Sean Walther's Blog

The Pending Browser Hell – On IE Half Life

Paul Irish, wrote Browser Market Pollution: IE[x] is the new IE6, which details the complexities we have coming up for us as web developers.

I’m glad to see someone fully thought this through.  Browser half life is a significant issue for website accessibility.

When was the last time someone asked you to get your site working in Chrome 9?  Well, that was 3 releases ago, as was IE6 (I’m even ignoring the fact that Chrome 9 was February 2011, and not August of 2001 for IE6).  I’m constantly hearing that a client is asking for IE6 support.  I do all I can to dissuade them (logic, reasoning, and finally .. a 30% surcharge as it requires much more time to debug and handle), but IE6 support is still an issue.  Why?

Because of the half life of Microsoft browsers.

› Continue reading

Tags: Arstechnica, Browsers, Chrome, IE, ie6, IE7, IE8, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Paul Irish

History of IE: 15 Years of Microsoft Internet Explorer

Tags: IE, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Video, windows

Flowplayer not working in IE8: A solution!

I was just working on some strange Flowplayer bug, it just wouldn’t work in IE8.

› Continue reading

Tags: Flash, Flash Player, flash player 10, Flowplayer, IE, IE8, javascript method

Google Chrome 4.0: Extensions and Bookmark Sync

Today Google officially announced the release of Chrome 4.0.  The update features two major pieces of functionality, Extensions and Bookmark Syncing.  If you already have Google Chrome, just click on the “tool” -> About Google Chrome, and click on “Update” in the lower right corner next to the OK window.  Otherwise, download it from Google. › Continue reading

Tags: adblock, bookmarks, Chrome, Firebug, Firefox, Google, Google Chrome, IE, IE Tab, IE7, IE8, iPhone, Xmarks

Chrome – Holding Steady

I had posted earlier that I had setup Google’s new Chrome browser.

Now it’s been at least a week that I’ve been using it and I wanted to post some comments.

First of all, I don’t consider a “beta” browser.  I know whenever I test out a new browser it feels like it’s almost unusable for a period of time.  It’s been getting much better since the IE4 days, but there’s still always a sense of “this isn’t ready yet”.

Being a web developer, I dread new browsers because … thats just one more environment you have to test in.  

With this browser, I feel like it is already a final product.  Already I’m excited about the integration of “Gears”, the slim application like interface when you “Create application shortcut”, how fast it seems to run, and the possibilities it introduces for Javascript and AJAX online.

Some minor issues I would, however, like to raise are:

• I had a tab freeze, and the other tab froze as well — I had thought each tab was supposed to be entirely independent from one another in processor space and prevent this.  Maybe I’m misunderstood?
• It seems the great “V8” team that Google had put together is in competition with SquirrelFish Extreme in terms of pure performance.  Needless to say, I’m no expert in this, and it’s probably one of those benchmarks that highly favors a browser, or isn’t indicative of the complete functionality of an engine.
•  This is entirely a subjective point, but I don’t like the way the Taskbar icons look.  I know I’m tuned into Firefox and IE’s icons for the web, but I always get confused with the 3 colors in the Chrome taskbar icons.  
• Whos’ taking advantage of the new functionality the most?  I remember years ago seeing links to who was taking advantage to IE4′s new capabilities, does anyone have a list of site’s that are built to embrace Chrome?  (maybe an idea for a future project)

Tags: AJAX, Arstechnica, Browsers, Chrome, Firefox, Gears, HTML, IE, Javascript, SquirrelFish Extreme, V8