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Asked: 2026-05-17T14:35:57+00:00

I’ve been Googling this one, on and off, for a few days now. When

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I’ve been Googling this one, on and off, for a few days now. When generating non-commercial Web sites, what’s the best strategy when it comes to cross-browser testing? I use Windows 7 and Textpad to develop my HTML/CSS/JavaScript/PHP – i.e.: no dreamweaver, kompozer, Etc.

I currently test using Firefox 3.6 and IE8. The last time I checked, this represented 80% of the browser market. I don’t have Safari installed, nor Google Chrome, but would like to know roughly how much of the browser market will ‘behave’ with my site (http://www.simoncatlin.co.uk), especially as I’m using a lot of timers, screen measurement, Etc.

I’m not after perfection, but would like to know how close to 100% I’m getting.

Thanks in advance

Simon Catlin

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You need to think about your application and your user base. For example, historically, IE was installed on many home computers. Most average internet users would never go and install another browser because they didn’t really care.

    There are lots of people however, that do care. Those sorts of people are inclined to install a new browser (or two or three). They tend to be much more tech savy and their expectations are a lot different.

    Looking at browser market share may be misleading. If you are targeting your website to average internet users, then you’ll probably do ok to test the top 2 or 3 browsers. If you are likely to attract a more technical audience, then you can expect a much wider range of browsers.

    The best stats to use are your own. Look at you logs and run them through some tools that will give you the breakdown of browsers that come to your site.

    Some interesting links for you:

    Example: 25% of the visitors we track at Squidoo use Firefox, which is not surprising. But 50% of the people who actually build pages on the site are Firefox users. Twice as many.
    http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/04/why-downloading.html

    http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

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