Google Chrome Joins The Modern Browser Party

Welcome Google Chrome

For months if not years rumor had it that Google was cooking up a browser of their own which many dubbed "The gBrowser". Since Google had built a good relationship with the Mozilla foundation it was presumed that they would build it on top of the Mozilla rendering engine "Gecko" but Google has just announced / released the "Google Chrome" Web Browser, based on WebKit, the rendering engine inside Safari and Konqueror.

You can download the beta here for Windows (it will be available for Mac and Linux shortly) in one of 43 languages and give it a test spin yourself.

The interface screams of simplicity yet under the hood contains a lot of great design. The browser is designed to load each tab as its own process in the host Operating System, thus if one site crashes, you need not lose your entire browser and all other sites.

Tabs can be easily dragged, dropped and re-arranged... and best of all you can drag a tab out of the set, and start a new window... or merge one or more tabs back into one window just by dragging it back. (Note to all Web Browser makers, this is how all browsers should work!

Developers will be happy too, since it runs WebKit, its fast and any site that supports Safari 3.1 will work just fine with Google Chrome. Not only that it comes with a Task Manager that reports back how much memory your web site/application is actually using so you can watch your memory management and check for memory leaks.

For end users and developers go download it now and check it out! As for Google, welcome to the Modern Browser party, we're certainly glad to have you... Diversity is the key to the modern web.

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Browser Life Statuses

Browser Life Status:

Many will argue what set of browsers should be supported for a given site or application but there isn't a perfect answer. Its a trade off between accepting a wide range of users, browsers, and platforms vs. the development time & cost needed to support them.

Eventually though, you need to kick certain browsers to the curb. You reach the threshold where it simply isn't worth your time to support them.

Deciding when to drop support is tricky what rules do you apply?

1.) We only support the last 2 official versions of modern browsers?
2.) We only support Mac/Windows?
3.) Only browsers less than 2 years old?

One of the tools you'll need to decide, is some stats about the browsers themselves. Just how old is IE6? What about Firefox 1.0?

Well hopefully this will help out. Its a "live" list of browsers age color coded to visually indicate just how old a given browser is*.

(Update: Bloggers options for inserting JavaScript and CSS into a post are limited. We are looking to host this externally to ensure 100% uptime.)

* Where exact release dates were not known, the 1st of the month they were released was used.

We have certainly come a long way! We'll be sure to add new browsers when they are officially released and expand this to include some of the less popular ones.


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Browser Features - Poll Results

After reviewing the results of the last poll, we opened up the Browser Features Poll asking you what Browser features you cared about most. As a site delivering content mainly to Web Developers, the results obviously cater to a developers perspective but the results are interesting none the less.


Browser Features Poll Results:

Surprise, surprise! Developers care most about the JavaScript/DOM Support. Web 2.0 depends heavily on decent JavaScript/DOM Support and what troubles developers most is the lack of consistency across Major Browsers. CSS support and Security took a close 2nd, followed by Bug Tracking and Rendering Speed.

On the low end was Bookmarks and RSS. Not too surprising since these aren't the most critical parts of a browser, and other Manager/Aggregaters tend to be better at this role anyway.

A new poll will be up shortly, so be sure to check back soon.

Thanks for voting!

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Official Browser Bug Tracking

As readers may recall from the Welcome Page this site was created to fill a gap between existing and non-existing bug tracking databases for Web Browsers.

As a service to Web Developers everywhere that just want to know how to workaround some of the most annoying browser bugs and/or find out when they will be fixed, this site was put together.

As mentioned from the onset, the idea was to tie into existing bug tracking systems wherever possible, and provide updates when the status of any bug changes.

In addition, we think it is important to provide info on the official bug tracking systems, as this site is by no means a complete solution. The following list indicates the bug tracking system available for each Web Browser:

Official Public Bug Tracking Sites:

• Mozilla/Firefox: Mozilla Bugzilla


• Google Chrome: Chromium Isues


• Internet Explorer: IE Feedback, IE8 Feedback (reopened for IE8 Beta cycle)


• Safari: WebKit Bugzilla


• Konqueror: KDE Bug Tracking System


• Opera: Opera Bug Tracking


• Maxthon: Maxthon Forum (note: for bugs in the browser layout / rendering, see IE bug tracking)

Unfortunately Microsoft seems to not be interested in receiving any bug reports for IE (6 or 7). This doesn't sit well as a company policy as Browsers move ahead as the default development platform of Enterprise Applications however we hope that as IE8 appears over the horizon, that they realize the mistake in this approach and provide public tracking of issues.

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Browser Preferences - Poll Results

It isn't much of a surprise, but lets review the findings.

Several weeks ago, we opened up a poll asking you what your favorite Web Browsers were. As a site delivering content mainly to Web Developers, it came as no surprise that Mozilla Firefox was by far the most favored Browser.

Favorite Browser Poll Results:




What is interesting to see, is the breakdown of other Browsers. Keep in mind, these are "preferred" Browsers, not necessarily reflecting spec compliance, features or bugs, but rather what you prefer as a browser.

Thus a new poll has opened, asking you what features in a browser are most important to you? Do you care about add-ons? Do you care about Specs? Do you care about speed? etc.

Feel free to choose your favorite features in a Browser (any browser) as we dig deeper into what makes a good browser, and thus what features we would like added, or bugs we'd like fixed in other browsers.

Happy New Year!

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Apple Safari on Windows

Apple Safari on Windows:

For those familiar with the MacOS platform, Safari is likely your native tongue.

However Safari on Windows, is relatively new, and brings another great browser to the Windows world with all its shiny aqua goodness.

As a new browser on the Windows platform, it has some excellent features, and a few bugs that I'll point out below.

Features:
1.) It is Fast, blazing Fast!
2.) It has a built in JavaScript Console
3.) Built on the WebKit codebase (same as Konqueror), it is one of the most standards compliant browsers out there!
4.) Fancy shmancy form field highlighting
5.) Built in resizable textareas
6.) Built in bug submission. Right into the browser! Simply give some brief details (the url of the page you are on is sent automatically) and submit! All browsers could use this feature!

Bugs:
1.) It doesn't respond to the windows command [WinKey]+ M or [WinKey] + D to minimize all windows and display the desktop.
2.) You can only resize the window, by the bottom right corner, or double-clicking th e title bar.

If you haven't tried this browser out yet, I'd highly recommend it!

Modern Browsers

Modern Browsers: I expect this to be a moving target, but as of mid-2007 I would only qualify the following as "Modern Browsers". You should expect to see little support, and very few features for browsers not listed here. If your Web Browser is not listed here, it IS time to upgrade.

• Mozilla
  
  
  
  • Mozilla
  
  
  • Firefox 1.5* | 2.0 | 3.0 | 3.5
  
  
  • Camino 1.5
  
  
  • Epiphany 2.2
  
  
  
  


• Opera 8.0 | 9.0 | 9.5


• Safari 3.0 | 3.1 | (4.0*)(Mac or Windows)


• Konqueror 3.5 | 4.0


• Google Chrome 1.0 | 2.0 (based on WebKit)


• Netscape 7.0 | 8.0 | 9.0


• AT&T's Pogo (based on Firefox) [in Limited Beta]


• Internet Explorer 7.0 | 8.0 | 9.0***

***IE9 announced at PDC and on the IE Blog

*Safari 4.0 is now out in Beta for Mac and Windows

*Firefox 1.5 is a modern web browser for sure, but with the fast pace of Firefox development, full support for this version has already moved on. If you are using Firefox 1.5 we strongly suggest you upgrade to Firefox 2.x or, if 3.x when it is available.