Popular browsers

[sigmadog]

I want to test a site I'm working on to see how the pages build in various browsers. I'm mainly concerned that my pages build properly in the most common browsers. The ones I'm checking right now are:

Mac:

Safari
FireFox
Opera


Windows:

IE
FireFox
Opera


Are there any others in widespread usage that I should be checking?

[angelwatt]

Those should give you good results. If you want to check more, there's Safari on Windows as well as Chrome (from Google). For the most part though if you check against Firefox, Safari, and IE you should be good to go. IE is the least standards following. There's only occasionally differences with Safari and Firefox.

[ppc_michael]

That should cover most of the engines.

If you have access to Linux you might want to try Konqueror, just for kicks.

[sigmadog]

Thanks, both of you. I thought my list had most of the bases covered, but it's been a while since I checked.

I might give "Chrome" a look, however, though I think it's more of a novelty browser at this time.

No Linux here. I'm not geeky enough.

[bucharu]

Perhaps of some use:

http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2009/March/browser.php

[design-is]

I agree with what's already been said :) Your list should be fine, with those extras chucked in for good measure. Don't forget the different versions though - IE 6, 7 and 8 for example.

Just to add a couple more useful reads:

Browser Testing (http://dougbarned.co.uk/blog/design/web/browser-testing/)
Yahoo's Browser Support Chart (http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/articles/gbs/)
Boagworld - Effective Browser Support (http://boagworld.com/technology/effective-browser-support)
^ demonstration of above (http://boagworld.com/design/a-demonstration-of-graded-browser-support)

[a cat *miaow*]

Remember each of those has multiple versions... try out or have a look at something like: http://browsershots.org/

[Eraserhead]

Thanks, both of you. I thought my list had most of the bases covered, but it's been a while since I checked.

I might give "Chrome" a look, however, though I think it's more of a novelty browser at this time.

No Linux here. I'm not geeky enough.

I think Chrome is more widely used than Opera.

You should also probably test with different versions of IE.

[MAGICMOXTER]

This is what you need:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/04/Web_browser_usage_share.svg/600px-Web_browser_usage_share.svg.png

I attached another one with the percentages on as well:

[miles01110]

Without citing a source, those graphs prove basically nothing other than you need to test for Safari, IE, and FF and maybe Chrome or Opera if you want to be nice.

[sigmadog]

Thanks for the info. The graph was good, but I'm having trouble locating the "Other" browser. :)

[Melrose]

Thanks for the info. The graph was good, but I'm having trouble locating the "Other" browser. :)

"Other" can include any type of Mobile OS browser, or Lynx (there are still some people who use it, mostly for fun), etc. Unless you're doing a website for some corporate intranet that solely uses (or dominantly uses) an antiquated browser, don't even give them a second thought. If you use good standards in your markup and CSS, the site will degrade graciously in the older ones anyway without being horribly disruptive.

design-is: IE6 is becoming less and less of a priority. Unless you use fancier tricks mostly what works in IE7 will work in IE6. This sounds bad, but I don't obsess over IE6 and only give it a cursory go-through in the end and fix any outstanding issues. Minor spacing differences I leave, unless the site's for distribution in a market I know will have higher IE6 use.

[a cat *miaow*]

design-is: IE6 is becoming less and less of a priority. Unless you use fancier tricks mostly what works in IE7 will work in IE6. This sounds bad, but I don't obsess over IE6 and only give it a cursory go-through in the end and fix any outstanding issues. Minor spacing differences I leave, unless the site's for distribution in a market I know will have higher IE6 use.

IE6 is still more used than all the other browsers put together so I wouldn't go making it less of a priority just yet...

As for the graphs – they are of little use without the version numbers