How Does Browser Incompatibility Impact Web Applications?

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How does browser incompatibility impact web applications?

The Chief CFO

Re: How does browser incompatibility impact web applications?

As you are no doubt aware, the mid-1990s are now looked back upon as the years of the web browser wards between Microsoft and its rival Netscape. In the interests of cornering their competition, each of these companies seemed determine to build the proverbial mousetrap of a better browser and create a browser with proprietary features that would demand rather than solicit customer loyalty and attract the best web designers to their systems. Often in the interest of commerce one company would copy the most consumer-popular features of the other browser into their browser, but implement these features in such a fashion that the new, more exciting addition were incompatible with the rival's browser. But with each successive release of new versions, features would be often inconsistently implemented even within each company's browsers, thus causing considerable user and designer frustration, simply as a result of competition between these two entities.

By the end of the decade, Microsoft had the 90% share of the market, while Netscape had begun the era with 90% of the browser market. Over the course of the decade, web application developers were often forced to 'chose sides' between Netscape and Microsoft, if they wished their site's most attractive features to be accessible to the majority of the web-surfing populace. Regardless of what they believed was right, or the better application the ordinary felt driven to chose the most popular browser so his or her vision could be realized -- or simply that he or she could do the job the company demanded, that of soliciting new consumers through the website.

Is the situation any better today? Not really. Browser incompatibility remains an obstacle for webmasters. Incompatibility issues still affect website images, JavaScript functions, style sheets, and page layout. But the designer may not realize that browser compatibility problems can affect links, unless the time-consuming process of checking every link is adhered to rigorously. (Dahm, 2001) Another way of circumventing such browser wars is to include information for the consumer on the site, such as "due to numerous complaints of Netscape & Firefox browser users not being able to navigate our Web site, we have installed browser detection & redirect safe guards. Unfortunately, some users using Netscape and/or Firefox will not be able to access this Web site." But such a message places a burden on the consumer that may intimidate older or non-tech savvy surfers, thus driving them to accessible websites and losing valuable revenue for the company. (Designer Wiz, 2003)