HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
An Overview of Some Popular Browsers
This section describes the most popular browsers currently on the Web. They're in no
way the only browsers available, and if the browser you're using isn't listed here, don't
feel that you have to use one of these. Whichever browser you have is fine as long as it
works for you.
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Microsoft's browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer, is included with Microsoft Windows.
Because Windows has the largest market share, Internet Explorer is the most popular
web browser. However, many users choose to replace Internet Explorer with other
browsers because of security concerns and greater support for web standards and newer
capabilities.
NOTE
If you're serious about web design, you should install all the popu-
lar browsers on your system and use them to view your pages
after you've published them. That way, you can make sure that
everything is working properly. Even if you don't use a particular
browser on a day-to-day basis, your site will be visited by people
who do. If you are interested in checking cross-browser compatibil-
ity issues, start with Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla
Firefox, and include Google Chrome, too.
The percentage of users who use Internet Explorer varies widely from site to site.
Current estimates are that various versions of Internet Explorer comprise about 55% of
the browser market, but the browser usage varies widely from site to site. Figure 1.5
shows Internet Explorer running under Windows 7.
One other important point to make about Internet Explorer is that the different versions
of IE differ greatly. Version 8 of Internet Explorer was released in 2009, but many users
haven't upgraded from IE 7 or even IE 6. IE differs widely between versions, so to get a
site to work properly, you need to test in each version. Web publishers are just starting to
drop support for IE 6, and Microsoft recommends that all users upgrade to a newer version.
