What browser is best for testing web standards? [closed]
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/116533
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02-07-2019 - |
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When I build a site, I'd like to have at least one browser I can show it off in without any hacks or workarounds, and yet still retain maximum functionality. Knowing that none of the browsers have perfect standards adherence, which one comes closest?
Also, are there any standards areas in which a single browser seems to specialize? Opera, for instance, seems to be bent on adhering to all voice-related CSS standards.
OTHER TIPS
The way most people I know work is to run Firefox(with Firebug) and develop in that. Firebug is an invaluable tool for debugging. They will usually take what the get there and try to squeak it into IE and other browsers. Not exactly the answer to your question (Its not 100% compliant but its close), but hopefully it helps.
This is an excellent question, but I find it hard to give a single answer. Traditionally, Opera has been the most standards compliant. For a long time, it was the ONLY browser to pass the ACID2 test in fact. FireFox and IE haven't been able to claim that (although supposedly IE8 is supposed to fix that, and FF is working on it all the time).
That having been said however, bear mind that IE has the largest "market share" of all the browsers right now (businesses have ties to MS, and Windows always comes with IE out of the box) followed closely by FireFox. So if your goal is to show off your app in a browser that most people will be using, it'll have to be one of those.
Purists will tell you that FF is more standards compliant than IE7 (and they are right), so that you should design for that and not IE. I can tell from many years as a designer/developer that pages taking that approach may not be a great idea. Bear in mind again - IE has the market share, and usually where it counts. So if it looks great in FF but breaks in IE, most users will be very upset, and the same vice-versa.
Best compromise - concentrate on those two. Tweak it to look right in at least FF AND IE, and now you've covered 90%+ of the people that will be using your website.
Don't get me wrong here - I'm not trying to dismiss the users of Opera, Safari, or any other browser. But if you want the most results for the least amount of work, then there ya go.
Best answer - take your time, do it right, test ALL the major browsers. The time spent working through these browser headaches ahead of time (when you can do it at your own pace) will be well rewarded. Compare that to the screaming client who wants to know why your page breaks in his favorite browser, and wants it fixed today. :)
"When I build a site, I'd like to have at least one browser I can show it off in without any hacks or workarounds, and yet still retain maximum functionality."
If you are testing your site, you would be better served to choose target browsers based on your users' needs.
Unless you are in a position where you can force your users to change to a particular browser, you need to test your site in whatever browser(s) they use.
I use Firefox with IE tab and chrome. Firefox with IE tab because those are the two browsers with the most market share and chrome because it is one of the few windows browsers that use webkit, meaning it should display similarly to safari.
The way most people I know work is to run Firefox(with Firebug) and develop in that. Firebug is an invaluable tool for debugging. They will usually take what the get there and try to squeak it into IE and other browsers. Not exactly the answer to your question (Its not 100% compliant but its close), but hopefully it helps.
+1 - I prefer firefox for most browsing as I find it most stable and easiest to use, but when it comes to web development it takes the cake when combined with firebug! The others are good for testing, but I find that firefox+firebug makes everything so much easier to use
Try Google Chrome it uses the WebKit which is feature complete for the latest standards.
I used to use Opera and Firefox as my "Standards Compliant" browsers, but I've recently become much enamored with Safari. The WebKit under the hood is really solid, the javascript is really fast (or fast enough, anyway), and and the CSS support is pretty excellent. It's not perfect, but does a really solid job of doing what it's supposed to do.
Also, it has the greatest print-screen feature I've ever seen in a browser. Seriously. Whereas every other browser seems to really munge up any screen I try to print, Safari always seems to get it right. A minor thing, but worth major points in my book.
Edited to add: Chrome is coming close to taking Safari's place, but that print screen thing is still the deciding factor. Being able to just hit "print" during a meeting with a client and not have to fiddle with any settings to get it working right is a major relief.
Don't just use a standards compliant browser, use other tools such as the w3c validator.
I find that if you stick to standards compliant markup, and don't use anything too unusual, it will render fine in Firefox 2/3 and Safari/Chrome (and usually fine in IE7/8). If not, you're probably better off trying to simplify your markup, rather than introducing hacks and workarounds.
Using one browser for all your testing and then hacking it for others is how most people do it but that often leads to problems. Even though Safari may be a more standards compliant browser it is not a highly popular browser and I'd lean more toward using the browser your customer's are using most while writing 100% standard code and then adjusting for idiosyncrasies of other browsers. It's not ideal but it is more customer centered thinking.
I've seen web development companies with multiple full time employees that had bugs on their homepage because they did exactly what you seem to be thinking is your answer. They developed the webpage on a Mac and tested exclusively with Safari. The result was that over 60% of potential customers may have seen layout bugs if their browser was windowed.
