All for one and one for all browser

The basic thing of website developing is to make sure you cross browser check your website across all browsers, even if you don’t like them. The biggest pain in every developers ass is the Microsoft Internet Explorer. What if though, you can have one browser or at least one browser standard?

Internet Explorer(IE) has got to be the worst for this only because Microsoft do not see the point in upgrading their browser automatically. Just about every other browser does this so when you are hit with a very non-technical person, then they are still up to date. I do see why they don’t in a way, because a lot of corporate companies used the older versions to support applications. If they do not update the application then the browser cannot be updated just in case it doesn’t support it. Upgrading everything could cost the company much more compared to supporting what is already there. This was the same, and the same company, with the operating system Windows XP. This system was integrated fully into companies systems so they couldn’t change to newer, fast and more reliable operating systems as they would not be supported. Although unlike the versions 7 and lower of IE, the operating system was fully supported by Microsoft, up to recent.

The issue with browsers not keeping update, which is not just IE, is you can’t use all the new updates to website developing code. Thing like CSS3 was not fully, or with some browsers, not at all supported, so when you do use a fantastic trick that looks great it doesn’t in that browser. Most will just not use it and resort to the lesser version, like border-radius. This would put a rounded corner on the selected element, but in browses like IE version 8 it would be square corners instead. This although is not perfect as it looses the great effect, it still works well as the content would be readable. However if you use HTML5 code like a <header> tag, that is now the best way to show contextual code and give the search engine more readable code, it would fail. What will happen is the opening tag will try and self close itself by adding a closing tag, but right next to it. The closing tag you entered then also does the same, but adds it in front of it. This of course breaks the website as the content is now not contained in that tag. This is where new coding technology is wasted.



There are a lot of work around that smart developers have came up with including HTML5 Shiv and some JavaScript that that can, for that particular problem, replace the HTML5 elements with replacements like div. Some content creators instead choose the most brutal methods to get round the lack of support by just not supporting it. By this I mean they tell clients that they do not support a particular version of the browser. This can then push people to upgrade or most likely to avoid that website. This is not the best and being a good developer you should support your client as they are obviously the customer. Others even go for only supporting a particular browser, though some are due to the company who is doing it. For example Google did a Lego WYSIWYG builder, which was awesome, but it was only on the desktop Chrome browser.

So other than finding more hacks to support the new and best technologies how can we fix this problem? The method I think could be great for developers would be the ultimate one browser for all, but this of course would not work for the browser companies.

On the pro’s for the developers it would remove the need to cross browser test as you would only have one browsers. The website developing standards would be up to date so there would be no compatibility issues and then finally if the builder or community allowed it, the browser would automatically update to keep up to date with the standard. From this there would be no compatibility issues, speeds up developing with no cross browsing testing and updates would be, well up to date.

The con’s comes under one big thing, competition. If you only get one browser then there is no competition to push the development of browsers and their technology. Most of the HTML and CSS standards and developments are pushed by developers wanting easy ways to develop, but the browser need to be pushed as well. The other thing with one browser, so who supports it? Google is not going to support the browser if it is not Chrome with Google branding and the others wouldn’t support the browser if it was branded as it isn’t by them. This browser would have to be community driven, but then it wouldn’t last with out funding and then where do you get funding etc.



So as a result I think an all in one browser would be great for developers, but bad for the companies that drive them to pioneer technology. It would result in more damage then good, but then how do we combat the browsers like IE that don’t want to update? If these browsers were to keep up to date and to keep up with standards then I think there would be more technical advanced websites with more creativity as we will not be held back.

Tell us what you think, would you want an all for one browser or do you think there is a better way?


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