Note: My Web pages are best viewed with style sheets enabled.
For a non-technical explanation of Web page terminology used here, see my "Professional" Web Developers.
Navigating this Web site might be confusing. None of the links from one page to another explicitly say "Click here". Some links might even be hidden in images rather than in text, but those are being changed to have "tool tips" indicating they are indeed links. This is a Web site of ideas requiring thought. Thus, navigating through here involves thinking. If you get totally lost, return to my Home page; there should always be a link to it at the bottom of whatever page you are currently viewing. At the bottom of my Home page, you will see a link to my Site Map, which lists every page on this site (with links).
I own the content of my Web pages. Most of them are protected by copyright. Since I own the content, I am the only person responsible for that content.
If you think some of my commentaries are biased, you are quite correct! If you take offense at what I say about United Parcel Service, abortion, illiterate "writers", same-gender marriage, Web developers, the Boy Scouts, car donations, patriotism, or road rage, too bad! If you disagree with my plans for reforming Social Security or the federal income tax, tough luck! These are my opinions. I am under no obligation to provide a balanced view or to give you space in my Web site for rebuttal. My freedom of expression — guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — gives me the right to express my opinions here. If you want the same right, create your own Web site.
Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.
H. L. Mencken
You can send me E-mail to dispute what I say (or to praise me). If I don't like what you say, I might reply; or I might treat your message as spam. If I do reply, you might find both your message and my reply publicly exposed on one of my Web pages.
My pages have been hand-coded according to the HTML 4.01 specification (transitional) published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) — using no Web page composing tool — and should be viewable with any Web browser that supports that HTML version. If you have trouble viewing any of my Web pages, please let me know.
I support the Viewable With Any Browser Campaign. I try to write my newer pages and update existing pages according to those recommendations. Those pages have the Viewable In ANY Browser graphic.
Just because a marked page should indeed be viewable with any browser, however, does not mean it will always appear as I intended. That is a function of the browser you use, the platform on which it is executing, and how you have tailored your user settings and options. However, I have tried to design these pages for as broad an audience as possible. Thus, even when a page might appear different from my intent, it should be easily comprehended and visually attractive.
Why have I tried to make my Web pages viewable with any browser? I tried Internet Explorer (IE), and I really do not like it. Instead, I use SeaMonkey (an offshoot of Mozilla). If I feel that way about IE, maybe other Web surfers do, too. Perhaps those other individuals also create Web pages. If I want them to make pages that I can view appropriately with SeaMonkey, I must also make my pages viewable with their non-IE browsers.
Another reason is that I object to the way Micro$oft, having dominated the market for desktop computer operating systems and applications, ignores standards and creates its own conventions in order to block competitors. If I can play even a small role in fostering the use of Web browsers other than IE by ensuring that users of non-IE browsers can view my pages, then I know I have helped to undermine Micro$oft's arrogance of power. Because of my commitment to the Viewable With Any Browser Campaign, however, my pages should be viewable with IE.
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While earlier browsers had been developed, Netscape's Navigator brought the Web into everyday use. As the dominant product of Netscape, the browser was often called "Netscape", obscuring other products of the company.
Close to the time when Time Warner bought AOL, AOL bought Netscape. Shortly thereafter, AOL terminated further development of Navigator, turning all rights over to the non-profit Mozilla Foundation.
Navigator continued to be released by AOL's Netscape, but it was then merely a rebranded repackaging of Mozilla products, initially the browser from Mozilla Suite and then Firefox. In 2008, Netscape announced that it was discontinuing further releases of Navigator.
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Finally, there is the issue of Web access for the visually disabled and handicapped. My pages are formatted to meet the needs of those individuals who require good contrast between text and background, who need to set special fonts or font-sizes, or might be using an audio browser.
Besides IE and Firefox (the principal browser product of the Mozilla organization), browsers currently available for various platforms include the following (indicating that Micro$oft has not yet destroyed the competition):
Indeed, the market-share for IE declined significantly since it hit a peak early in 2003. The following is based on surveys done by W3Schools (Refnes Data, Norway):
| Browser Family | Market Share | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 2003 | Jul 2008 | Change | |
| Internet Explorer | 88.0% | 52.0% | -36.0% |
| Gecko (Mozilla) | 7.6% | 43.1% | +35.5% |
| Opera | 1.2% | 1.9% | +0.7% |
| Safari | 3.2% | 2.5% | -0.2% |
| others | 0.5% | ||
Gecko includes Mozilla browsers SeaMonkey, Firefox, Camino, and others.
Safari (a Mac-only browser) was not separately reported in 2003 when it was included in "others".
"Others" includes browsers no one of which has at least 0.5% of the market.
Note: In that same period, the overall share of the operating systems market held by all Windows versions dropped from 93.2% to 91.0%. Both Mac and Linux gained market shares in that period.
Most of estimates — including the chart above — are derived by logging Web sites to determine which browsers are used to view their pages. These will vary widely (and wildly) depending on the audience for the logged Web sites. The target audience for the W3Schools site consists of Webmasters; thus the statistics in the chart above reflect browser usage by those with high technical interest in browsers.
I did a two-week collection of this information during 5-18 March 2008 across 22 of my Web pages that contain visible visitor counters, repeating what I have done before. The audience in this case is far more eclectic than the audience for W3Schools. The "hits" were distributed across pages dealing with gardening, political commentary, encryption, literate writing, and other topics (including this page). ("Hits" from the FreeFind Web crawler were excluded since I subscribe to this for the search tool I installed on this Web site.)
| Type of "Hit" | Sep 2005 | May 2006 | Oct 2006 | May 2007 | Mar 2008 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Hits" | 1,987 | 3,307 | 3,051 | 2,929 | 2,601 |
| Browsers | 70.6% | 62.0% | 62.5% | 65.8% | 68.2% |
| Search crawlers | 28.4% | 37.2% | 36.8% | 33.5% | 31.5% |
| Page validators and link checkers | 0.9% | 0.7% | 0.5% | 0.6% | 0.1% |
| Unknown | <0.1% | 0.1% | 0.6% | 0.2% | 0.2% |
| Browsers | Sep '05 | May '06 | Oct '06 | May '07 | Mar '08 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Internet Explorer (IE) | 75.6% | 78.2% | 69.6% | 64.4% | 62.1% |
| AOL for PCs (included in IE above) | 3.5% | 2.6% | 2.5% | 2.6% | 2.1% |
| Mozilla-based (Gecko engine) | 17.0% | 17.6% | 25.9% | 28.5% | 31.4% |
| Firefox (included in Mozilla above) | 12.7% | 15.1% | 23.4% | 26.2% | 28.8% |
| SeaMonkey (included in Mozilla above) | n/a | n/a | 0.8% | 0.2% | 0.4% |
| Safari | 3.9% | 3.0% | 3.5% | 4.4% | 4.6% |
| Opera | 1.4% | 0.8% | 0.6% | 1.5% | 1.4% |
| Others | 2.1% | 0.4% | 0.4% | 1.2% | 0.5% |
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My statistics are based on logging user agent (UA) strings. Two anomalies were observed in the log: some UA strings were blank and some were merely random characters. These provided no information at all regarding what kind of application was accessing my Web page, let alone what brand.I omitted the log entries with blank UA strings. Since some valid UA strings are strange, however, I included those with random characters — which might be actual UA strings and not random at all — counting them as "Unknown".
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My own surveys clearly show that IE browsers continue to lose market share while Mozilla-based browsers (primarily Firefox) gain. More than 35% of all browser "hits" were from products that were not Internet Explorer. Safari (an Apple product installed on all Mac computers) and Opera both appear to have stable market shares.
While my data do not show the same percentages as the data from W3Schools, both show similar trends. The differences merely affirm my earlier assertion that different Web page topics attract audiences with different computer configurations. Note that my statistics for the Safari browser might be inflated because my daughter (frequently visiting my Web site while living about 2,000 miles away) uses a Mac with that browser.
Among search engine crawlers (sometimes called bots), Yahoo, Google, Ask Jeeves, WebAlta (a Russian search service), and MSN dominate in terms of the frequency with which they accessed my Web pages. Also actively accessing my pages were various versions of Java/1 (a crawler used by more than one search service) and Mozilla/4.0 (used by Yahoo). Yahoo's crawler visited about four times as often as Google's crawler; either Yahoo is more thorough than Google or else it's less efficient.
Besides logging which search engine crawlers visited my Web pages, I also logged where browser visits originated.
These statistics reflect upon the popularity of the search services, not upon how well they index my pages.
I use style sheets to format my Web pages, both CSS1 and CSS2.1. Some older browsers do not support the use of style sheets correctly or at all. Even some of the newer browsers do not yet support all aspects of CSS2.1. I have tried to format my pages so that they can still be viewed without style sheets. These pages might not look as nice that way, but they still make coherent, understandable presentations.
Compliance with the HTML and CSS specifications is important. If a compliant page fails to display appropriately, it is likely the fault of the browser. The Web developer has done all he or she can do towards communicating with the page's audience. The browser developer is clearly at fault.
If a non-compliant page fails to display appropriately, however, it could be something within the page itself, even if that page were created by a professional. In this latter case, it is very difficult to determine where the problem lies. But the problem could indeed be the fault of the Web developer.
Of course, all this assumes that the page has the correct content and appropriate layout. For a compliant page, that can be determined viewing it with a single, compliant browser on a single platform. With its HTML and CSS already validated, the page does not require testing with a variety of browsers across various platforms.
Of course, the real criterion of whether a Web page is indeed viewable by any browser is whether it and the browser both comply with the HTML and CSS specifications published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Making my pages compliant is my responsibility. The browser you use is your responsibility. If a browser is not compliant, it might still display my pages correctly. I will not take any special actions to compensate for a browser's failure to comply with standards since that often means making my pages equally non-compliant.
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When I was a software test engineer, one of the first questions we would ask before starting to test a software package was: "Were there any compilation errors?" We would refuse to test it until it compiled error-free. We would not test garbage.
Validating both the HTML (or XHTML) and CSS of a Web page is very similar to compiling computer software. And the consequences of errors is also similar: A Web page with HTML and CSS errors will display unpredictably.
No serious Web developer should upload a page to a Web server that cannot validate error-free.
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Most of my Web pages (not yet all) have been validated to meet the HTML 4.01 Transitional specification of the W3C. The icon shown at the right appears at the bottom of such pages, where it is a link to revalidate the page. (The icon at the right is not a link. Only when this icon appears at the bottom left of a page is it a link.) As I update my other pages, they will modified so that they too can be validated.
Not all browsers support all of the HTML 4.01 features (e.g., tables, images). I have tried to format my pages so that they can still be viewed without images. Where I use tables, however, tabular
presentations are indeed intended; I don't know how my pages with tables appear in a browser without the capability to display them.
The external style sheet used by my Web pages has been validated to meet the CSS2 specification of the W3C. Note that the icon at the right is a link that will revalidate my external style sheet. Some of my Web pages use additional style sheets. Those too have been validated, but they have no validation icon.
Some browsers do not support style sheets. I view my pages with style sheets suppressed to ensure they can still be viewed appropriately (albeit not formatted as I would prefer).
If any validation fails, please notify me promptly. Also, let me know if any of my pages without the W3C HTML 4.01 icon fails to display appropriately. I will modify the page so that I can validate it as being compliant with the HTML 4.01 specification.
While I selectively test some of my Web pages with Watchfire's WebXACT for compliance with the Web Accessibility Initiative's (WAI) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Level A (WCAG-A) — and have generally successful results — I do not plan to make such tests on a consistent basis. This is a personal Web site — neither governmental nor commercial — and legal requirements for accessibility do not apply. Therefore, I do not display the WCAG-A logo, even on pages that comply with the guidelines. Nevertheless, my design criteria for these pages include accessibility considerations.
Updated 19 August 2008
This page has been visited 749 times since 10 February 2004.