Table of Contents
recursive toc v1.4

browser compatibility and rendering quality

Regular rendering checks

A well designed, coherent and non-bugged page is very desirable, so it is only wise that the web designer checks regularly with several browsers for correct rendering. Sometimes a simple tweak is enough to make some browsers happier, while keeping thinks correct on others.

KDE logo

Speaking of browsers, the one I use more often (every day, actually) is KDE's Konqueror, which means that this webpage is regularly checked and kept appearing correctly on it. Konqueror is my browser of choice for everyday use - a logical choice for a Linux KDE desktop. It is well integrated with KDE (Konqueror was written for KDE), it is very fast, it is being actively developed and has a very decent CSS handling codebase. The version I'm using right now (07 July 2006) is Konqueror 3.5.3 for KDE 3.5.3, (was Konqueror 3.5.2 on 26 April 2006 and 3.4.3 on 30 October 2005)

Regularly, I check for rendering correctness with Konqueror, Mozilla Firefox and Opera (which recently became available free of charge, without banners). These tests are almost always done in Linux operating system.

KDE Konqueror browser logo Get Firefox Opera software logo
website screenshot taken on Konqueror
Screenshot taken with Konqueror 3.5.5
website screenshot taken on Firefox
Screenshot taken with Mozilla Firefox 2.0
website screenshot taken on Opera
Screenshot taken with Opera 9.02
  • Konqueror 3.5.5
  • Konqueror 3.5.4
  • Konqueror 3.5.3
  • Konqueror 3.5.2
  • Konqueror 3.5.1
  • Konqueror 3.5.0
  • Konqueror 3.4.3
  • Mozilla Firefox 2.0
  • Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7
  • Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4
  • Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7
  • Opera 9.02
  • Opera 9.00
  • Opera 8.54
  • Opera 8.52
  • Opera 8.51
  • Opera 8.50
This table shows the versions of my preferred browsers. Below the browser's icon, there's a screenshot of the frontpage taken with the respective browser of that column. The screenshot can be enlarged and shows the correct rendered look of the website. For each browser, I listed the used versions to test the website, and marked in bold is the version I'm currently using (usually the most recent).

I keep some effort into keeping my website rendering correctly at least on the above browsers. However, there are several other good browsers that most likely also render these pages correctly.

back to top

Browsers that most likely work

Some other browsers also work well and generally display a correct rendering of this website. Safari and Camino are browsers for Apple Macintosh computers. Sadly, I don't own one of those beauties, so it is hard for me to regularly check for compatibility with these browsers. Mozilla Suite browser has the same engine as Mozilla Firefox, so it'd be a redundant check... yes, I have a limited amount of time to develop my website.

Very occasionaly I check for rendering correctness with Safari, Mozilla Suite, Gnome Epiphany and Camino, which most of the times display correct output.

Safari browser logo Mozilla Suite browser logo Mozilla Seamonkey browser logo Epiphany browser logo Camino browser logo
  • Safari 1.3.2
  • Safari 1.3.1
  • Mozilla Suite 1.7.13
  • Mozilla Suite 1.7.12
  • Mozilla Seamonkey 1.0.3
  • Epiphany 1.8.2
Below the icons are the respective browser versions I tested the website with.

The effort put into browser compatibility for the above list is not as much as for the list on the section before. However, in most cases, they work well and any browser based on the gecko Mozilla Layout Engine probably handles the website well. Although others may exist, refered examples of this kind of browsers were: Mozilla Suite, Mozilla Firefox, Gnome Epiphany and Camino.

back to top

(Almost) Lost case

Microsoft Internet Explorer logo

Not a surprise for many... maybe to some; Microsoft Internet Explorer has to be THE worst browser around. I'll spare myself from referring to versions up to and including IE 5.5, due to horrible performance and standard support.

Internet Explorer 6.0 SP2

Current and most updated version Internet Explorer 6.0 SP2 still has such a broken CSS/XHTML implementation that turns well written websites into ugly incoherent pages if fully rendered at all. My website is no exception - IE renders it very differently (worse) from what it is supposed to appear. (see section: Older screenshots)

Internet Explorer 7.0 beta 1

Internet Explorer's long standing broken implementations, lack of performance, lack of features and persistent lack of security should give Microsoft Corporation bad publicity enough to force them to improve their browser into something at least as good as Mozilla Firefox for example. Indeed that's exactly what Microsoft claims to have achieved with the new Internet Explorer 7.0; a secure, feature rich and standards compliant web browser.

I was able to get my hands on a beta version and tried out my website, honestly hoping to see it correctly rendered... How wrong I was. Actually IE 7 beta rendered the website worse than IE 6. Once more the marketing machine is well oiled and completely misleading users. (see section: Older screenshots)

However, things may be looking better as leading browser vendors try to co-operatively agree on a better method to mutually authenticate websites, hoping to improve phishing protection or even to prevent phishing schemes at all. A pioneer meeting on this subject took place in Toronto, Canada sometime near 23 November 2005 with participants of Microsoft, Opera Software, Konqueror and Mozilla. Some notes on this meeting can be found on the following links:

Internet Explorer 7.0 beta 2 / 3

WHOA!! I never believed that IE got this far this quickly! It is actually getting there. This calls for a more in-depth review of Internet Explorer (hence the four screenshots) as an almost real browser, in terms of rendering quality. (See section: Older screenshots)

Looks nearly the same as beta 2 preview, but there are some subtle differences:

  • The good
    • The table of contents (header picture, left side) looks almost right. Apart from some minor alignment issues with the bullet on the selected item
    • The news section looks (header picture, bottom half, below presentation box) almost right. No more black thick borders made up by IE. Compare this picture with the same of IE 7 beta 2 preview.
    • The news item hover highlight looks right (footer picture, top half). The screenshot of the footer area, has on the top half one of the news item divs with the mouse hovered on it. Looks ok.
    • The rss feed reader looks and feels great! Nice to see they're actually using the standards to render the feed.
    • The default google search bar is a very nice touch, but I doubt it will be on the final IE 7... Also, it is possible to add search engines for the search bar just like in firefox - cool!
    • UI cleaned further.
  • The bad
    • The header area isn't correct (header picture, top). The time and date should appear as floats on the same line as the title
    • The div borders of the presentation box (header picture, white box where I introduce myself, just below the "HOME PAGE" title div) are too thick. They should be as thick as ones on the header div or the table of contents.
    • The div borders of the news divs are too thick (header picture, bottom half; footer picture, top half).
    • The footer area isn't correct (footer picture, bottom). The alignment is all wrong.
    • Beta 3 introduced new bugs on RSS handling routines; Items with more than one category appear more than once, even when viewing only one of the categories.
    • Back/forward/Go/Search icons changed again.
    • No changes between beta 2 and beta 3, except for possible regression on the RSS handling code.

This is just a rendering quality review! I'm not pondering any other issues like security, usability (UI), supported operating systems (or is it the other way around?), etc. Don't get me started.

Let me make myself clear: Other than rare and small (but still standard) tweaks, I do not make any effort whatsoever to make my website appear correctly on Internet Explorer. The browser is buggy, its HTML/CSS implementation is broken and it follows its own non-standard rules. It is not my website that is broken or the standards compliant open source or free browsers available, it is Internet Explorer that is broken, and that is not my fault. From that perspective, there is nothing to fix on my website. Sorry about that.

World Domination

It would seem odd that Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), being as bad as it seems, is still the most used browser around the world... however, there is a simple explanation for this fact; Part of the technology locking techniques involve the inclusion of Internet Explorer into Microsoft Windows operating system, deliberatly very hard to uninstall, if uninstallable at all being due to deep integrated with the operating system. Also, the proprietary extension of HTML tags that many developers quickly followed, turned many websites into something only correctly rendered with IE. Such websites are still common and proudly claim it with markings like: "Optimized for Internet Explorer 5+" or "Best Viewed with Internet Explorer 5.5" or even refusing to render at all upon detection of non-IE browsers. This perhaps helped keeping IE from evolving further...

Even regular tags standardized by the official W3C's HTML specifications aren't correctly implemented and result in incorrect layouts. Let's hope the soon to be released Internet Explorer 7.0 is better (much better) than the current. Check the Wikipedia article on Internet Explorer for more information about current and upcoming versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer.

The inteligent, agressive and monopolizing marketing techniques employed by Microsoft Corporation have made the world dependent on them and unaware of alternatives. Fortunately this is quickly changing and both corporations and home users are changing into less expensive, more secure, more compliant to standards and sometimes open source alternatives. One website that I used to administrate shows some interesting stats: MS Internet Explorer changed from first place with 54.5% hit rate followed by Mozilla Firefox with 34.2% to second place with 45.9% having Mozilla Firefox in first place with 47% in about 9 months (January - October 2005). The statistical significance of this particular website is not very high, but it has an average of 100 000 hits per month. What does have statistical significance are the coherent reports of browser usage independent studies. Check this Wikipedia article on the subject of Usage share of web browsers

back to top

Older screenshots

back to top

feedback is much appreciated

If you happen to take a look at my website, for which I thank you for the time spent and hope you've learned something, please don't hesitate to contact me (website author contacts) for whateve reason. If you think your browser doesn't render the page correctly, if you find invalid pages after W3C validator's inspection, if you find any misleading of incorrect information please contact me so that I can make appropriate changes or fixes.

Thank you for reading this. I honestly hope it helps or is at least informative. Please take a look around the rest of my website if you haven't done so.

back to top

Updates to this page