoadmin. :rofl:

Everything looks good according to the Safari test website. :)

All that validating appears to have paid off. ;)

My site works well in all browsers but in Opera and Safari it seems that my support button doesn't actually show. Anyone know why?

What support button? Where?

it is in the top right corner of each page, try using IE or Firefox 1.5, i use firefox 1.5 and see it but i have asked users that use opera and AOL and they do not see it.

I develop in firefox and check in IE 5.1 / 5.5 / 6 /7 (for explorer 5* I only test for general functionality) , konqueror (very close to safari), Opera and in Safari and Camino (the last two only at project milestones or just when specific features are developed as my Mac runs in a virtual box and it is not as fast to use).

Lately, as I decided that my new sites should be Section 508 compatible, lynx and links got very important role in testing as well.

For those of you on Windows that can't really test in Safari (like me), here's a useful tool:

http://snugtech.com/en/safaritest/
JUst checked my site, and besides a few font differences, it's exactly the same. :gthumb:

No and shouldn't matter if the site isn't ready for safari. you still need to get your site work with IE first then Firefox. if you got these two cover, that's pretty much it. i don't think you will have to worry about another browser.

Using Windows-only fonts doesn't sound like 100% compatibility to me. ;)

After even MS officially says that Mac users should switch to Safari from IE, I think there is no point in trying to optimize websites for IE Mac. ;) Especially that it's less compatible to Windows IE than 3rd party browsers... A good example is the SohoLaunch admin interface that currently works 100% right only on IE Windows: while I can goad some functionality out of it in Firefox and Opera on Mac, IE Mac simply crashes the moment I try to start sohoadmin. :rofl:

actually, it was Apple that force IE to retire when Apple came out with their own browser for their own platform. pretty much that get MS out of picture of Mac platform. why do you want to keep supporting a piece of software when the platform vendor itself is coming out with a browser of their own. you might as well just let Mac users use Apple's browser.

Using Windows-only fonts doesn't sound like 100% compatibility to me. ;)

unless you got time and money to work on your web app, site for yet another browser. i say just cover the market leader (IE and Firefox) and work on other aspect of your project. i don't think it matter much if you try to cover all of them (browsers) you might get something working in IE but it break in Opera or you fix something in Opera then it break on IE.

anyway, my two cents.

For those of you on Windows that can't really test in Safari (like me), here's a useful tool:

http://snugtech.com/en/safaritest/



Great tool! I had been wondering about my site but I didn't know anyone with Safari. Turns out it looks OK. :)

Something one shouldn't forget is that a large part of the MS IE market share is corporate users surfing at work, meaning the market share of alternative browsers among those people who actually decide themselves what program to use is much higher. I remember a test in Germany last year where they did a measurement on Sunday when no corporate users are on the web and Firefox was not at 5-10 but at about 40% market share. Same would apply to Safari which is not a corporate browser.

Guess who will buy your $5-$10 hosting plan, the employees for the big corporation or the private users at home? ;)

Something one shouldn't forget is that a large part of the MS IE market share is corporate users surfing at work, meaning the market share of alternative browsers among those people who actually decide themselves what program to use is much higher. I remember a test in Germany last year where they did a measurement on Sunday when no corporate users are on the web and Firefox was not at 5-10 but at about 40% market share. Same would apply to Safari which is not a corporate browser.

Guess who will buy your $5-$10 hosting plan, the employees for the big corporation or the private users at home? ;)

hummm...weird point. most popular websites out there are owned by corporation and their website are tailor to IE.

the private users at home will use IE/FrontPage extension. you can't beat the Windows marketshare. at least not yet.

I guess Google or Yahoo aren't popular websites then... :P

At any rate, ever since browser-based sitebuilders caught on, there is no reason for Frontpage any more. Sitebuilders can't replace a high-end professional tool like Dreamweaver but Frontpage doesn't really offer more than a sitebuilder, and does it at the cost of compatibility.

I guess Google or Yahoo aren't popular websites then... :P
.

you just prove my point. Google and Yahoo's sites are all tailor or work in IE first before other. we're talking about IE marketshare, right?

you will see that their sites are not break in IE but if you try other browsers it may not work. Google probably do a better job keeping every browsers happy but we are talking about market share and IE still own a huge piece of the pie.

FYI, i use Opera. i still keep IE around because about half of website that i visit daily doesn't display well under Opera. it's sad but a fact that lot of sites out there can only display correctly if you use IE. I'm not knocking other browsers but if you want to visit majority of website. you will need IE on stand by.

Ironically with the discussion, I can't get this forum to work properly in Safari!, Searches are a pain, the search box pops up, type and click and zilch. Out comes Firefox.

Ironically with the discussion, I can't get this forum to work properly in Safari!, Searches are a pain, the search box pops up, type and click and zilch. Out comes Firefox.

I have the same problem, and I always end up switching to Firefox when I'm here. The search box simpply refuses to work with Safari...

you just prove my point. Google and Yahoo's sites are all tailor or work in IE first before other.

No, I'm not proving your point, I named those two of the most popular websites on the web exactly because I never had any prob using them in any browser over the last 7 years.

No and shouldn't matter if the site isn't ready for safari. you still need to get your site work with IE first then Firefox. if you got these two cover, that's pretty much it. i don't think you will have to worry about another browser.
Uhm, it's much easier and better to make it work in Firefox first, and then tweak for IE. If it works in Firefox, you can be pretty sure it'll work fine in Opera and Safari too.

Btw, if a company can't make their simple webpage compatible with Safari, I wouldn't bother to buy from them.

If it costs you more to develop the web site for cross-browser compatibility, then you're doing something wrong. Stick with mainstream HTML and CSS, and when using third-party JavaScript libraries seek out those that emphasize compatibility with the wide range of popular web browsers (nearly all of them do), and you'll be fine.

That's what I and many others I know do (and obviously so does Google.Com, eBay.Com, Yahoo.Com, Amazon.Com, WebHostingTalk.Com, NetworkSolutions.Com, ARIN.Net, etc.), and we simply just don't have these kinds of issues. The bottom line is that if your customers can't use your web site, you could be losing valuable exposure/orders from a better crowd of users -- users who conciously choose to use products that better suit their needs as opposed to settling for mediocrity, and these users tend to quickly write off web sites that don't work (and don't bother switching to some other web browser) because they tend to be loyal to their vendors (in other words, this is the most valuable audience).

One of the biggest turn-offs for users is when some web site tells them that they have to use some other web browser. Why? Because the underlying message is that they made a wrong choice. This type of nonsense is bad for business, and as a web site owner you need to be clear about whether you want to promote your web site or take part in the web browser war. I vote for promoting my web site because the web browser war will only ever produce casualties (as all wars are infamously known for).

Of course, if you do run into a specific piece of code that needs to be custom-written for each web browser because you're doing something really complicated, in addition to trying to find a better way to do it (because newer versions of existing web browsers may break it as well {and often do}), then simply use Apache's SSI to call ModPERL (which is pretty much as fast as serving static HTML pages) in the back-end to detect the web browser type and send different code accordingly. I've seen web sites that do this, and writing this type of code really is a trivial matter.

> ... if a company can't make their simple webpage compatible with
> Safari, I wouldn't bother to buy from them.

I have the same attitude about Opera. Of course, I also make an effort to contact the sales department (don't bother trying to convince the webmaster because they'll usually just tell you that you're using the wrong web browser) and tell them that they lost a sale to their competitor (and be sure to name them if you can) because, unlike them, they support your web browser.

The sales department will usually get really concerned about this and "put the screws" on their webmaster because marketing types generally consider one written letter or eMail to represent the feelings of many others.

Why don't you folks contact the administrators with a request for them to fix it?

Our website i am happy to report works fine with all browsers

My site works well in all browsers but in Opera and Safari it seems that my support button doesn't actually show. Anyone know why?

If you're talking about the "Support" link under the "Order Now" link, it's displaying both on the latest Safari and Firefox versions on Tiger.

Just checked my website, looks exactly the same. I know it works in Opera, because I used it before ;).

Yes,

As little as it seems 3% market share is worth the small amount of time to make sure a site is compatible. Haven't found any issues yet.

Only a small menu bug here, but that's no issue. It still seems easy to browse :)

You base those statistics on what? My server logs indicate very different browser usage trends for different web sites.

At any rate, the percentage really doesn't matter all that much anyway since the bottom line is that something's not working properly and should be fixed. I'm guessing it works in Internet Explorer, it definitely works fine in Opera, and if it's broken in Mozilla and Safari then this definitely is a serious problem that's worth the time to fix because 2/4 of the major web browsers are excluded.

Actually your own website has a couple of visual errors in Firefox compared to Safari.

I just tested it in Firefox on Windows XP and it seems to come up just fine. Which OS are you running Firefox on? (I'm thinking that it might be a difference in the way rendering occurs on the different Operating Systems, and I'm glad to know of it.)

JUst checked my site, and besides a few font differences, it's exactly the same. :gthumb:


Same here. It looks like my < 9px fonts changed to 9

I just tested it in Firefox on Windows XP and it seems to come up just fine. Which OS are you running Firefox on? (I'm thinking that it might be a difference in the way rendering occurs on the different Operating Systems, and I'm glad to know of it.)

I'm running Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4) latest version, also Firefox is 1.5, that might be more of a reason than the platform if you checked with 1.0.x.

Why aren't you folks using relative font sizes?

The main problem with specifying exact font sizes is that different web browsers render them as different sizes. For example, a size 11 font might actually be rendered as size 9 in some web browsers (I don't recall which ones), 11 in others, and 13 in yet a few more.

And then there's the font resizing features of web browsers that don't always override these things due to bugs or other bad design issues.

Thanks. I appreciate the feedback!

I'll try to get that environment set up and take a look, hopefully sometime this week.

Why aren't you folks using relative font sizes?

The main problem with specifying exact font sizes is that different web browsers render them as different sizes. For example, a size 11 font might actually be rendered as size 9 in some web browsers (I don't recall which ones), 11 in others, and 13 in yet a few more.

Netscape 4 and IE 4/5 were prime examples back in the 90s for two competing browsers that rendered different font sizes from CSS at different font sizes physically. Even using pixels instead of picas (e.g. "11px" instead of "11" for the font size) did solve this problem only mostly, but not completely.

Windows is the prime example of not displaying fonts at the right size. While for most PC users the Windows font sizes are what they consider "normal", it's not true. Windows blows up all font sizes by 25%. That's why you'll find that some websites using ultra-small text can be read on Windows but not on other platforms.

Add to this that because of this some users like me set their browser on the Mac to have the minimum font size not at 8-9 where they would normally be but at 10-11, meaning sites using those ultra-small sizes will actually look screwed up on the screen. I wouldn't advise any designer to use fonts below size 11 anyway, all you can achieve with it that people either let the browser enlarge fonts (which might kill your layout) or simply go somewhere else.

And then there's the font resizing features of web browsers that don't always override these things due to bugs or other bad design issues.

The only browser I've seen these last couple of years that can't override any font sizes set in CSS when choosing a larger or smaller font size is IE. I don't claim there aren't others out there - but I rather think there aren't.

> ... Windows blows up all font sizes by 25%. ...

I suspect this is due to its target user base at its inception -- Microsoft probably wanted their OS to "look easier" and a bigger font definitely gives this impression (think of the large lettering with many toys for children, e.g., alphabet blocks or fridge magnets for starters).

MacOS and Unix typically have, especially at that time, a more technical user base for whom changing font sizes and screen resolution is a trivial matter. Even today, however, the vast majority of Windows users still have no idea how to change the screen resolution, and a good number still find fonts and their sizes to be somewhat intimidating.

> ... I wouldn't advise any designer to use fonts below size 11 anyway,
> all you can achieve with it that people either let the browser enlarge
> fonts (which might kill your layout) or simply go somewhere else. ...

I'm in complete agreement with this. The only exception to the problem of "resizing corrupting the layout" is Opera, which enlarges both fonts and images consistently.

> ... The only browser I've seen these last couple of years that can't
> override any font sizes set in CSS when choosing a larger or smaller
> font size is IE. ...

This is where I've noticed the problem to be the most problematic, even with the MacOS version. I think this is why so many web sites have "font size" options included on their web sites these days (e.g., http://www.spamcop.net/ ). The world shouldn't be like this, we shouldn't have to build work-around functions into our web sites in order to accomodate broken web browsers, but unfortuantely the commercial interests seem to insist on forcing this upon everyone.

I checked out that website. Good find, it looks like my site is Safari ready. :)

whats a safari?

"Safari" is the name of the web browser software application that comes bundled with Apple's current release of MacOS (the Operating System software that comes pre-installed on every Macintosh personal computer produced by Apple).

Well, I tried visiting my web site in Safari, Firefox, and Opera running on MacOS X two nights ago, and I didn't see any formatting problems (or any problems at all for that matter).

Now I'm really curious to see what you saw. If it's still failing for you, and you can spare the time, I'd be greteful for a screen shot (everyone's environment is different) so that I can attempt to guess where the problem in my HTML code is.