Re-emergence of the Browser Wars?

One can justifiably ask about the relevancy of a "browser war" now that the major battles seem to have been handily won by Internet Explorer, which currently commands somewhere in the region of 90% of all browsers used. For many Web authors, it's no longer a matter of ensuring a Web site is compatible with all of the major browsers, but instead making sure that it is workable when used by the most recent versions of Internet Explorer. Knowing how to tailor pages to work best with this browser is knowledge most Web authors want to know.

Despite Internet Explorer's preponderance on the browser scene, it would be foolish to dismiss the existence of other browsers out there. In fact, it may be fair to say that the browser wars have simply entered a new phase, and CSS has become one of the battlegrounds as browser manufacturers add their own extensions to it. On the good side, it seems as though browser manufacturers have been converted to the potential of implementing as many of the officially sanctioned CSS properties as possible in order to win mind share amongst Web authors.

Starting with Internet Explorer 4.0 Microsoft has been adding their own extensions to CSS. Some of these CSS properties have later become recommendations under developing CSS specifications — such as Ruby — while others are wholly new properties that as yet have no parallel under the official W3C specifications, like the scrollbar formatting properties and transition filters. In all, over 40 cumulative CSS properties have been added to various versions of Internet Explorer, and these are all covered in detail in this book.

While the user base for such browsers as Netscape Navigator has been greatly diminished since the start of the browser wars, it is far from dead. In fact, with the deep pockets of AOL behind it as well as the collected efforts of the open source development community behind the Mozilla browser (whose code base has been going into versions of Netscape Navigator since version 6.0) it certainly should not be written off. It is interesting to note that Mozilla/Netscape have been adding their own CSS extensions within the releases of these twinned browsers — in fact a staggering 160+ CSS extensions have been added to various versions of these browsers. But for the most part these extensions are anticipations of developments of the CSS specification by the W3C, and they are also "unofficial" extensions, none of them officially documented (the extensions to Internet Explorer are well covered by Microsoft for aspiring developers). These extensions are not included in this book due to their ever-changing nature, and because for the most part they parallel developments in upcoming CSS specifications.

While its command of the browser market is relatively small, Opera is another browser that should not be ignored. While it has long been at the forefront of CSS compatibility, it has also introduced its own small subset of CSS extensions — so far, three in total (again, they are covered in this book). Though Opera has a small user base when compared to Internet Explorer, the company that produces it has been aggressively pushing it for use in forthcoming portable hardware browsers, and it is also available under a wide variety of operating systems.

Though versions of Internet Explorer are available for various releases of Microsoft Windows as well as the Macintosh OS, there is no version of it available for the increasingly popular Linux operating system — nor is there likely to be in the foreseeable future. There are a number of different browsers available for this operating system, including Opera and Netscape Navigator, as well as Linux-only browsers such as Galleon, Emacspeak and Konqueror. Many of these browsers have good-to-excellent support for CSS, though thankfully none of them seem to have added their own CSS extensions. Taken together, they may represent a small portion of the browsers used to visit your Web site, but they too are worth noting, if only for the ways they implement CSS — sometimes, like Emacspeak, they are well in advance of other leading browsers.

It is probably too early to say whether or not the browser wars are over, since it seems likely that they are entering a new phase — one in which the operating system or hardware platform is likely to prove as important for Web authors to consider as browser-specific extensions belonging to any one browser. No matter how you look at it, CSS compatibility has become a real factor in garnering mind share amongst the user base and with Web authors. Greater adoption of CSS properties within the major browsers means that today's Webmasters can no longer afford to overlook using CSS as an integral part of their Web site designs.

One thing is clear: CSS is here to stay. The more you know about how to use it effectively, the more professional you and your Web site designs will be.