Datasheet

In the next section, I talk about the different types of browsers that you’ll need to work through the
examples for this book.
Browsers
Because CSS is a standard web language, many browsers support it. Therefore, it stands to reason that
the aspiring web designer would want to harness that standardization to reach the largest audience pos-
sible, regardless of operating system or platform. In this section I provide an overview of each of these
browsers, and where you can look to obtain a new version of that browser. Together, the following
browsers combined comprise over 99 percent of the browser market share for the majority of websites
in operation today:
❑ Internet Explorer 6 and 7 for Windows
❑ Mozilla Firefox for Windows, Mac, and Linux
❑ Opera for Windows, Mac, and Linux
❑ Safari for Mac OS X
In the next section, I discuss Internet Explorer 6 and 7 for Windows.
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer is Microsoft’s flagship browser that comes preloaded with the Windows operating sys-
tem. The current stable version, as of this writing, is version 7.
Internet Explorer 7
Late in 2004, after the first edition of this book was published, Microsoft finally began work on a new
version of Internet Explorer. IE 7 includes stronger security, tabbed browsing, and other goodies for
users, and for developers — improvements to IE’s support for CSS!
IE 7 comes just over five years after the release of IE 6, which was released in 2001. IE 7 is a fantastic
improvement over IE 6, but it still doesn’t quite meet the level of CSS present in competing browsers
like Apple’s Safari browser, or Mozilla Firefox. Although it doesn’t exhibit the best CSS support, there is
hope that future versions of IE will make significant progress in this area. Internet Explorer developers,
and even Bill Gates, have publicly stated that Microsoft has returned to a more frequent release cycle for
Internet Explorer, and we can expect new versions of Internet Explorer every year for the foreseeable
future. Microsoft has even gone so far as to admit that it made a mistake by waiting too long to release a
new version of IE.
Even though IE 7 is finally here, it will be years still before it achieves sufficient market penetration that
web developers can officially dump support for IE 6. Because of IE 6’s deficiencies, many are chomping
at the bit for that time to come. In the meantime, we’ll have to continue to support it and work around
its shortcomings.
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Part I: The Basics
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