Brower Comparisons

1. Different Browsers Display Pages Differently.
What you don't know can hurt you. Compare how WebTV and Internet Explorer display the same Web page. There are many different browsers out there. Ignoring them can be costly. WebTV has over 1 Million users, yet many Web designers never test their site using this browser.

2. Different Browser Versions Can Break Pages.
It's not just the browser type, browser versions can cause trouble too. And newer browsers aren't necessarily better. Use Dynamic HTML on your page? See how the DHTML script in the picture to the right works fine under Netscape Version 4, but doesn't display at all under Version 6 of the same browser.

3. Different Computers Make Your Page Look Different.
This page works just fine using Internet Explorer 4 on the Mac, but loses its black background using IE 4 on the PC. Browsers behave differently on the Mac and the PC. That matters, because Apple still makes 12% of all desktop computers.

4. HTML Errors Can Break Your Page Under Some Browsers.
Simple HTML errors can ruin your Web page. The page at right doesn't correctly close a TABLE tag. Internet Explorer Version 5.5 (PC) handles this error and displays the page correctly. But Netscape Navigator Version 4 doesn't display the page at all!

5. Web Page Editors Can Cause Problems.
Popular Web page editors like FrontPage can introduce browser errors by writing incompatible HTML. FrontPage often creates pages that work fine under Internet Explorer, but have problems with Netscape Navigator. Compare how Netscape and Microsoft browsers draw the Teddy Bear in the page at the right.

6. Browser Bugs Break Pages.
Browser quirks and bugs can also wreck your page. The lower page in this picture is missing a closing TD tag. The HTML standards say this is no problem. But using Version 4 of Netscape Navigator breaks the page layout.