PDA

View Full Version : Web Browser Survey



nOs*Wildcard
08-02-2012, 06:23 PM
Alright,

I'm doing the 2nd most frustrating thing other than SiegeXtreme development...
Making a website that looks right among all web browsers! :mad: This is a frustrating challenge for me.
Anyhow, I'd like to know what web browser you use the most, Please, don't need to turn this into an internet browser debate
I'm here on the buissness of collecting information so I can get this website launched and I can get to a more organized way of developing SiegeXtreme
and announcing updates. :|

UT-Sniper-SJA94
08-02-2012, 07:20 PM
Firefox

.seVered.][
08-02-2012, 07:40 PM
Telnet..Just kidding (sorta)... IE8 and Chrome

|uK|Rays
08-02-2012, 07:49 PM
Chrome.

CrashingCami
08-02-2012, 08:06 PM
Chrome

Weetabix
08-02-2012, 08:18 PM
Opera

nOs*Wildcard
08-02-2012, 08:38 PM
[facepalm] Awe! damn it I forgot chrome! Oh great another web browser with probaly a handfull of it's own standars and stupid way of doing things GRRR. I might as well make a seperate website for every single browser. Thanks for letting me know about chrome I should have added it to the poll but I don't know how to edit the poll. Thanks guys

nOs*Wildcard
08-02-2012, 09:16 PM
Internet Explorer 7 is really starting to piss me off. I'm glad nobody is using it so far, Firefox is starting to behave, I got to test on chrome however.

Shotman
08-02-2012, 09:29 PM
You forgot Safari for mac users.

The list would be, Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari. And i use Firefox.

nOs*Wildcard
08-02-2012, 09:48 PM
You forgot Safari for mac users.

The list would be, Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari. And i use Firefox.

I'm doing the best I can for the resources I have. I do not own a mac to test this website on and I only have IE9 and a working Virtual machine running windows XP with Chrom IE7 and Firefox to test it on. It's been a real adventure already, real walk thru the park.. lol. I'm making a website myself instead of just using Cpanel and installing some forum. I want it to shine :) Wish me luck and thanks for your help! BTW firefox works on Mac of coarse right? I know its a derp question but instead of assuming I thought I'd ask I dont own a mac

Shotman
08-02-2012, 10:02 PM
yea in a mac you can get chrome and firefox i believe.

Banny
08-03-2012, 05:19 AM
Chrome.

Keith
08-03-2012, 07:20 AM
I use Chrome, Firefox is acting up and keep doing 100% processus when I open it...

SAM
08-03-2012, 11:39 AM
I could just post the web browser detection instead for you? Last time I looked about 2k overall users.

SilverWing
08-03-2012, 11:43 AM
added chrome to the vote poll for u :)

Moko
08-03-2012, 01:11 PM
Firefox.

SAM
08-03-2012, 01:24 PM
Here you go WC

nOs*Wildcard
08-03-2012, 04:42 PM
added chrome to the vote poll for u :)
Thanks SW!

UNrealshots
08-03-2012, 04:43 PM
Firefox YO

nOs*Wildcard
08-03-2012, 04:48 PM
Here you go WC
Thanks $car, I wonder if the poll will stack up similar to the pie. This is helpfull :) Chrome as a browser is irritating me it feel the need to make all webpage elements on my site tall and skinny while FireFox and IE9 show proportions and scaled images correctly, Just gonna have to keep working on it, but I got plans this Friday Night! :cool:

Thank you everyone you all have been helpfull. :)

Dr.Flay
09-04-2012, 08:55 PM
I use the browser that does far more "out of the box", than any in your poll.
Opera

A few facts for your digestion;
Most of the planet viewing via a mobile device will be using a mini or mobile Opera.
Most Mac users will be using Safari.

...and *sigh, here I go again with this, but you'll get a shortish version.
Most Chrome users are giving all their information away with every key-press (why any one willingly installs and uses spy-ware is beyond me!).
For example, If you use Chrome your local Council have a lot more info than you realise. Local Councils in the UK are one of the largest requesters of info from Google, and they are abusing it for mundane stuff rather than real crime.
Google are actively blocking you from excluding yourself from data-harvesting, by constantly moving the exclusion page. (About a month ago my mate found it again, but gave-up with the process, as every page sent him to yet another, where he had to keep agreeing to terms and conditions on each page, to get to another, etc.).
Any Hitchhikers Guide fans here may well be wondering if finally you get into a room with an old filling cabinet, guarded by a Leopard.
Very probably.

If you have some software on your PC, sending data to someone to put on the open market for sale, normally you use some anti-malware software to get rid of it.
Stick a Google logo on it instead, and somehow now that is OK ?
On any browser, if you stay logged into a Google service and continue browsing, they do the same data harvesting.
This is not the same as normal web-analytics, which is innocuous and useful to all.
And I guess, what you don't see in your searches, you won't miss ?
There's more internet out there than Google shows you ;)
Try searching Google for something like "How to exclude from google data harvesting/collection" any phrase of that nature or variation.
....
Find much?
Thought not. Wonder how that could be, eh ?
This data they ARE selling about you, shouldn't have copies? and be getting at least 50% of this revenue?
Aren't you are supposed to be the user, not the used?
OK. Google rant over.

Finally, Web designers have to try their sites in various browsers, because various sites break the rules of W3C standards.
Different browsers fix things in their own way, so vary in result and performance. Adding this extra code to the browsers over the years is causing unnecessary bloat and slowdowns. IE's site compatibility list is monstrous!
Certain browsers also allow or encourage coding that suits that browser. Sometimes this is added functionality.
Hence you will often see little icons in the corner of certain sites, bearing the message "this site works best in...."

1 browser is made by the co-creators of the CSS3 HTML5 standards, and this 1 browser is the only one to stick the the W3C standards.
Opera.
Very simply, if your site works well in Opera then it has been properly made with legal code, and will work on anything, at all on the planet, that can read HTML, in any capacity.
You will never see a site with a banner saying "works best in Opera", as it would work best in whatever you want it to.
Opera can even check the page you are on, with the official W3C validator. This can then give corrections or suggestions to fix your code.
The built-in developer tool DragonFly also makes web design a much easier (I use it for tearing apart sites to find stuff ;) ).

OK class, No homework, but the first person to find the final Google data collection exclusion page, gets a gold-star.

ACF
09-04-2012, 11:42 PM
Agreed Opera is probably the greatest browser for me. I used it for more than 3 years but i just recently uninstalled it, i noticed it used way to much ram. So i installed comodo dragon. No wya in hell was I goign to install chrome or firefox lulz

Dr.Flay
09-05-2012, 12:16 AM
Yeah recent builds are supposed to adapt to how much RAM you have, but it is too hungry.
I just set the disk and memory caches limit, to 200MB each.
My excessive use of extensions seems to be the biggest performance impact.

.seVered.][
09-05-2012, 10:20 PM
Thanks $car, I wonder if the poll will stack up similar to the pie. This is helpfull :) Chrome as a browser is irritating me it feel the need to make all webpage elements on my site tall and skinny while FireFox and IE9 show proportions and scaled images correctly, Just gonna have to keep working on it, but I got plans this Friday Night! :cool:

Thank you everyone you all have been helpfull. :)

wait, wait, wait...THIS friday? I thought it was NEXT friday...now I have to call my agent and reschedule... Are you sure? THIS FRIDAY?

Feralidragon
09-06-2012, 07:25 AM
Just read the first post, sorry if this outdated or has already been said, but:

Well Wildcard, in all seriousness: I do web development for a living (serious ground up php/javascript/etc stuff, not CMS bs or any of that like 95% of people out there and which make they think they know anything about PHP lol, when they actually don't) and I am the sole developer of a website which has over 1 million unique visits a day, and the main developer of another one which has less visits but only which about 65% of the work is mine, so I ask you to hear me out intently on this one please (you should hear other people out as well of course, specially people more into this, but I ask you to take my advice as one of the potential professional views on things you will ever have rather than just an enthusiast or user view):

1 - Don't do these surveys to decide to either or not discard a browser. This will only give you false statistics on worldwide usage.
2 - Support anything from and beyond IE7, Firefox 3.x, Chrome, Opera, Safari and potentially Dolphin as well if you want to support Android devices too.
3 - Development wise expect problems in IE7, IE8, Chrome and Opera (yes Dr Flay, Opera has issues too, specially in CSS properties, I did a complete javascript WYSIWYG editor and I know the difficulties I had to face)
4 - As for javascript, use jQuery if possible, it works in all the browsers, and when something doesn't they patch it asap.
5 - As for CSS, unless you're making your site for a dumb picky client, don't sweat and use CSS3 properties. If IE7 doesn't support some visual feature, discard it for that browser alone, just keep it "usable" for IE7 users (like, if you have round corners using CSS3, you can't have them in IE7, so don't worry, just let it with the regular corners).
6 - If handing/changing CSS properties via javascript, attention to certain ones like font-family which return different values depending on the browser (Opera for instance returns it differently than every other browser).
7 - As for HTML, take special care with HTML5 ones. A trick to make them work under any browser the way you want is by setting a CSS file declaring their defaults. Doesn't work in all browsers though, so you should make a quick research on the subject.
8 - You should ALWAYS have a default CSS spreadsheet, since each browser has its own settings.
9 - Careful with javascript event handling, like clicks and the like, browsers also handle these very differently.
10 - Don't build your site with tables, use divs and spans instead, for menus use horizontal and vertical styled lists.
11 - If possible, use media queries so the site auto-adjusts in different resolutions.
12 - Don't do these surveys, they are misleading! (yeah, I just said this in my first point, I just want this to stick in, it's really important)

SAM
09-06-2012, 12:35 PM
A site with a million unique hits...yum lol link?!

Feralidragon
09-06-2012, 01:46 PM
1 million unique hits a week in the mobile version (not a day lol, not yet but we're heading there) alone, about 80 thousand unique hits in the web version alone, and over a million unique hits a day in the usage of a certain service through an app (usage of the app itself).
I won't provide the direct link (job and UT, not a mix that should be done).

ACF
09-06-2012, 01:59 PM
LOL scarface i found the link! here it is

http://feralidragon.blogspot.ca/

But it only has 7900 views rofl..

Srsyl just give the link, whats there to hide unless your lying.

SAM
09-06-2012, 02:17 PM
Oh shut up ACF no one cares what you found and honestly it's the wrong link you fail ass troll

Feralidragon
09-06-2012, 02:32 PM
Of course I wasn't referring to my blog, still has more unique visits than many UT communities and blogs around rofl, and it was my first test work just barely after I learned html and js, never bothered in changing it again nor updating it that much.

Anyway, I have nothing to prove to you or anyone, I mentioned that for Wildcard alone since he was going the wrong route imo in discarding browser support by using this misleading survey (perhaps I should have PMed him directly instead, my fault there) and it's the truth. If you think it's a lie, so be it, I really don't care.

I edited my post and removed the clue about the link. The sole person who actually found it knows I am not bs anyone, and I have no reasons to anyway. Next time, I will refrain myself to touch any of these subjects, I was a dumbass in trying to give a serious advice using my professional experience and knowledge in the subject anyway hoping that someone would actually hear it out instead of questioning me about it.

.seVered.][
09-06-2012, 02:55 PM
LOL scarface i found the link! here it is

http://feralidragon.blogspot.ca/

But it only has 7900 views rofl..

Srsyl just give the link, whats there to hide unless your lying.

Need I remind you ACF?

what phone do you use, im curious to know.:)

I use a satellite phone with a glow in the dark laser scope on it for when I'm in the middle of the fucking pacific ocean!
GO NAVY! Any other PERSONAL fucking questions you'd like to ask?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/BB61_USS_Iowa_BB61_broadside_USN.jpg

SAM
09-06-2012, 03:03 PM
Take no notice of him. I like reading other people's experiences and professional opinions and I'm sure people with relative interests will too.

Feralidragon
09-06-2012, 03:17 PM
Btw, just a small note: I didn't intend by any means play any sort of authority or "big shot" over this sort of things when talking about my own past and current professional experience (if it sounded like that in any way...). The problem, specially with this community, is that there's a ton of spam/offtopic content on each and every topic and every time I write something more seriously, it's a TL;DR for most people, and that is the kind of thing that annoys me in every place I see that happening.

So I just wanted to higher the level of the topic a bit and clear some stuff out for a fellow developer who seems to be just entering the web scene (he wouldn't ever make a browser survey in a UT forum if he had more experience in the area imo).

But again, should have seen that one coming from someone...

SAM
09-06-2012, 04:20 PM
Appreciate your input ferali. Don't let a dick head (I don't say those thoughts out often for various reasons) Who is skating on thin ice stop you posting useful insightful content. The one thing we have missed and never had is a community that contributes and only over the past year has it really been taking off. Please don't be discouraged by people like ACF who post fake pictures of themselves.

Feralidragon
09-06-2012, 06:10 PM
Thanks for your words.
I must confess I wasn't in the best mood either at the time I posted all of the above, but it really saddens me that up to this day I still have to prove something to anybody when I think I gave enough proof for years that I am not the bs kind of guy (some people just don't understand that not everything should go to public).

Anyway, keeping on topic and once again trying to higher the level a bit: WildCard, what exact difficulties you are having with IE7? Also you don't need to use IE7 directly, you can use IE8 in compatibility mode (I think IE9 has it too, since Microsoft realized the crap they have been doing up to now, so it's like their redemption on it lol).

Common IE7 problems:

- anchors: by default they're like an inline kind of element, but IE7 (or is it IE8, not sure anymore, long time..) thinks differently. So, first thing: add a "display: inline;" to anchors in your CSS spreadsheet;

- rounded corners: only IE9 supports them. Once again, IE is late to the party and you have to live with it. If you don't mind having rounded corners in all the browsers but IE, then don't worry and let the IE users see the "blocky" site (for instance, my boss doesn't really care, if the users can see it and use it, cool, plus most of our public target happens to use proper browsers anyway due to the nature of the service).
If however you totally need IE to have rounded corners, then it's a bit more difficult.
Some people build tables... NO! Bad web designer! No tables!!
A colleague of mine (at the beginning of my career) used javascript as some other people. Also a bad approach: it slows down the rendering since all it does is to add a ton of very small divs to make the corners look round, and at the end it just looks an ugly aliased piece of crap. Plus, turn javascript off from your browser, and it doesn't even work ofc.
Personally, if I want or have to add rounded corners to IE, I just draw the corners in Photoshop first and then you should have a structure like this.

<div class="mystuff">
<div class="top left corner1"></div>
<div class="top right corner2"></div>
<div class="bottom left corner3"></div>
<div class="bottom right corner4"></div>
</div>

And the style (take the example of the corners to be 10px):


.mystuff { position: relative; }
.mystuff div { position: absolute; width: 10px; height: 10px; }
.top { top: 0px; }
.bottom { bottom : 0px; }
.left { left : 0px; }
.right { right: 0px; }
.corner1 { background-image: url'mycorner1.png'; }
.corner2 { background-image: url'mycorner2.png'; }
.corner3 { background-image: url'mycorner3.png'; }
.corner4 { background-image: url'mycorner4.png'; }


The corners must be (or should) png, so they can have transparency. But try to get them as optimized as possible.
The ".mystuff" div has to have "position: relative;" so "position: absolute;" in the other divs actually work, otherwise the corners will be in each corner of your screen instead.
Anyway, personally, I don't worry much about rounded corners for IE.

- Opacity: IE7 sucks in opacity properties. There's a known bug where if you try to fade a transparent element with javascript, it will just get fully opaque or hidden.
I don't remember though if a transparent background instead works (I think so).

- CSS background-position: Just plain forget it in IE7. This is a CSS feature which is very useful for elements which change upon hovering, like a button. However IE7 breaks this up.

- Use IE conditional statements: IE has a useful feature which are "IF" conditions and the like within html comments. Use that to correct things up like loading another IE specific CSS spreadsheet for IE alone.

- NEVER use features which are unique to a single browser or small set of browsers. They're bound to fail and even possibly mess other browsers as well.
Almost every "new" feature can be achieved using HTML5, specially using the canvas feature (actually I never worked much with it, but I know it's possible to do a lot with it).

- Avoid using Flash. I mean, it's only useful for upload progress bars (PHP doesn't have a progress bar on uploads due to the very nature the language, and using Ajax doesn't work very well), but even so I already read somewhere it's possible to do it now with HTML5, but only a few browsers support it. Also, any content in Flash is a complete black hole for web crawlers, like Google and Yahoo, they don't know what's there at all.

Well, there is a whole lot of things I could put there, but I don't want to make a bigger post.
I hope someone contributes to this instead with other tips (even ones I don't know about, that would be awesome).

.seVered.][
09-06-2012, 08:54 PM
Btw, just a small note: I didn't intend by any means play any sort of authority or "big shot" over this sort of things when talking about my own past and current professional experience (if it sounded like that in any way...). The problem, specially with this community, is that there's a ton of spam/offtopic content on each and every topic and every time I write something more seriously, it's a TL;DR for most people, and that is the kind of thing that annoys me in every place I see that happening.

So I just wanted to higher the level of the topic a bit and clear some stuff out for a fellow developer who seems to be just entering the web scene (he wouldn't ever make a browser survey in a UT forum if he had more experience in the area imo).

But again, should have seen that one coming from someone...

I know EXACTLY what you mean, and I don't think he will take any offense... your input (as all skilled and knowledgeable individuals will know) is appreciated.

It's kind of like when the CIA let's the FBI know where one of their targets is at...it's professional courtesy, which means it will be respected by a professional for the courtesy. {:)~

~V~
07-15-2013, 10:53 AM
Off topic:

seVered, why is your post dated 09-06-2012? :confused:

UT-Sniper-SJA94
07-15-2013, 11:06 AM
Someone probably used the poll.

~V~
07-15-2013, 11:08 AM
Ah good point

.seVered.][
07-15-2013, 06:56 PM
Off topic:

seVered, why is your post dated 09-06-2012? :confused:

LOL, ah .. the professional courtesy post... yes, the "new" thing get's updated when someone votes.

nOs*Wildcard
07-16-2013, 03:59 AM
Thanks FeraliDragon for taking the time to share all your experience and knowledge. I've caught myself up and read every single line you wrote and you put some great points out there I can learn from. There's so much for me to learn. I'll try your tips and avoid using tables. I've used so many tables with things and they can cause so many problems it seems. I'll try the alternatives. I'll also disregard the survey you make a strong point there. It would be easy for me to take the lazy/wrong route and make it look super awesome got a single browser and bomb on the rest but if I'm ever going to be successful with this website or any kind of web related work in the future I'm going to need to learn to abide by standards. Best case scenario I can get shiny awesome and compatibility with all browsers with absolutely no compromise. Reality: </no>

Feralidragon
07-17-2013, 06:21 AM
I didn't even remember about this topic anymore.

But yeah, a good site runs in all browsers equally. Even when following what works in common between browsers, I find myself having still to do plenty of hacks for all browsers (not only IE, Opera is the second worst browser for dev'ing, followed by Chrome, and Firefox is the best one to develop for as it follows most standards and works best, although it also has 1 or 2 problems with it).
When it comes to IE, in some versions you can simply drop some features if they are not critical for your site (generally visually-wise).

As for tables, I guess I will reiterating a bit, but they are only correctly used in tabular data (like an excel sheet, with actual rows and columns of data). For everything else: spans and divs, and whenever appropriate, the new HTML5 elements as well (they are basically spans and divs, but with a different name to hold semantic meaning in the layout, such as using the <footer> element for example rather than a <div> at the bottom).
The advantage of using divs and spans is that you can completely modify the whole layout using CSS stylesheets alone, whereas with tables you get pretty much stuck. I think there's a site somewhere with examples of completely different looks using the same HTML base.