kasia in a nutshell

I totally agree here... one tip, have a look at Mozilla Firebird as a browser, it's atleast two times as fast as the normal one and less memory hungry. I wouldn't want to go back :)

Why is it that the longtime interoperability paradigm of "Be liberal about what you accept, be conservative in what you generate" not applicable to Microsoft?

Why is it that every mention of Microsoft must bring on a battle? They made the browser, that's the only reason I mentioned them.. Move on now... this has nothing to do with Microsoft.

I agree with Derick, give Mozilla Firebird a try. I use it on both Linux and Windows and it works prefectly. I'm happy not having to use IE much at all anymore.

I remember when I was learning HTML and making my first site none of the images would work in any browser besides IE. The solution was simple. I was using backslashes instead of forward slashes. I can't believe that IE even allowed that...

Windows IE has been a nightmare for me with my blog. It works decently well in mozilla, safari, camino, opera, but IE took some doing. The CSS support in it is just kind of wacky at times. It just plain can't seem to render the text on my site (it'll print like the top half of all the letters).

I also recently decided that browsers should be much less forgiving. If the HTML isn't even corrent, render what you can up to the point of the error and stop. Or don't render it at all and put up a message. I remember early versions of netscape used to have this feature where when you did view source they'd flash (or was it in a different color?) areas of HTML it had a problem with.

Ditto on the Mozilla Firebird recommendations, I like the browser so much that I have practically stopped using IE. The extensions are so developer friendly; text size adjustments, disable styles, live headers, in-browser validation, and the page info tab is great. I don't know how I ever got by without all the cool extensions in Firebird.

I have to agree with Gregory that browsers should be less forgiving. Hey, if it doesn't compile, it doesn't compile, right? Plus it would make it much easier to create content in the first place. Too many workarounds, too little time.

Just one thing - in Mozilla (also Firebird and the whole family) you can change USER_AGENT string to whatever you want. Many bad designed websites depends on USER_AGENT to check what browser you are using - thus Mozilla browsers can also "pretend to be IE" ;-)

I have to agree that it's most likely down to the programmers or page designers. I use Opera now, but was used to getting grey squares in pages under IE. I think a lot of it stems from people wanting functions in their pages that only their chosen browser supports. It reminds me of the days when the Web seemed largely divided into pages that would only run in IE or only in Netscape. I'm not going to evangelise about one browser over another - I'd just like to make the point that if people are putting stuff on the web, what do they think they're achieving by making it inaccessible? Defeats the whole point, surely? Especially if it's a commercial site. I think the hall of shame would be an excellent idea...

I agree - Opera rules..

Yes, Mimas, but don't you have to restart the browser after you do that? In opera it's just a click..

After installing some additional plugin or widget (like uabar [ http://uabar.mozdev.org/ ]) you can change USER_AGENT in mozilla browsers to _anything_ you want (one of predefined values or just any text you type) without restaring ;-)

You're right Kasia - it is more of a programmer problem. Having worked in the web department of a design company, I've seen many people who test only in IE. I myself have been guilty of this (not anymore, I hasten to add). Most of the web designers I've met love IE, for exactly the reason you state - because it's very forgiving of poor coding.

It's not that they're dumb, it's just that they're plain lazy and simply can't be bothered to test in other browsers since "everyone uses IE now" (for example, on one of the forum sites I admin, 97% of users have IE as their browser according to the stats).

I guess it's also a manager problem - a good project manager should make it clear to the team that the site should work in all popular browsers.

As for the hall of shame, I have a feeling that at least a third of the sites on the web are gonna be on it...

Maybe we should all use Macromedia Flash... ;-)

I found Galeon to be lighter than Mozilla/Firebird in terms of memory usage, and it uses the Gecko engine anyways. It also handles caching, whereas Mozilla Firebird doesn't. It also feels as if it handles faster. It could be because it's native to the environment, whereas Moz is cross platform. I don't imagine XUL makes things lighter.

I still feel MozFirebird is a good browser, I just feel Galeon as vastly improved (and Galeon2 is exceptionally nice and clean).

kasia,
This was my first visit to your Blog, I like it-- you write funny. By coincidence, this current subject of web browsers, and compatibility is one I've had to do a lot of thinking about lately. For the last couple of years, I've used Internet Explorer out of necessity alone (nothing else ran very well on my bug plagued Windows OS) . Kind of inadvertently, I ended up developing an IE enhancement [ http://powercons.com ] that has me liking IE a lot more, and wondering why "competitors" are not more competitive. If an amateur programmer like me can make improvements, I think there's something very broken in the browser development process. My personal dilemma is I don't wanna waste my time saddling [doing powercons upgrades] a dead or dying horse. Anyway, I like your wit and style and "I'll be back."

Standards, standards, standards.

I agree completely. Too many lazy webmasters. It's not hard at all to code standards. Granted, the major browsers still render some standard code differently, but at least you'll reach a wider audience.

Whenever I go to a site that says "IE Only", I don't even bother to look anymore and just move on.

I'll reccomend you to try out Firebird as well. It's easily installed as well :).

But, coming to the real issue, about the missing . If i'm not mistaken that is allowed in html 4.0x. So I'm guessing you meant ? ;)

I'm using IE, but also use 'EditPlus', have you heard about it? It's an editing tools like 'Notepad' but, more useful. Because it can be a browser window too. And the editing works more fun because the tags appeared colorful. :)