Browser Wars: Not Again!

When I first started developing websites, compatibility was the key phrase. I entered the arena when Microsoft started their assault on Netscape with Internet Explorer 3. In those days, IE3 was the inferior browser in many respects. Netscape and IE behaved differently when given the same HTML pages, so a lot of effort was spent testing and recoding for each browser and different versions of them.

This problem became briefly worse with the release of the version 4 browsers, however IE4 quickly took the lead in the browser market - with IE5 Netscape was all but finished.

With IE established as the dominant browser by far (at least in the consumer space) coding was made slightly easier. For the most part, targetting for IE4 would work. The majority of the visitors would be using that particular browser so less time would need to be spent ensuring compatibility - a few rough edges on other browsers was acceptable (in proportion to the time and money saved). Screen resolution issues also became less of a problem, as most people were running with at least 800x600 resolution screens.

PDAs

Then, PDAs and WAP came along. The old restrictions on screen and page size (in terms of data) returned - but worse than ever. The old techniques were reapplied and XML provided a consistent way of storing content separately from the methods of displaying it. PDAs can have a low-resolution, small diplay method while desktops running predominantly IE can have an all singing all dancing front end to the information. Problem solved.

In the past couple of years, however, the open source Gecko engine behind the Mozilla and new Netscape browsers has shown itself to be very competent. It still lacks behind IE in terms of what it can do (but that's to be expected - most of Microsoft's software relies on IE) however for standard consumers it should be fine. That's the view AOL are taking.

CompuServe Guinea Pigs

AOL is now trialling Gecko in the new CompuServe software (AOL bought CompuServe several years ago). If all goes to plan, the next version of AOL should have Internet Explorer replaced. This was expected a long time ago, when AOL bought Netscape - but nothing happened then.

With such a large user base likely to (unknowingly) switch to a different browser, we again have the situation where the full front end (the one aimed at desktops) must be tested rigourously on more than one platform. And while we're at it, we may as well make sure it looks good in Opera.

Don't you just love open standards?