IE or FIREFOX? why?

[Mystic]

Except there are many more than just two browsers, and to be honest Firefox and IE7/8 have a lot of the same display issues. They aren't anywhere near as bad as IE6 and below, but testing in Firefox and IE are pretty much like testing in the same browser.

There are some snapshot websites that have 50+ browser/OS combinations for your site, they can be helpful to check once in a while. Not too often since usually their rendering time is pretty massive.

[JGadrow]

Yes, there are more than 2 browsers. But, from a business perspective, there are only 3 (in order from most-common to least-common):

IE, Firefox, Safari

All others, generally, consist of less than 5% of any given site's traffic.

As far as IE and FF sharing display issues, what DocType do you use as it has a DRASTIC effect. IE still lacks support for even the whole suite of CSS2 standards. CSS3 looks VERY promising as it should further reduce the amount of necessary structural clutter (such as the extra elements required to render rounded corners). But, with IE's track record, I would expect to be able to consistently utilize CSS3 about 10 years after its release. Probably when CSS4 is ready to roll out with even better features.

The only positive thing I have to say about IE is the fact that they realize it's broken and have a conditional comment that allows you to specifically target it. Without this, it may actually be that we'd all have to conform to IE's (poor) standards instead of just granting it an exception.

[reversal]

I personally use Firefox as my main browser. But I certainly wouldn't recommend that a developer only use one browser.

When it comes to work, I would recommend the four most-used rendering engines: Gecko (FF), WebKit (Safari), Presto (Opera) and Trident (IE). This proves to be the best solution, as you can be sure that any site you build will work for the majority of users.

@Mystic:
    The Flash Player plugin does in fact work in the Linux version of Opera. Though I don't recall how it had to be set up for it, if at all. However, I suppose that could depend on the distro.

[Mystic]

Yes, there are more than 2 browsers. But, from a business perspective, there are only 3 (in order from most-common to least-common):

IE, Firefox, Safari

All others, generally, consist of less than 5% of any given site's traffic.

As far as IE and FF sharing display issues, what DocType do you use as it has a DRASTIC effect. IE still lacks support for even the whole suite of CSS2 standards. CSS3 looks VERY promising as it should further reduce the amount of necessary structural clutter (such as the extra elements required to render rounded corners). But, with IE's track record, I would expect to be able to consistently utilize CSS3 about 10 years after its release. Probably when CSS4 is ready to roll out with even better features.

The only positive thing I have to say about IE is the fact that they realize it's broken and have a conditional comment that allows you to specifically target it. Without this, it may actually be that we'd all have to conform to IE's (poor) standards instead of just granting it an exception.

You're mostly talking about IE6, aren't you? IE8 passes Acid2... Additionally, I'm talking about Html 4.01, XHTML 1.0 strict. I believe that FF finally has CSS2, but absolutely no CSS3. Same with IE.

Also, total market share for site traffic doesn't matter as much. If you have a website on site design, how would the percentages change? Quite drastically I'm sure.

[JGadrow]

I was specifically talking about IE 6 / IE 7 as you can't rely on software that isn't even in stable release yet (unless IE8 is out for Vista? But I find that hard to believe as IE7 only released last year and they typically only upgrade every 4-5 years).

I generally try and support the most recent 2 STABLE releases of the 3 major browser engines (I think I've met 3 people who utilize a browser built on the Presto engine). Now, obviously, if granted more time on a project, the Presto browsers are next to be completed. However, it's generally a luxury not afforded by many companies.

And FF has had support for most (if not all) of CSS2.1 since FF2. They also do have 'support' for CSS3, but only in a testing capacity as it's still not an official W3C Recommendation.

[Mystic]

No, firefox has not supported all of CSS 2. If it does now, it is fairly recent. The latest stable FF2 did not pass Acid2, and had problems with a couple of CSS2 specifications (i can't think of anything right now)

Not supporting three is fine (although i can't wait four outline: and min/max height/width stuff) since it's not official, but it really should be.

IE 7 and Firefox are basically equal. IE8 is better (so far) except for Add-ons.

It's sad that so few companies worry about Opera, when all they have to do is follow everything to specifications and it's done.

Also, you're using one time as an update. IE6 -> IE7 took forever, but during the IE/NEtscape browser wars updates came much, much quicker. Same idea here.

[raestlyn]

... No, firefox has not supported all of CSS 2. If it does now, it is fairly recent. The latest stable FF2 did not pass Acid2, and had problems with a couple of CSS2 specifications (i can't think of anything right now)
...

FF has supported CSS2 since 1.5:
...CSS 2.0 is a complete recommendation of the W3C, and Firefox 1.0 supports most of the spec. A working draft of CSS 2.1 offers a relatively minor set of revisions to 2.0. CSS 2.0 and 2.1 are collectively called CSS2. Firefox 1.5 improves the CSS2 support and also adds more support for CSS3, which is currently still in working draft stage at the W3C...

And if you take a bit of time and look trough this you'll see that FF3 supports fully CSS2 and quite much CSS3.

[mdshare]

From a developers view point you need the 3 big ones +1

3 big ones FF (gecko), Chrome/Safari (Applewebkit) and IE , the +1 is simply Lynx

It's a nightmare to make websites browser compliant but once you have a good css library it shouldn't be a big issue.

But there are always tools for those that don't have multiple browsers and versions installed , eg http://browsershots.org/

[JGadrow]

No, firefox has not supported all of CSS 2. If it does now, it is fairly recent. The latest stable FF2 did not pass Acid2, and had problems with a couple of CSS2 specifications (i can't think of anything right now)

This was already handled, quite adequately, by raestlyn's response.

Not supporting three is fine (although i can't wait four outline: and min/max height/width stuff) since it's not official, but it really should be.

It is supported. Which is better than fine

IE 7 and Firefox are basically equal. IE8 is better (so far) except for Add-ons.

I'm curious as to how much CSS work you've had to do in an 'Industrial-Strength' capacity to make this statement? True, IE7 is MUCH better than its predecessor. However, it still lacks support for a quite a bit of CSS2 (such as display: table) and has rendering inconsistencies which require specific targeting.

It's sad that so few companies worry about Opera, when all they have to do is follow everything to specifications and it's done.

This is exactly WHY many companies do not worry about Opera (indeed, some don't worry about Webkit for the same reason). As long as your page is created with the relevant standards in mind, three of the four popular engines should render the page somewhat consistently.

Also, you're using one time as an update. IE6 -> IE7 took forever, but during the IE/NEtscape browser wars updates came much, much quicker. Same idea here.

I finally looked up IE8. It's still in beta. I don't care about beta releases as they're not finalized. Once the browser hits a 'major' market share, then it's something to worry about.

As far as IE's releases (counting only official releases, not updates):
IE 1: 08/1995 = initial
IE 2: 11/1995 = 3 mos
IE 3: 08/1996 = 9 mos
IE 4: 09/1997 = 13 mos
IE 5: 03/1999 = 18 mos
IE 6: 08/2001 = 29 mos
IE 7: 10/2006 = 62 mos

From this, you can see that the time between each release has grown. Now, granted, Mickeysoft experienced a lawsuit between 6 & 7 which will inflate the time some, but the average (including the first 3 releases, which is kind of redundant because IE1 and IE2 weren't *really* usable) is 22 1/3 months between releases. Or, roughly, 2 years. Which, should put them right on schedule. I had forgotten that IE 7 was released in 2006 NOT 2007. That's my bad. However, if you consider the fact that IE3 and IE4 weren't much different, then you really only have about 4 iterations of IE 3/4, IE 5, IE 6, IE 7.

Now, your release time is:
IE 3 / 4: 08/1996 = initial
IE 5: 03/1999 = 31 mos
IE 6: 08/2001 = 29 mos
IE 7: 10/2006 = 62 mos

Avg = 40 2/3 mos or ~3 1/3 years per upgrade.

Which, I suppose, puts my estimate of 4-5 years off by 1 year, not bad for a guess I think.

Also, as far as the Acid2 test is concerned, they utilize a DocType that tells the browser to observer 'quirks' mode instead of 'standards' mode. So, kinda hard to test for conformance to a 'standard' without enforcing standards-compliance in the document.

I believe the Acid2 test is only a test for 'native' conformance, NOT overall conformance.

[RangerSheck]

I spend most of my time in Ubuntu, so IE isn't even an option. I test my stuff in IE once in a while to make sure everything is working (or if I have a few hours to kill to track down some random IE CSS bug). I load my sites up into Opera once in a while just for the fun of it (Opera never fails).

The best reason to use Firefox for development? Firebug! Essential for testing javascript and tweaking CSS. There are other add-ons out there that aid in web development (and not just for Firefox, but IE too), but I've come to love Firebug over all the rest.

[Tribal]

Depends what i am doing.

Design a website: i use ie,firefox,safari and google chrome. Mainly to see (yet again) how crap the standards of ie7 are.

Need to quickly look at a site: i fuck off both ie7 and firefox and use GOOGLE CHROME

Just browsing: Firefox. Because i think its safer and more websites actually "work" with it.

Tribal

[Drezek]

there both good i use IE7

[Hypemaster]

i use firefox. I also did some speed tests with my game and it is way faster in FF then in IE.

[Barrikor]

I think I've got you guys beat, browser-wise at least

Use for Browsing:
Firefox 3

Use for Testing:
IE 7
IE 6 (on different computer)
Firefox 3 (3.0.1)
Firefox 2
Safari (3.2.1)
Google Chrome
Opera (9.63)
Netscape Navigator 9
Flock (2.0)
K-Meleon 1.5.1
Avant 11.7
AOL Explorer v1.5

Code works Right In: 
Firefox 3
Firefox 2
Safari  <--- most of the time 
Google Chrome
Opera
Netscape Navigator
Flock
K-Meleon

Wastes my time: 
IE 7
IE 6 <--- evil, even without the fact that you can't have it installed on the same pc as IE7 
Avant
AOL Explorer

[gulthex]

fire fox rocks because you can download addons and its freeware

[die4me]

You have to break your site some times to get it to work with IE

[raestlyn]

I think I've got you guys beat, browser-wise at least

Use for Browsing:
Firefox 3

Use for Testing:
IE 7
IE 6 (on different computer)
Firefox 3 (3.0.1)
Firefox 2
Safari (3.2.1)
Google Chrome
Opera (9.63)
Netscape Navigator 9
Flock (2.0)
K-Meleon 1.5.1
Avant 11.7
AOL Explorer v1.5

Code works Right In: 
Firefox 3
Firefox 2
Safari  <--- most of the time 
Google Chrome
Opera
Netscape Navigator
Flock
K-Meleon

Wastes my time: 
IE 7
IE 6 <--- evil, even without the fact that you can't have it installed on the same pc as IE7 
Avant
AOL Explorer

What, no Konquedor?

[AcidicOne]

not all of us run linux

[raestlyn]

Well, Safari and Opera are Mac browsers, so not all of us use Macs but still test them
Latest Konquedor is actually quite same as FF2.5, they both use same engine

[lolninja]

Wastes my time: 
IE 7
IE 6 <--- evil, even without the fact that you can't have it installed on the same pc as IE7 
Avant
AOL Explorer

Theres a program called MultiIE http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE which allows you to install multiple versions of IE on one machine, I use it at work for testing my development work, its really handy

[grimsage]

firefox rules over IE

[genmac]

chrome, IE, firefox in that order of preference

firefox has always been really unstable for me, while IE is just occasionally slow, and chrome owns across the board

[raestlyn]

Yes, Chrome.... It has TOS that basicly say " All your base are belong to us!" and has quite much security flaws.. I wouldn't use it over FF, atleast yet.

[AcidicOne]

I would have to stick with the FF crowd, no technical details as to why one is above the rest. It simply works, does what i want it to do, does it efficiently and keeps me happy

and on a side note, I WISH!!!!! Microsoft would get there heads out of there butt's, and not integrate there browser completely into the OS.Installing IE with windows is fine, but make it so we can remove it!!! Cant tell you how many times using outlook to check my various mails, some lame script/malware whatever you wanna call it has nested in my IE(Which I only open in the event of anything microsoft web page related and any other sites that "require" IE to use)