HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 1-7.
Firefox, Chrome, and Opera scores compared
IE9 scores poorly compared to other browsers. In addition, IE9 runs only on Windows 7, limiting its
audience further. As of this writing, Internet Explorer 10 is still in the development stage, but other
browsers are quite aggressive in releasing the new versions or updates. In real-world situations, rather than
targeting a single browser, you have no choice but to target multiple browsers and their varying support
for HTML5 features.
Checking for HTML5 Support Dynamically
Checking for HTML5 feature support statically works well only if you know the target browser. For
example, if you're developing an intranet web application that is supposed to be used only by the
employees of a particular company, you may standardize on a specific browser and program HTML5
features accordingly. However, in today's modern age, users can access web sites from many browsers and
devices—some of which only offer a specific browser choice—so relying on such browser standardization
may not be the best approach. If your web application is in widespread use, then you can't guarantee
which browser the end users are using. A fact of real-world web application development is that you need
a robust and safe approach to detect browser support for HTML5 features at runtime. You need to plug in
