I've been experimenting with browsers for the past few days. Ever since Firefox 4b11 blew up (literally couldn't do anything, even with a re-install) I've been playing with other browsers. I've been an Opera user since 9.5 and I've been very happy - but you can't help thinking, "is life greener on the other side of the fence? Is Chrome better?" So, I tried to answer that
Internet Explorer 8 has now been unleashed upon the Windows world to a small ripple of applause and a snigger from every other browser manufacturer. It's a big step forward for Microsoft, the IE team have put in a lot of hard work and should be proud of everything they've done to enforce standards on the web.
Just a quick message to say that Firefox 3 will be released today at 10am PDT (6pm BST if you're in the UK like me).
Opera 9.5 is has now been released. The browser underdog (and my personal favorite) now has more features than ever! It's also faster (see my SlickSpeed test article) and includes lots more CSS3 features including media queries, full selectors capabilities and new properties like text shadows and box sizing.
Recently, I've been asked a lot of questions about CSS and my commitment to it. I'm a purist when it comes to the web. I firmly believe that the only way to create a web site is to use standards-compliant CSS that is cross-compatible with all major browsers. Javascript should only be used as a progressive enhancement technique and should certainly not be relied upon (yes, I'm looking at you ASP .NET). Most of my colleagues regard this stance as noble, but somewhat stupid in the "real world", where it's not always getting it done "right", it's just getting it done. Why is CSS considered such a black art?
With the impending release of Firefox 3, a new chapter to "browser wars" is upon us. In this short series, I'll be looking at what each browser offers to a user, and hopefully pick a champion.
I’ve been using Opera since it reached version 9.0 in 2006. I have used it every day since in one form or another. I use Opera on my PA laptop, on my Mac, on my TV, my games console and on my Phone, and since Opera’s rendering engine is now built into some Adobe products (Photoshop, Dreamweaver and GoLive) I’m using Opera even when I don’t realise it.
Opera Dragonfly, the opera web browser's developer tools, were released into alpha yesterday. It features tools like a DOM inspector, CSS style tracing, Javascript console with breakpoints and step-through inspection, and support for debugging other opera browsers (opera mobile and opera tv, though not opera mini). However, it's not all roses.
With the release of Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 this week, MS debuted a few new features for the browser. Not only is it more standards compliant etc (read about all the features here), there are two major features which developers can utilise to make web sites and services more accessible through IE8. I'm talking about Activites and WebSlices.