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I learnt from MacManX this morning that the Web Standards Project has disassociated itself from pressure group site Browse Happyfor being too partisan in their anti-Microsoft Internet Explorer stance. I can understand that and I can understand the motives of Browse Happy as well.
What does worry me about Browse Happy is the suggestion that Firefox, Mozilla, Opera and Safari are the only alternatives to the evil IE. A quick search throws up quite a large number of browsers. 
OK – they might not all have the same great level of standards support as the main four but Browse Happy are not arguing on standards – unlike WASP. Their argument is based on security.
For starters, I’d like to see at least two additions to the Mac family which I personally use. OmniWeb is a first-class browser with some excellent features – such as being able to set preferences at site level and being able to create multi-tabbed workspaces that can be reloaded at any time. I have only found one CSS problem with it so far and that is minor. It is my browser of choice and well worth looking at.
Then there is Camino, built with the same rendering engine as the wonderful Firefox but also built specifically for the Mac and offering a much more OSX look and feel to it.
There are many others out there as well for all platforms. I’d take Browse Happy more seriously if they were a little more inclusive.
7 Responses to “WASP Sheds Browse Happy”
The friend who pointed me to Browse Happy back in August brought up this same point: why just these four browsers?
My assumption at the time was that they wanted to keep the message simple. It’s an advocacy site, not a reference site, and simpler messages are easier to convey—and, more importantly, easier to make stick—than more complex ones.
Compare:
“IE is dangerous, so try Firefox, Opera, Safari, or Mozilla.”
“IE is dangerous, so try Firefox, Opera, Safari, Mozilla, Netscape, OmniWeb, Camino, Konqueror, K-Meleon, Galeon, or Epiphany.”
Plus all but Safari are cross-platform, so they don’t have to add an extra layer of “Are you on Windows or Macintosh?” to the mix.
Maybe a list of additional browsers would be useful, but profiling them to the same extent would dilute the message and probably make the site less effective. Heck, if it were up to me, I’d leave out Mozilla too, and just focus on Firefox, Opera and Safari.
Good and valid points. It has also been pointed out that they very nearly do focus on just Firefox in any case. But my argument stands all the same. They are either a pressure site to wean people from IE and on to other browsers (which is what they claim) – or a pressure site to wean people on to Firefox – which is what they appear to be. I’d prefer to see them concentrate on the former. Like it is I don’t want to support them but WILL firmly support the efforts of WASP.
On the windows platform, there are three main browsers viz. Opera, Firefox and Internet Explorer. Majority of the other browsers are derivatives of Internet Explorer and Firefox, maybe thats why only these three are mentioned.As for Safari and the Mac platform its a complete ballgame alltogether, so there is scope for a few additions there.
Good catch on OmniWeb and Camino. I would say that the focus of Browse Happy should be on cross-platform browsers only, but then again, Safari is on the list. If I had to guess, I’d say that it’s for the same reason that Kelson suggests. The goal may be just to keep the list to a minimum. But, Unadulterated Arrogance also makes a good point when he suggests that OmniWeb (at least) is a self-contained browse made from scratch whereas the rest are derivatives of either IE or Mozilla. I’m sure that the WordPress team has some enhancements in mind, so I’ll put in a good word for their addition, see if they’re interested in adding them at all, and maybe do some preliminary write-ups as well.
Thanks MacManX. The interesting news this morning is that iCab – also a bottoms up browser for the Mac – has passed the Acid2 test. I downloaded it as it was new to me and it looks promising. I like the idea of supporting these. Em,,, I wonder if it works on Intel
Just a nitpick — OmniWeb used to be made from scratch, but since version 4.5(?) it’s been based on WebCore, the KHTML fork used by Safari.
iCab, however, does seem to still be entirely its own thing, and I can’t believe the difference between 2.9.8 and 3.0 in CSS rendering. It used to be as bad as Netscape 4, and now it seems to handle everything I tried throwing at it.
I tried to find out if Omniweb was still native. Thanks for the info.
I am MOST impressed with iCab 3. There is one page on this web log that it fails with (Gallery > The Pearl Gallery) which validates OK, but other than that it is looking very good and does a better job than Firefox. Gosh! Did I really just say that?