Browser Issues and Tidbits
 

Since one of the projects still on the BARCLONE agenda is to develop a new website, I thought this might be a good place to talk about internet browsers and their peculiarities. No two browsers display a web page exactly the same, so when developing a page, one has to really develop at least five different pages, one for each of the major browsers currently being used.

I'll start this off with something I've found out about Google Chrome. This may already be common knowledge among some of you, bit I didn't notice it until today. Chrome identifies itself as "Netscape 5".

OK, I'm done for now... :D

OK, I'm back... :D

Firefox 3 also identifies itself as "Netscape 5"...

FireFox is NOT for me!!!
 

Mozilla Firefox 2 kept "eating" my bookmarks :eek: :mad: , so I permanently deleted it from my hard drive, along with Mozilla Thunderbird.

Okay, I'm done venting. For now.

Round 3...

Apple Safari identifies itself as... Netscape 5...

Maybe that's why there's a FireFox 3 now...

Try Chrome. So far, it seems to be the fastest of the group. And I like the tabs better than any of the others. They just seem to work...

All three of these Netscape Clones display the pages differently from each other. It still means I have to develop a customization routine for each one... Rats!

Opera 9.63 looks similar to Chrome, but it identifies itself as "Opera 9.63"...

At this moment, I have all five major browsers running simultaneously. Again, no two are alike!

That's my mail client now, and has been since I loaded Vista. I like it, and have no issues with it. It won't import my old Outlook folders, but then, neither will Outlook Express...

Anyone know of a good import tool that doesn't require Outlook to be running, and which doesn't cost anything? Nothing feature-handicapped or -restricted, either.

I prefer Chrome now, since they got their issues with Flash, Reader, and Silverlight straightened out, but there are many web sites that still refuse to serve to it since it appears to them as a badly outdated browser.

It also surprises and annoys me that they don't use the same bookmark system as the Google Toolbar for IE and Firefox. CHECK that, they suddenly do now, but they don't use it in the same smooth way the Toolbar does. Maybe they'll work it out in the next few weeks.

Now I've noticed my first real quirk...

Firefox 3 doesn't want to show my logo graphic (a simple JPG image) in the upper-most frame, while all of the others display it correctly.

Not a good start for FF3... :(

When I need to register a download with MS, they require the use of IE. Chrome won't work with Windows Update, for example...

Is Chrome releasing a new version? I'll have to go check that out...

I just found the error that was keeping FF from displaying my logo. It is VERY persnickety in the way pathnames are spelled out, including the direction of slashes. I had a slash reversed in the image's path string. All four of the others either didn't catch it, or didn't care about the direction. FF refused to accept it as-written, and required me to make the correction. It now shows the image.

Should I like FF for being this critical with path names, or hate the others for NOT being so snippy?

You can force an update to the latest released version by going to the about box.

Mine is 1.0.154.48 .

There are 2.0 versions, if you're in the developer preview program:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/20...0-pre-beta.html
but really, I wouldn't recommend it.

First, declare your DOCTYPE at beginning of your page. Then, you should always submit your markup to the html and css validators at www.w3.org .

Once they pass those tests, then you can start determining what browser differences are. Otherwise, what looks like a browser bug might be the browser honestly choking on something that shouldn't be.

I could never get Outlook Express to run on my Windows XP machine. Well, it loaded and "ran", it just would not work with my Gmail account. I then heard about Thunderbird, and it has been flawless. I also use it to bring in my other web email. I've been a big fan of Firefox for years, but for the past 4-5 months have been using Chrome as my primary browser, since it so easy to set up auto-opening tabs. I load all the forums, plus photobucket, and I'm ready for checking out all things rocketry-forum-related. I still use Firefox, mostly to pop open a browser for most business things, such as bank account logons, PayPal, etc. My only reason to keep IE is as a backup, in case some webpage will not load well into the other browsers. That is getting fairly rare these days. Prior to Chrome, I was using Flock, since it supported multi-tabs pretty well, but it is a little odd looking -- cluttered. I like Chrome the best for its simple layout.