This morning I was reading CNN.com as I tend to do every morning. I like to check out all the different happenings around the world, and this particular headline caught my eye: Chrome overtakes Internet Explorer as No. 1 browser — maybe
The story highlights report that Google Chrome has passed Internet Explorer in browser wars (finally, as all the web developers breathe a collective sigh of relief, we win, maybe) and that as Chrome’s star is rising, Internet Explorer’s has been dropping. Queue the excited scream from web developers worldwide.
So what does this mean do you? What it means is that as a web developer, there has never been a greater time to take advantage of all the awesome features that are available to us in a more modern browser such as HTML5 and CSS3. This of course doesn’t mean that every modern browser supports every feature, but Chrome supports quite a bit, you can do cool things with text-shadows, box-shadows, gradients, etc, all with the magic of CSS3.
For clients this means that developers can really do some amazing things with your sites including amazing animations and drawings, all without using images. Check out these examples:
This seems to hold true; at least for users visiting my site. In the last 90 days, visits to my site have been broken down by the following browsers and percentages:
- Google Chrome (all versions) 33.6%
- Firefox (all versions) 32.4%
- Internet Explorer (all versions) 19.6%
*note some of you are STILL using Internet Explorer 6, that browser is over 10 years old, it’s time to upgrade, we don’t support IE6 here. - Safari (all versions) 6.9%
- Mobile 6.7%
- Opera 0.8%
If you take anything away from this conversation, just remember this. When it comes to web browsers, just because it came with your operating system doesn’t meant that you have to use it. You can upgrade to any browser of your choice and it’s okay! There are many options, some better than others, but ultimately it’s your choice.
