LL Submitters: Please check your sites in Mozilla/FireFox!

[Mishi]

First, let me state: I am guilty! I figured I knew my HTML and CSS well enough that my sites would be groovy for any browser. How wrong I was.

I now use FireFox almost exclusively (and I am a happier person for it.) If you are building free sites, you should download FireFox or some other recent Mozilla browser - it's not as forgiving of bad code as IE, and your sites can really fall apart if you're not careful.

For those of you who, like me, railed against the totally crappy NetScape 4.x - this is not the same deal. The latest versions are painfully compliant and will show you the many errors of your ways.

By my stats, close to 15% of users are now on FireFox (that's FireFox alone - not including the various other permutations of Mozilla). I'm not willing to throw away that many visitors. Are you?

[X-Drive]

Well I agree with Mishi, do check your sites in FireFox I for example have 12% FireFox users, which is enough for me to take optimization for Mozilla browsers seriously.

[Rocco]

just noticed that firefox users are becoming more and more - that's a good advice..thanks a lot Mishi!

[Fido]

I try to make sites that looks good in Mozilla, but I did not know how many people use it, 15% is really high number. It is rather bad message for webmasters, because they will have to work longer on every site to otimize it for both browsers.

[Greenguy]

Just some browser stats from LOR:
MS Internet Explorer 82.2 %
Firefox 9.7 %
Netscape 3.2 %
Safari 1.5 %
Opera 1.2 %
Mozilla 1.2 %

Oddly enough, they do change a bit when you look at the board's stats
MS Internet Explorer 70.8 %
Firefox 17 %
Mozilla 3.5 %
Netscape 2.8 %
Safari 2.3 %
Opera 2.1 %

[Cleo]

Wow I'm 2.3% of the board's users.

[japamor]

Mishi
Apparently one of my sites fell apart when you looked at it in Firefox. I've no idea why. Do you find this happens a lot or is it a rare event?
Cheers
japamor

[Cleo]

My stuff doesn't look that much different in all browsers.
I've noticed that Windows IE is picky about missing <br> so that gets me once in awhile since I'm not a Windows user.

[stuveltje]

my top surfers use internet explorer, i have mention it before i cant make my sites all the same look in every browser for me counds (or counts who cares) the most users of an browser

[JanTM]

I think the numbers in themselves don't say that much.

I just checked and 9.7% of the surfers on Booballistics use Firefox. But I would like to know how many of those 9.7% are actually in the group of potential buyers?

The way I see it from speaking to friends (and I could be mistaken) - Firefox is for those people who:

1. Just plain hate Microsoft because they have the "nerve" to make money on computers.
2. Want free stuff - Basically not so different from groups 1.
3. Mac people and other computer minorities.

People from groups 1 and 2 are highly unlikely to buy anything and therefor I really don't care if they can see my sites.

People from group 3 obviously have too much money (or else they would have bought a REAL computer for less money ) and I like those to see my sites.

But consulting my serverstats once again I see that only 2.4% of my surfers are on Macs. And I think it is reasonable to assume that not ALL Mac people use Firefox. So I am now down to less than 2% of my surfers that might or might not have a problem.

I can live with that!

[Mr. Blue]

Originally Posted by Greenguy

Just some browser stats from LOR:
MS Internet Explorer 82.2 %
Firefox 9.7 %
Netscape 3.2 %
Safari 1.5 %
Opera 1.2 %
Mozilla 1.2 %

Oddly enough, they do change a bit when you look at the board's stats
MS Internet Explorer 70.8 %
Firefox 17 %
Mozilla 3.5 %
Netscape 2.8 %
Safari 2.3 %
Opera 2.1 %

What...no Konqueror browser?

[Cleo]

Safari is based on Konqueror. My server stats list Konqueror but don't list Safari users.

[Mr. Blue]

Originally Posted by Cleo

Safari is based on Konqueror. My server stats list Konqueror but don't list Safari users.

Ah, mine list both, but you have to read the raw logs otherwise it just gets lumped in the "other" category. Checking my stats if I lump Netscape / Firefox / mozilla together it's around 1 quarter of the traffic. It's not a bad idea to check the pages in both.

Thing that I find more annoying is people that design for 800 x 600 and don't center tables. A lot of high resolution users get ugly pages to the left.

[Rorschach]

Originally Posted by JanTM

The way I see it from speaking to friends (and I could be mistaken) - Firefox is for those people who:

1. Just plain hate Microsoft because they have the "nerve" to make money on computers.
2. Want free stuff - Basically not so different from groups 1.
3. Mac people and other computer minorities.

I don't agree with that... I think a lot of firefox users are just computer savvy surfers trying to tame the nasty surfing experience you get with IE. I'm sure some of them would still spend money if you present them with an enticing enough offer - but of course those juicy dumbass surfers (the ones you really want, the newbies) would still be using IE, so the shrinking IE segment will become more and more valuable.

I don't see why people can't just handle writing compliant html anyway... the whole point of writing to a standard is that everyone can see it!

[cd34]

Originally Posted by Rorschach

the whole point of writing to a standard is that everyone can see it!

you might want to follow some of the discussions on the CSS groups then. Even though CSS is a defined standard, Microsoft's interpretation of the standard is often at odds with the document that they helped author.

So, even if you use Compliant HTML and CSS, because of the way IE 6 renders the CSS, you still get two separate results.

So, can you convince Microsoft to follow the RFC that they coauthored? If so, it would make a lot of web designer's lives easier.

[Rorschach]

That is true, I was thinking more of fatal html errors in mozilla that IE would forgive.

[Useless]

Originally Posted by JanTM

The way I see it from speaking to friends (and I could be mistaken) - Firefox is for those people who:

1. Just plain hate Microsoft because they have the "nerve" to make money on computers.
2. Want free stuff - Basically not so different from groups 1.
3. Mac people and other computer minorities.

What?
Firefox users are people who just want a better and more secure browser than what comes included on their pc. I fear your disdain for us. I'm going to go hide now.

[Mr. Blue]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

What?
Firefox users are people who just want a better and more secure browser than what comes included on their pc. I fear your disdain for us. I'm going to go hide now.

Wonder if Jan works for M$.

I only use Firefox because I got sick of IE and all the endless spyware, adware, etc that you get when you use IE. Also because MS wants to monopolize your computer they make the damn browser so integrated into the OS that when something goes wrong with the browser, buh bye, time to reinstall windows.

[tickler]

I had one post that was rejected because it didn't work in FireFox.

So after getting Firefox, and looking at the pages, the dumbass program was defaulting table colors to white, not my page background color. And of course white text on white background don't work too good.

[Mishi]

Originally Posted by Fido

I try to make sites that looks good in Mozilla, but I did not know how many people use it, 15% is really high number. It is rather bad message for webmasters, because they will have to work longer on every site to otimize it for both browsers.

Not necessarily. The thing is, IE is very forgiving of "bad" code. So if you "optimize" for Mozilla (and it's not really optimizing - it's just writing compliant code), your sites will probably look fine in most browsers.

[Mishi]

Originally Posted by japamor

Mishi
Apparently one of my sites fell apart when you looked at it in Firefox. I've no idea why. Do you find this happens a lot or is it a rare event?
Cheers
japamor

It doesn't happen a whole lot, but it's also not infrequent - if that makes any sense. The most common problem I see is unreadable text - either it's completely invisible until highlighted, or lines of text overlap. Sometimes text in tables goes wonky.

I've never seen a whole gallery just drop to the bottom of the page, like yours did. I'm sorry I didn't have more time to look at the code and see what might be wrong; if I get a chance I'll look into it, 'cause I'm curious myself.

[venturi]

Ok, here's my take on some of the dissenting opinions expressed so far.

There are a couple ways to look at browsers in your stats.
1) What Browser are they, the surfer, using. This is good thinking. Know thy surfer (spelled CUSTOMER) and make your sites work with their browser. Thinking that only the newbie surfer sheep running on MS IE are your only viable customers is just plain ignorant. There are hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of horny surfers with open wallets that just plain hate MS IE. Maybe they come from the old Netscape school and when it became Mozilla they kept with it rather than going IE. New to the web doesn't mean open wallets anymore. Your BEST customers are likely more savy surfers that Know What They Want. Just because they "only" represent 10% to 25% of your customer base are you willing to throw them out? If so, PLEASE, PLEASE send them to my sites.

2. What Version of a given browser are your surfers using. If you see MS IE v4 or older or Netscape 4.x or older then Yes these surfers are likely not viable customers. The reason being if they aren't willing to keep current, at all, with their OS and accompanying software on their own computer(s) then they probably aren't worth the time it would take to create a marketing campaign for them - even IF they could view your sites to begin with.

As a business owner I am hesitant to disregard even 5% of my potential customer base - that's 1 out of every 20 people that visit my store! Imagine if BestBuy were to based upon some archaic algorithm of demographics it ignored every redhead that entered their stores. It's hard enough to get good ratios without self-imposing limitations on your own prospective profits.

[japamor]

Originally Posted by Mishi

It doesn't happen a whole lot, but it's also not infrequent - if that makes any sense. The most common problem I see is unreadable text - either it's completely invisible until highlighted, or lines of text overlap. Sometimes text in tables goes wonky.

I've never seen a whole gallery just drop to the bottom of the page, like yours did. I'm sorry I didn't have more time to look at the code and see what might be wrong; if I get a chance I'll look into it, 'cause I'm curious myself.

Hi Mishi
I've now downloaded Firefox and I must say I'm impressed.
The problem on my particular site seems to have been the 'table height' instructions. I've now scrubbed them - and my galleries no longer collapse. I can see your Recip clearly so I don't know what that problem is. I've tried re-submitting but the site's already on your database, so I can't. I'd be most grateful if you you could take the site off so I can try again. This is it:
http://www.japamor.com/sites/lingeri...onsb/index.htm
Many thanks!
japamor

[Useless]

Originally Posted by japamor

The problem on my particular site seems to have been the 'table height' instructions. I've now scrubbed them - and my galleries no longer collapse.

I looked at that site briefly last night and had noticed that the thumb table had 'dropped' down the page. I was going to PM you about it today, but I see you've already fixed it. I left it in my queue, so it'll be up today.

[japamor]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

I looked at that site briefly last night and had noticed that the thumb table had 'dropped' down the page. I was going to PM you about it today, but I see you've already fixed it. I left it in my queue, so it'll be up today.

Thanks mate