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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Web Bug Track - A Brief Update

The status quo

Well, here we are 1 year later! It was a year ago we first welcomed you to this "bug blog". It started as just a simple concept... a way to track web bugs in HTML, JavaScript, DOM, CSS, etc. in the world wide web of Web Browsers.

The landscape has changed significantly since starting this blog. Mozilla released Firefox 3, a worthy successor to the hugely popular Firefox 2, even setting a Guinness World Record in the process. Opera released the latest update to their browser, squashing a several pesky bugs and improving their Web Standards by drifting away from legacy IE-spoofing and being the first to pass the ACID3 test! The KDE folks released Konqueror 4.0, boosting speed and cleaning up rendering issues they had. Safari has been making leaps and bounds with WebKit in terms of supporting advanced CSS3 properties and being the second browser to pass the ACID3 test. Finally Microsoft re-opened their bug tracking tool "IE Feedback" on the Connect site when IE8 Beta 1 was released to developers. This was a welcome change as there was much frustration when Microsoft decided to close it (and remove all entries) after IE7 went RTM. We hope that it will remain open when IE8 goes RTM later this year, however if it doesn't you can rest assured that Web Bug Track isn't going anywhere!.

Alas when we began this blog, there was a simple concept we wanted to fulfill. Allow Web Developers and Designers a source to track bugs (regardless of which Browser / Vendor they were for), provide clear workarounds where known to get around bugs and lastly allow the community an opportunity to share their bug findings, so that we can all benefit.

So here we are now getting 1,000s upon 1,000s of hits every month from Developers looking for workarounds, or just looking to find out which versions of a browser are affected by a bug, or which HTML elements have issues in which browser. I can tell you that from the stats and the praise I've received thus far, I feel overwhelmingly satisfied that this experiment has been a huge success... and obviously filled a need in the "Developers Toolbox" of tips and tricks.

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So where to now?

Good question! There's a few changes coming up that I think will make things that much better.

• Recent Updates Section


• Knol Reference Page - Web Browser Bugs

The Recent Updates Section will allow returning visitors to easily spot changes to bugs / workarounds. An addition to Google's Knol Reference Pages allows direct linking/searching of bugs here on Web Bug Track by Browser, HTML Element Type, JavaScript Method or Property. There will be a few more additions too, but I'll keep those as a surprise for now. ;-)

Thanks for making Web Bug Track a success! I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed putting it all together.

Cheers!

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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!

Welcome to Web Bug Track

This blog is for tracking Web Bugs. Mostly Browser bugs, however the occasional framework/language bug might sneak in. Where possible, I'm going to try and link into other public bug tracking systems, so you can track their progress directly from the Browser Developers.

Unlike a typical blog, I intend to update each section as more content becomes available, so this may end up more like a wiki than your typical blog.

So, if you want to get started, just follow the links below, or pick a Category in the Tags section.

Browsers:
Mozilla (Firefox), Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE6, IE7), Apple Safari, Konqueror, Opera.

Languages:
HTML, XHTML, JavaScript, DOM, CSS, PHP, JSP, XML, XSL, RSS, XUL, SVG, ASP, CF