One of the things that you might notice is that there are a lot of different options
for how you can view web pages, and
these different options are called your different browsers.
So different browsers have their pros and cons.
I am not one of those people who get really passionate
about having using one over the other.
But I will tell you, as you become a web developer,
if you decide to, you're going to want to know some of these differences.
It's perfectly natural to have a preferred browser, for
most people it's whichever one was installed on their computer.
But, when you want to create websites, you might have one browser you use to
look at things, but you really want to test your site on multiple browsers.
So let's talk about some of the differences.
First, we have internet explorer and for a long time, it was the most popular
browser and that was just because it was the one that came with Microsoft Windows.
It was platform-dependent and
what that means is that it doesn't automatically work if you have a Mac.
In 2015 Windows 10 came out and instead of including Internet Explorer as a default,
it's using something called the Microsoft Edge.
Edge is meant to replace Internet Explorer.
So people who buy new computers are going o be using Edge.
But don't forget people don't buy new computers all the time or even if they
do buy a new computer, they might decide they still like Internet Explorer better.
So you basely want to make sure that you're considering both browsers.
Another option is Google Chrome.
Google Chrome was developed by surprise Google, and
it was a freeware that they created to be used on Microsoft Windows.
However, if data imported or even consider change.
So it works on Linux, your Apple machines,
your android, basically most machines that you're going to come across.
The nice thing about Google Chrome is that they really focused on security.
So if that’s something that you’re kind of concerned about,
Chrome is a good way to go.
The next option is Firefox.
Once again, the theme seems to be, I’m always recommending free and
open source browsers.
What open source means is that they've actually shared their code with everyone
for how they created Firefox.
And this is a really great way to let people make suggestions and
improvements to it.
It's also available for Windows, macOS, Linux, and BSD operating systems.
So who's using the different browsers?
Back in 2014, I can show you that Internet Explorer
had a really big chunk of the market, right around there.
You had Internet Explorer 11, Internet Explorer 10, Internet Explorer 9 etc.
So they had the biggest chunk and
then Chrome was getting a lot bigger as well as Firefox.
Well, when we look over here at 2017 though,
we can see that Chrome really made a big surge and up to 64% of desktops and
laptops were using Google Chrome followed by Firefox, Internet Explorer etc.
This is all going to change, its going to flux.
You can't pick one browser and
say hey, this is the new one that's everyone is going to be using.
And the other interesting thing to kind of think about is,
especially in this old map over here,
people use really old browsers because people like to use what they're used to.
One thing that I'm hoping all the students in my class
take into consideration though, is accessibility.
Accessibility is basically the ability of a browser
to support all these special functionalities, and
all these new HTML 5 tags, and all types of assistive technology.
So one place you can go is this site www.html5accessibility.com.
And what you'll find at this site
is how well the different browsers are supporting the text.
So you can see right now, Edge actually has
100% compliance which isn't surprising because it's one of the newest browsers,
so they had accesibility in mind right from the beginning.
The other browsers were created before people were paying quite as much
attention, so they are definitely making strides to get better and better.
However, it is important to notice that Internet Explorer is at 56% and
since it's been basically relegated to the background,
it's unlikely that it's going to get much better.
So what I want you to take away from this is that browsers can really vary in how
well they adhere to different standards.
And different versions of browsers also need to be considered as well.
Just because something didn't work in 2018, doesn't mean it won't work in 2019.
So the best thing that you can do is write your code, and then open it up in Safari,
and Firefox, and Chrome, as many different browsers as you can.
Not only won't make your sight better, but it will be a little bit interesting for
you as you can look at the different ways that HTML 5 is supported.