Website visitors can have their choice of browsers, but shouldn't website developers get to choose which browsers to support? My recent story about sites that require IE elicited a number of opinions on that question.
"I maintain our company's website," wrote one reader. "I'm one guy, not an entire group with many developers. I get three days to do six weeks worth of work and somehow I'm supposed to make our site work with six different browsers some that generate almost no hits. The browser was supposed to make it easier for everyone to get connected but that's not true. I guess people think you just flip a switch and all your code is compatible across the board. Testing your changes on all these browsers requires an entire staff of testers. Maybe instead of griping at the people that create the websites, you should be griping at the browser companies and get them to have the same functionality. IE has a lot of functionality that everyone wants so I guess we are supposed to dumb down our sites so they can work with everything else."
Other readers retorted that IE doesn't provide functionality that other browsers can't also readily deliver. "The browser is a tool for the user to find the content they want," wrote another reader. "That is, it's the user's tool, not the developer's. To require the user to use a tool of the developer's choosing rather than the user's is misguided at best, and arrogant at worst. If the purpose of the website is to generate revenue, there's likely a shareholder or two who would ask why their investment income is being limited."
A number of website professionals said they must put their resources where they see the most hits. "I'm a seasoned web developer for a large retail site, and I just wanted to add that if I peruse the log files for the last 4 years, people visiting our website are increasingly using IE," wrote another reader. "We constantly ask ourselves, if there is extra functionality we can add to the site that may be an IE only feature, is it worth it? Many times the statistics state yes. If the weather changes, and Firefox, Opera, or others become completely mainstream (over 5 - 10 percent of our usage), then I'm sure we will change our opinion."
But with other sites reporting large increases in the percentage of visitors using alternative browsers, are such decisions a self-fulfilling prophecy? "One day I filled out a survey, hosted by one of the major online commercial survey outfits, regarding browser preferences," wrote another reader. "At the end of this very long survey which took about 15 minutes, I discovered that the 'Submit Survey' button would only work in IE 6. What's wrong with this picture?"
Well, OK, what's your browser of choice? On my website you can answer that question in my reader poll, see the poll results, and post your comments about this story. Or you can write to me directly at Foster@gripe2ed.com.
12:45:45 AM 
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