The earliest references you will find to the “Browser Wars” was
the battle for supremacy between Internet Explorer (IE) and Netscape Navigator
(NN). Netscape was a good browser back then and most agree better than IE for
a while. IE has always had the “Home Field Advantage” by coming
included with the Windows Operating System (OS). Being the first browser most
people experience it is seen by them as the best and they see little reason
to switch. Netscape made roads to changing this and became popular until a
new version of IE was released with better support of at that time current
design tools. Netscape then fell off the market and IE claimed victory.
As time has gone on, IE has been slow to upgrade and dogged by security problems.
Other browsers have tried to make a dent, some using the IE engine and just
fixing security holes and adding a few perks. Others tried it in the back waters
in the lesser used operating systems with some success. Opera claimed to be
the fastest browser, but was forever doomed without big bucks behind them to
allow them to create a free browser. Then one day the Mozilla Project that
was behind Netscape Navigator went solo with the Mozilla suite which was very
successful and became the power behind Netscape 6 as well as a popular browser
in it’s own right. Back in the shadows, a small simple browser was growing,
no email, chat or other fluff. It went through many names before entering the
field as Firefox, “the
little browser that could.”
With the believed victory of IE, the browser wars simply entered what one
could call a “Cold War.” The battle cry of this war one could say
became “Standards
Compatibility.” The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) developed a set of
standards for languages like HTML, XHTML and CSS so that all browsers react
the same to the code. Mozilla / Netscape, Opera, Firefox and those for other
systems joined in the movement to different levels but all pledged to support
standards. All but Microsoft with IE, even though Microsoft is a long term
member of the W3C, they kept doing their own thing secure in their overwhelming
market supremacy IE6 came and did not change much but tools. It still ignored
standards to the most part.
But one day this little upstart named Firefox hit the market and the vibrations
were felt world wide. Millions of people jumped from IE to firefox and IE felt
the sting. Suddenly Microsoft was interested in Standards and the newly developed
IE7 was rushed through development andthe release plans were shoved forward
and changed. No longer was IE7 only a release for the newly renamed next generation
operating system Vista (formerly known as Longhorn), not planned as a stand
alone browser upgrade foranyone with XP and older systems. Suddenly chosen
testers were delivered witha IE7 beta version for XP. Now IE7 may be available
for XP users (not confirmed yet other than test purposes yet though). IE7 now
gets talked up as greatly improving standards support.
Warping occurs..
Now as mentioned, the first “Browser War” (BW I) can be defined
as IE vs. NN.
The second or “Cold War” (BW II) was more like IE poor standards
compliance vs. standard compliant browsers (Netscape/Mozilla, Opera, firefox
and co.) This war is still raging. Go to any web design forum and you will
witness the war as it has spread to web design. It is being waged in forums
and blogs across the net as standards advocates like myself argue that if we
do not use standards, IE will never change. While the other side tends to argue
that with a 80% market share, we should design for IE and anything else is
not logical. As long as the leading browser does not support standards, standards
(as good as they may be for us and the user) are dead. So where we teach the
use of CSS positioning the others preach the continued use of tables as CSS
is poorly supported in IE. (There is a compromise called Hybrid, using very
limit tables and CSS positioning)
Now we get to the part where Rod Serling greets us. Warping begins to twist
our perceived reality.We begin to sense the beginning of a new war, “Browser
War III” (BW III). Let me explain…
Again the browser wars are usually defined as IE against someone. Most recently
IE vs. the Standards Movement. But here lies the problem, IE7 will be standards
compliant as far as we can tell at this time before the public Beta release.
So what happens now? We have hoards of developers who have chosen not to use
standards, to continue to design web sites for a faulty old browser based on
the argument that it is and has always been the majority browser. That is
what is used, so that is what we will design for. So what happens when IE6
vs. Standards compliant browsers becomes IE6 vs. IE7 and the standards movement?
You can see the problem now can’t you? All those designing for IE6 will awake
to discover that their majority based web sites do not work in the new IE7.
They will have to scramble to re-build sites standards compliant as they should
have from the beginning. IE7 market share will go up and the IE6 share will
go down with equal speed.
But in a warped world strange things happen and as I like to describe it,
the dead walk. IE6 will loose it’s status and begin to die but thanks to Microsoft
it will become a Zombie, dead but refusing to go to the grave. Still doing
things like it did before and eating web sites. The evil behind this monster
will once again be Microsoft. IE7 will only be available for Vista and maybe XP.
All the rest of the world still holding on to Win 95, Win 98, Win ME & Win
2000 will keep using IE6 long after it should be buried. So for years to come
we will still be haunted by it’s poor support and unable to totally ignore
it.
Majority advocates in a civil war…
So that is what it looks like will happen. We standards advocates (smart enough
not to use hacks) will rejoice that our sites look about as good in IE7 as
in Firefox having used Firefox as the test base, then when the celebration
is over go back to cursing IE6 until it one day disappears. Those advocates
using hacks will wake up with a hangover and cursing. Those who’s whole world
revolved around designing for a faulty browser just because of a temporary
majority status, well I do not want to be in your shoes. You will be in a civil
war, IE will no longer work as a argumentfor not using standards. IE market
share will be split between the new growing standards compliant IE7 and the
old faulty shrinking IE6. Which IE will you choose to support?
Time will tell which question was really the better:
- Is it logical to design for a minority browser or standards not supported by the majority?
- Is it logical to design for a faulty browser that will one day loose it’s majority or be replaced?
IE7 is far from perfect. It greatly improves rendering of CSS and standards…
but they have chosen not to improve support for things like the XML Mime type
and other problems still making the life hard of designers trying to use XHTML
standards and some others. But it should be a great improvement all the same.
[This article is not meant as a historical document. It is written vaguely
just to make a point. The actual timeline between some events mentioned may
not be entirely accurate as it has little to do with the idea put forth. LSW]
UPDATE: To my embarassment it seems IE7 Public Beta 2 has been released already, during a time period I was offline shortly. You can download it from Microsoft. It is also worth noting that the following can be found there as well, Guess it is now official that IE7 will be available for XP SP2 users.
Evaluation of Internet Explorer 7 should start now, but the software should not be used on production systems in mission-critical environments. Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview will only run on Windows® XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) systems, but will ultimately be available for Windows Vista, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, and Windows Server 2003.