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I currently have 4 browsers on my machine (at work and home) these include: IE7, FF, Opera, Netscape
I have these for the reason of checking my work etc and to generally take my pick when browsing different sites.
What I would like to know is there any reason why I shouldn't run all of these? I'm guessing security is a big part but other than that why wouldn't you use 4 browsers?
How many browsers do you currently have installed?
IE: 4, 5, 5.5, 6, and 7 if you can get it
NN: 4, 6, 7, and 8
Firefox: Last few versions
Opera: Last few versions
Mozilla: Pretty much redundant if you have a few versions of Firefox, but it couldn't hurt to have a couple versions installed.
Firefox, Mozilla, and Opera users are likely to be "up with the times" technologically, and therefore seem to stay pretty faithfully upgraded to recent versions. The exceptions would be people who are really tech, and have deliberately chosen not to upgrade for some specific reason.
If you test your sites in those browsers, you'll pretty much cover every potential bug that's likely to affect a measurable portion of your visitors, except for Mac users, but obviously you'll need a Mac to test for those errors.
The version of netscape that I use is an ancient version (4.04). I find it's helpful for catching certain html errors, and also for compatibility with other folks, who are stuck in the past.
The only downside is that I sometimes forget to check new pages in IE, trusting that my Opera version is compatible, and sometimes it isn't. I could avoid this by using IE as my main browser, but I refuse!
Opera, IE, Netscape
In that case, it'd be well worth getting a Gecko browser to check things out in. If you're writing Strict code, the differences between Opera and (say) Firefox are fairly small, but transitional code can be a bit of a lottery as you move between browser engines.
It's also worth-while keeping a copy of Lynx handy to see how your page looks without styles or images.
Yes, I think all of us in this forum agree it makes sense to have multiple browsers... but certainly the average joe is not going to need more than 2, and usually does not need, and will not bother to use, more than 1.
That's the whole point of all our posts about this browser's bugs and that browser's incompatibilities... if everyone in the world was willing to switch browsers when they came across a seemingly malfunctioning website, we wouldn't have to worry about compatibility, and subsequently we wouldn't need to check our sites in every browser known to man.
Contrary to popular practice here, I use IE6 as my main browser (at work)... the idea being that every site caters to that browser, so if i'm gonna go rifling through hundreds of pages a day, I may as well use the browser that sees them the easiest. Of course, at home, where I actually care about the state of my computer, I use the safest browser around... Safari. Security via unpopularity, suckers!
if everyone in the world was willing to switch browsers when they came across a seemingly malfunctioning website
hehe.. for the very first time I found it very handy recently to have multiple browsers set up. I was on a national site, trying to enter my registation details which it wouldn't accept.
I was using FF and did the "I forgot my password bit" just in case and still no joy. So I went over to IE (was 7 then went back to 6 just in case) ~ thinking it's one of those sites, but still no joy. I phoned the 24 hour support line and we spent 15-20 mins going through some options, until eventually I said let me try in some other browsers (not an average Joe response, I presume, as the operator on the other end of the phone said "you've got more than one browser?" ) We got it to work eventually in Opera, which he'd never heard of, and although I still don't know what happened, this is national institution site, a bit worrying that it will only work with Opera don't you think?
PS: I had credit on this site that I wanted to reclaim, so it wasn't as if I could just re-register.
Suzy
Netscape is Gecko.
True, but an older Gecko. Firefox is pretty well as current as Gecko gets, which makes it a pretty good thing to keep on hand for testing purposes.
...eventually I said let me try in some other browsers (not an average Joe response, I presume, as the operator on the other end of the phone said "you've got more than one browser?" )
Would have really been something if he's said something like, "Do those other browsers you have use the same Internet?" Which is the actual response I got when introducing a friend to Firefox! ;)
It's also worth-while keeping a copy of Lynx handy to see how your page looks without styles or images
You can achive this with the Dev toolbars available for IE \ FF which give you plenty of options to disable images \ stylesheets etc.
MatthewHSE I was taken back a bit when I saw how many browsers you have, and when I get home I think I may go mad and download nearly every browser available and view my sites one-by-one, the only problem being I'll be casuing myself hours of work fixing the bugs I find :)
MatthewHSE I was taken back a bit when I saw how many browsers you have
Well don't let it throw you! ;) I only use a few of those for testing. After awhile you get used to the errors you'll get with older browsers and can tell in advance if what you're doing will be within the "acceptable" range. Then you only have to actually test with a few of the more current browsers, and a quick once-over with the older ones.
Also, it's probably obvious, but for most sites you'll only need to test one page because they'll all more or less be using the same layout, template, or whatever. So if you get one right, the rest are likely to be okay as well, although it's still worthwhile to browse the site for awhile with several different browsers.
Also, Netscape, Mozilla, and Firefox browsers all require a profile. By default, many of them will try to use the same profile as the others. I recommend using different profiles for each one, labelled appropriately, since each profile manager will likely give the option to use the profiles for the other browsers.
