What browsers do we support?

Our clients vary in their technical expertise of the web; some know in depth how to construct a website whilst others are relative beginners unaware of the numerous different browsers that are available.

Educating and serving clients with less understanding of the web can be tough; things are a little more black and white and a website is simply broken if it does not work on their own computer. For these people the age and complexity of their computer or their browser means nothing as they believe the website they see will look identical to how it was presented to them through the design phase of a project.

It’s a nice thought that a website should work the same on every browser and every computer but this is far from reality. Whilst the mix of browsers, browser versions and operating systems a website could be viewed on seems infinite the budget for a website isn’t. Browsers simply don’t all behave the same and a company can ill afford the time to ensure a website is built to deal with all these quirks.

Instead we have to pick a handful of browsers that represent the majority of web users.

The Bronco handful

The browsers which we use to test a website are constantly changing as the web does not remain stationary for very long. Currently our browser support table looks like this:

*Safari iOS also included depending on relevance/necessity

These browsers represent over 90% of all web traffic on the Internet and so these are the ones we focus on the most. Websites built to the standards formed within the web community will work well in almost all new browsers with very few breakages; if a site looks good in all these then many other newer browsers should look fine. The issues come as a browser ages.

Old browsers a.k.a Internet Explorer 6

Within the web community Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) is a distasteful entity. Though advanced in its day it has become misaligned with how we now build websites and so many modern websites appear different or even broken when viewed in IE6.

Numerous campaigns call for its ‘death’; where we no longer support this browser or actively force those using it to find alternatives in order to view a website. Our position at Bronco is not so extreme but over a year ago we took the decision to remove IE6 from our support table.

Instead we now approach IE6 in one of three ways:

1. Do nothing and leave any possible breakages
2. Fix any breakages that are quick to complete
3. Provide a standard CSS document that ensures functionality and content are accessible at the cost of the overall design

We determine which approach is best based on multiple factors and do this at our own discretion, unless requested to do otherwise.

Additional support

Though we have a clear support structure that we follow on every project a client can request and be quoted on providing additional support for older browsers. We don’t work in a black and white world. But this addition does come with the understanding that a website viewed in an old browser can never look identical to that on something newer.

If a client does find a website broken on their own computer in any browser then we always do our best to determine the problem and provide a solution.

Browser Support in the Future

We are constantly reviewing out browser support table, within the coming months we expect the use of IE7 to drop to a point where we no longer specifically support this browser and instead move our attention to the new Internet Explorer 10 due for release soon.