How many browsers do people test their sites against?

[Oli Filth]

Prompted by the recent discussion on testing sites for NN 4.8, I was
wondering how many different browser versions people test their sites
against. For instance, do people still make sure their sites work on IE
4? What are people's cut-off points for browser age? Do people test on
PDAs, phones, etc.? Different screen resolutions?

I ask this purely out of curiosity.

 

[Els]

Prompted by the recent discussion on testing sites for NN
4.8, I was wondering how many different browser versions
people test their sites against. For instance, do people
still make sure their sites work on IE 4? What are people's
cut-off points for browser age? Do people test on PDAs,
phones, etc.? Different screen resolutions?

I test on IE 5, 5.5, 6, Firebird, Firefox 0.8 and 1.0, Opera 6
and 7 (and 8 soon), Mozilla 1.4, NN 7.1, and even NN 4.78 if I
had time to make a simple stylesheet for it. Oh, and in Lynx to
see obvious errors and for accessibility.

I don't test for PDA's, cause I don't own one. Tested some sites
today on my cellphone, and saw it sometimes doesn't display
forms, and sometimes it does. No idea why though, not worried
about phones yet.

I ask this purely out of curiosity.

Curiosity is good (imnsho)

 

[Els]

Prompted by the recent discussion on testing sites for NN
4.8, I was wondering how many different browser versions
people test their sites against. For instance, do people
still make sure their sites work on IE 4? What are people's
cut-off points for browser age? Do people test on PDAs,
phones, etc.? Different screen resolutions?

I see I forgot to answer that last question:
Yes, I check if my sites work properly in small windows and in
large windows, and in between too. Not the screen resolution as
such, just the window size. Any page I make, I check whilst
dragging the window from small to wide and vice versa

 

[Disco Octopus]

Oli Filth wrote :

Prompted by the recent discussion on testing sites for NN 4.8, I was
wondering how many different browser versions people test their sites
against. For instance, do people still make sure their sites work on IE 4?
What are people's cut-off points for browser age? Do people test on PDAs,
phones, etc.? Different screen resolutions?

I ask this purely out of curiosity.

I personally test on...

Firefox 1.0
Mozilla 1.5
Mozilla 1.6
Mozilla 1.7
Opera 7.54
Netscape 7.1
Netscape 4.79 (just for curiosity and a chance to waste some time)
IE 5.5
IE 6.0
Symbian Opera
Lynx 2.8.3

 

[SpaceGirl]

Prompted by the recent discussion on testing sites for NN 4.8, I was
wondering how many different browser versions people test their sites
against. For instance, do people still make sure their sites work on IE
4? What are people's cut-off points for browser age? Do people test on
PDAs, phones, etc.? Different screen resolutions?

I ask this purely out of curiosity.

Very much depends on your audience.

The majority of our sites are band related, and tend to be flashy and
fluffy and very visual. They're tested in IE 5.5 and upwards, FireFox
and Mozilla, IE 5.2 on the Mac. Anything else is likely not to be able
to display the multimedia content at all so we ignore it (although, an
effort to "fail safe" is always made). We always make sure our sites
fully validate, but they tend to require JS and/or Flash. We dont test
at different resolutions. We design for 800x600 and upwards.

For some of our content (RSS/XML etc) we do test on portable devices
(mostly phones).

For more generic sites (simple sites) we'll test on a few other
browsers, but not much effort is put in as it is only represenative of a
tiny fraction of the visiting public.

If a site was required to work on a PDA or phone, we would design
specific content for those devices. There is no way even the best scaled
flexi content will fit on a 160 pixel display without gazzilions of
pages of scrolling or maintain any sense of design.

--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #

 

[Luigi Donatello Asero]

Oli Filth wrote :

I personally test on...

Firefox 1.0
Mozilla 1.5
Mozilla 1.6
Mozilla 1.7
Opera 7.54
Netscape 7.1
Netscape 4.79 (just for curiosity and a chance to waste some time)
IE 5.5
IE 6.0
Symbian Opera
Lynx 2.8.3

Do you have all these browsers in the same PC?

 

[Lloyd]

Prompted by the recent discussion on testing sites for NN 4.8, I was

wondering how many different browser versions people test their sites
against. For instance, do people still make sure their sites work on IE 4?
What are people's cut-off points for browser age? Do people test on PDAs,
phones, etc.? Different screen resolutions?

Somebody should make a 'super-browser' that can toggle thru all the browsers
using your page, any takers?
Lloyd

 

[Disco Octopus]

Luigi Donatello Asero wrote :

Do you have all these browsers in the same PC?

all but the IE5.5 / 6.0

I have IE5.5 on a win2K and the IE6 on a XP pro

 

[Els]

....
Somebody should make a 'super-browser' that can toggle thru
all the browsers using your page, any takers?
Lloyd

Why? I toggle between all the browsers with alt-tab already ;-)

 

[Mark Parnell]

Somebody should make a 'super-browser' that can toggle thru all the browsers
using your page, any takers?

Not quite what you mean, but I just open it in Mozilla, then right click
and open in IE and Opera. Haven't got around to adding other browsers
yet.

 

[rf]

Luigi Donatello Asero wrote :

all but the IE5.5 / 6.0

I have IE5.5 on a win2K and the IE6 on a XP pro

FWIW I have 4, 5, 5.5 and 6 all on one computer.

http://www.quirksmode.org/browsers/multipleie.html

 

[KHaled]

Prompted by the recent discussion on testing sites for NN
4.8, I was wondering how many different browser versions
people test their sites against. For instance, do people
still make sure their sites work on IE 4? What are people's
cut-off points for browser age? Do people test on PDAs,
phones, etc.? Different screen resolutions?

I ask this purely out of curiosity.

I think it would be more useful to develop according to
standards, and use the lowest standard that enables you to
produce the web pages that you want.

--
KHaled

e-mail: khaledihREMOVEUPPERCASELETTERS at fusemail dot net
(correcting antispam crap..)
please start your subject line with the string "==NG=="

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

Somebody should make a 'super-browser' that can toggle thru all the browsers
using your page, any takers?

i think netscape 8.0 will be such a browser. see (in German):
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/53806

it will contain Gecko AND IE engine. And users will be able to switch
between both modes.


bernhard

 

[Barbara de Zoete]

Prompted by the recent discussion on testing sites for NN 4.8, I was wondering
how many different browser versions people test their sites against. For
instance, do people still make sure their sites work on IE 4? What are
people's cut-off points for browser age? Do people test on PDAs, phones, etc.?
Different screen resolutions?

The only machine I have is a WinXP notbook, so I have little choice there.

I start with Opera 7.54. I make sure code is valid and works just the way I want
to in that browser. I don't look at older versions of Opera, because I think
(maybe wrongly so) that Opera users will keep their browsers updated.
Then I switch to FireFox v1.0PR (never got around to updating to the official
first release). I run into some minor things if I view new pages in that
browser, mainly to do with padding on <li> that can cause real pain with menu's.
Then I look in IE6. Just to find what falls apart in that crappy old thing.
Mainly to do with the box model, easily fixed with using the child selector in
my stylesheets. I don't go out of my way to redesign the lot just for IE. If it
works, it is good enough for me.

Finally I look in Lynx (for Win) and on an old Psion 5mx in 'Web', an symbian
application from several years back. My guess is, that if my pages render fine
in those two, they'll do good in almost anything (except ofcourse in NN4.8 ;-) ).

Whenever I see the opportunity, I'll bother friends and family to check my pages
in their machines. Sometimes this is a Mac, sometimes they still run
IE5.somthing, most of the times their screens are very different from mine.
Sometimes I spot a problem, but usually things work. Maybe not allways as pretty
as I intended, but things work. And that is the main goal.

I ask this purely out of curiosity.

What do you test in?

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[Bernhard Sturm]

Prompted by the recent discussion on testing sites for NN 4.8, I was
wondering how many different browser versions people test their sites
against. For instance, do people still make sure their sites work on IE
4? What are people's cut-off points for browser age? Do people test on
PDAs, phones, etc.? Different screen resolutions?

I ask this purely out of curiosity.

Depends on the customers specs. Usually they ask for latest browser
standards (I have a lot of gov. customers, and they have to follow WAI
guidelines). So it's most of the time:

(and above)
IE5.x (Win XP)
IE6.x (Win XP)
Netscape 6.x (Win XP)
Opera 6.x (Win XP)
Netscape 6.x (Win XP)
Firefox 0.8 (Win XP)
Camino 0.7 (Win XP)
Mozilla 1.7 (Win XP)
Lynx 2.x (Win XP)
Konqueror 3.x (on Linux)
IE 5.x (Mac OS9.1)
Netscape 6.x (Mac OS9.1)
Safari 1.x (Mac OSX)

Sometimes:
IBM HomePage Reader 3.x (Win XP)

Screen res always: 800px x 600px

And yes: we have several machines which serve only for the purpose to
test sites.


bernhard

 

[Travis Newbury]

Prompted by the recent discussion on testing sites for NN 4.8, I was
wondering how many different browser versions people test their sites

against. For instance, do people still make sure their sites work on IE
4? What are people's cut-off points for browser age? Do people test on
PDAs, phones, etc.? Different screen resolutions?
I ask this purely out of curiosity.

We test on FireFox and IE, the latest versions of both. But then we do
Web Applications and do not have the same accessibility requirements
your normal web site does.

 

[Oli Filth]

What do you test in?

At the moment, I'm making sites purely for fun and for learning.
Therefore I only bother to test against the latest versions of the
browsers I have installed, i.e. Firefox 1.0, Opera 7.54 and IE 6 (SP2).

What I'm most interested in is how far back people are willing to go.
For instance, do people still bother to test against ancient browsers
like IE 3?

Oli

 

[Disco Octopus]

Oli Filth wrote :

At the moment, I'm making sites purely for fun and for learning. Therefore I
only bother to test against the latest versions of the browsers I have
installed, i.e. Firefox 1.0, Opera 7.54 and IE 6 (SP2).

What I'm most interested in is how far back people are willing to go. For
instance, do people still bother to test against ancient browsers like IE 3?

No.

 

[Mark Parnell]

For instance, do people still bother to test against ancient browsers
like IE 3?

IE3? Not me. I do occasionally test in Mosaic 0.4beta though.

 

[Jim Royal]

I think it would be more useful to develop according to
standards, and use the lowest standard that enables you to
produce the web pages that you want.

And how does this relieve you of the need to test your pages?