Browsers

Conditional sibling class names for IE patching

A different approach to using conditional comments to add class names for targeting CSS at different versions of Internet Explorer.

Posted on April 11, 2013

Using max-width on images can make them disappear in IE8

Images that have a CSS max-width, a width attribute in the HTML, and are children of a floated element that has no explicit width set may be invisible in IE8.

Posted on February 2, 2012

Visited links can only be differentiated by colour

It used to be possible to apply any CSS to visited links. This has privacy issues, so most browsers have implemented styling restrictions and only allow colours to be changed.

Posted on December 8, 2011

No more conditional comments in IE10

Microsoft is removing support for conditional comments in IE10. I don’t think they will be missed.

Posted on October 27, 2011

Testing on mobile devices without the hardware

Tips for installing and running the iOS Simulator and the Android Emulator for testing your web sites on mobile devices without buying lots of hardware.

Posted on August 30, 2011

Time to make the title attribute device independent

The contents of the title attribute in HTML is difficult or impossible to access in current browser implementations if you do not use a mouse.

Posted on April 26, 2011

IE 9 does not resize text sized in pixels

Internet Explorer 9 (in beta at the time of this writing), still does not let the user resize text whose size has been specified in pixels.

Posted on October 18, 2010

“Inspect element” is not the same as “View source”

Using a developer tool like Firebug, Web Inspector or Dragonfly to view an HTML documents DOM is not the same as viewing source.

Posted on September 30, 2010

Internet Explorer market share now below 60 percent

In April 2010, Internet Explorer’s worldwide market share dropped below 60 percent according to Net Applications. On this site, IE has less than 20 percent.

Posted on May 17, 2010

Web Inspector adds Timeline and Audits panels

Improved inspection of CSS, HTML, and DOM, following redirects in the Resources panel, and getting tips for improving performance in the Timeline and Audits panels are some new features.

Posted on April 19, 2010

Heading navigation in web browsers

Very few web browsers allow users to step through the headings on a page. This functionality would benefit keyboard users, so I would like to see more browsers implement it.

Posted on March 22, 2010

IE9 Platform Preview available

A platform preview of Internet Explorer 9 is now available for download. News include better performance and improved support for HTML5, CSS3, DOM, SVG, and XHTML.

Posted on March 16, 2010

Is SVG support coming to Internet Explorer?

The Senior Program Manager of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Team has announced that Microsoft has joined the W3C’s Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group.

Posted on January 18, 2010

That's a useful feature, but when can I use it?

Need to find out which browsers (and versions) handle a particle web technology? Don't have time to keep track of it by yourself. Don't worry. Help is available.

Posted on December 9, 2009

Safari, WebKit and alt text for missing images

Safari and most other WebKit-based browsers do not show alt text for missing or broken images unless it fits on a single line within the image’s allocated width.

Posted on December 7, 2009

WebKit Web Inspector improvements

The web developer tool for Safari and other WebKit-based browsers has just received a number of improved and new features worth checking out.

Posted on November 11, 2009

IE 8 does not display alt text in a tooltip

Internet Explorer 8, unlike previous versions, behaves like other browsers and does not display alt text in a tooltip when you hover the cursor over an image.

Posted on August 17, 2009

Enabling keyboard navigation in Mac OS X Web browsers

A guide to enabling keyboard navigation, which most Mac OS X web browsers support but have disabled by default.

Posted on June 9, 2009

The mysterious sideways jump, a.k.a. scrollbar present or not present

If someone tells you that they see a strange sideways jump when they move between certain pages on your site, chances are that it’s caused by their browser’s vertical scrollbar.

Posted on May 19, 2009

Safari 4 public beta with WAI-ARIA support. Or not?

Apple recently released a public beta of Safari 4. Among the news is support for WAI-ARIA, but I can’t figure out how to make it work.

Posted on March 5, 2009

No more pixel perfectionism in IE 6

It is time to worry less about non-critical bugs in Internet Explorer 6, and eventually we will be able to treat it like we treat Netscape 4.

Posted on February 11, 2009

The WebKit/Safari Web Inspector is getting even better

The latest update to the Webkit Web Inspector is very impressive and makes WebKit (and Safari, once it includes the new version of the Web Inspector) a viable web development browser.

Posted on October 22, 2008

NoScript for Firefox

Surfing the web with NoScript installed lets you decide which sites are allowed to run JavaScript, Flash and other active content in your Firefox.

Posted on October 17, 2008

Recently discovered web developer-related Firefox add-ons

A few very useful Firefox extensions/add-ons that I only recently discovered: ColorZilla, Firefox Accessibility Extension, Screengrab!, and WAVE Toolbar.

Posted on October 14, 2008

Mac OS X Web browser rundown 2007

A rundown of the Mac OS X Web browsers that occupy space on my hard drive in late 2007.

Posted on October 24, 2007

NoSquint allows site-specific text zoom

A Firefox extension that remembers your text zoom level per site. Anyone know of a Safari alternative?

Posted on October 5, 2007

Safari/WebKit has a new Web Inspector

Recent nightly builds of WebKit have a brand new Web Inspector that is much improved over the previous version, and is available for both Mac and Windows.

Posted on June 27, 2007

Firebug 1.0—Web developer tool of the year?

A mandatory download for all Web professionals—it is packed with features so unbelievably useful you won’t know how you’ve been able to live without them.

Posted on December 7, 2006

Closing the gap between list items in IE

How to fix the list item whitespace bug in both Internet Explorer 6 and 7.

Posted on October 16, 2006

Unitless line-height bug in Mozilla and Firefox

Older versions of Mozilla and Firefox for Mac OS X have a bug that sometimes makes them miscalculate line-height when no unit is used.

Posted on August 29, 2006

Safari brings high resolution to the Web

Apple’s WebKit team are proposing methods for providing people who use high DPI screens with more detailed images.

Posted on June 12, 2006

Safari Web Inspector

Available in WebKit nightly builds, the Web Inspector you browse the DOM of the current document and inspect the properties of any element.

Posted on January 18, 2006

Keyboard navigation problems in IE and Safari

Internet Explorer and Safari have similar problems with in-page keyboard navigation.

Posted on September 17, 2005

Safari Wishlist

A breakdown of problems and missing features in the current versions of the Safari web browser.

Posted on June 2, 2005

Browser statistics and choices

There’s been a flood of reports, reviews and articles on web browsers lately. And they’ve appeared all over the place—in blogs, in online …

Posted on December 1, 2004

Mozilla, clearers, and dropped floats

I’ve come a cross a very strange bug in late Mozilla builds. It seems to have spread to the latest Camino nightlies as well as to Firefox …

Posted on November 3, 2004

Gbrowser based on Mozilla? Let’s hope.

Rumours say that Google are going to release a browser based on Mozilla.

Posted on September 23, 2004

Sizing monospaced fonts

Something that’s been bothering me for a while is how difficult it seems to be to make text set in a monospaced font be of reasonably simi…

Posted on August 13, 2004

Is Microsoft listening?

Is Microsoft listening? Maybe. Robert Scoble is collecting feedback on IE. Let him know what you want fixed. Be as specific as possible, t…

Posted on May 2, 2004

Safari 1.1

Friday night Apple released Mac OS X 10.3, a.k.a. Panther. A great new version with loads of improvements. I don’t normally write about op…

Posted on October 26, 2003

Macintosh Browser Smackdown

Macintosh Browser Smackdown at Ars technica is a great overview of the many browser choices available for Mac OS X. The article lists comp…

Posted on August 29, 2003

Netscape murdered

I have been known to say that “Netscape 4 must die”. I still believe the web would be a better place if all copies of Netscape 4 disappear…

Posted on July 17, 2003

Time to go on a Safari

Well, not quite. Not for me. Apple yesterday released Safari 1.0, and it’s a really great web browser. Speedy, standards compliant and eff…

Posted on June 24, 2003

The death of a pioneer

Microsoft has now officially killed the Mac version of Internet Explorer. I could see this coming since there have been no updates other t…

Posted on June 14, 2003

Browserlanche

Being a Mac user these days is very nice when it comes to picking a web browser… I’ve nearly lost count of all the browsers that are avail…

Posted on May 4, 2003

Load up your toolbar

PNH Toolbar. Yet another great web developer tool for Mozilla/Netscape.

Posted on April 18, 2003

Moztool

I always tell people what a great web developer tool Mozilla is. Some people are open-minded enough to try it while others are too stuck i…

Posted on April 8, 2003