[thelist] Browser and standards question

Andy Budd andy at message.uk.com
Thu Jul 31 04:16:33 CDT 2003


Hi Diane,

When IE5.2 came out on Mac it was one of the most standards compliant 
browsers around. These days I use Safari and it seems pretty reliable 
when it comes to web standards as well.

However I don't think it's possible to say which browser "supports" web 
standards better because each have their own quirks and "support" 
standards in a different way.

IE5.2 has a few well documented Mac bug's. Safari is quite new and have 
done a good job at ironing out user reported CSS bugs (which the beta 
had a bunch), however because of this newness, I'm sure there are a 
bunch more lurking.

One thing I've found is that most "standards compliant" browsers 
actually impediment things like the box model and floating in a wide 
(and often bizarre) fashion. I got into all kinds of fun when designing 
www.message.uk.com.

So I really wouldn't worry about what browser you use. Just pull out 
BBEdit and get coding.

Here are a couple of site detailing bugs in IE5 and Safari

http://www.l-c-n.com/IE5tests/index.shtml
http://diveintomark.org/safari/




Diane Soini wrote:

> I have a question maybe you can answer. I use a Mac and have Safari 
> and Internet Explorer 5.2 installed. I've also got Camino. I aspire to 
> standards compliant code (css and xhtml), but I don't know which 
> browser actually supports the standards the best. I just want to 
> experiment around with code, not do it for production, so what I'm 
> wanting to do is write standards complaint code but not worry about 
> hacks and tricks to make it work in every browser. I want to pick a 
> browser that supports the standards the best and use it in my 
> experimenting around.
>
> So, which Mac browser is the least buggy? And of the least buggy 
> browser, is there somewhere where I can read (in plain English) what 
> the bugs I'm likely to encounter (nothing too obscure, in other words) 
> are? Like "such-and-such browser screws up this css standard, so your 
> results are likely to look like this ugly example" but no discussions 
> that sound like "how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin"-type 
> bugs.



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