6 Browsers for Web Developers: Which one do you use?
This post is about the various web browsers that software developers have to choose from – picking a favorite gets to be some kind of a lottery. Once a developer gets used to one, they may neglect the others - until it comes time for testing. Admit it, this is familiar to you too, right?
According to W3Counter, Chrome (56.8%) is the most popular browser amongst users followed by Safari (12.3%) as second, then Internet Explorer and Edge (7.8%), FireFox (5.3%), and lastly Opera (2.1%).
In this article I have layed out the specifications for each common browser, including the initial release year, the programming languages the software was written in, and the engine that renders the webpage. [Source: Wikipedia]
1. Google Chrome
Initial release year: 2008
Programming languages: C, C++, JavaScript, Java (Android app only), Python
Engines: WebKit, Chrome V8, Blink
Mobile version: Yes
Chrome dev tools:
The common features between each browser’s developer console, is a select option – a tool that is used to inspect a specific element on the webpage – and the elements tab – to help test new CSS, and hide parts that may be causing an issue with rendering of the page.
All of the browsers have the ability to test responsiveness across multiple screen sizes - a very helpful tool indeed.
2. Apple Safari
Initial release year: 2003
Programming languages: C++, Objective-C
Engines: Webkit, Nitro
Mobile version: Yes
Safari dev tools:
While the console seems to be similiar across all browsers, some different features standout in a few. Such as, Safari’s tool to add rulers to a page, to help with alignment.
3. Microsoft Internet Explorer
Initial release year: 1995
Programming languages: C++
Engine: Trident in first release of IE 4.0 in 1997
Mobile version: No
Discontinued, still maintained for Windows
No longer supported for macOS
As a developer on a macOS, one may find it difficult to debug IE specific display bugs, if you don’t have a PC with Internet Explorer handy. There IS a way to turn your mac into a virtual PC with an application called Parallels. The software has been around for awhile, but there is a catch – although there is a free trial to start, you ultimately would need to buy a license to use the application.
It seems Microsoft is slowly trying to move people away from IE and onto their new Edge browser. So hopefully we won’t have to endure the virtual pain of including IE conditional comments in our HTML markup much longer:
<html>
<!--[if IE]>
This content is ignored in IE10 and other browsers.
In older versions of IE it renders as part of the page.
<![endif]-->
</html>
Though, there is some good news macOS users! Earlier this year Microsoft released a beta version of Edge for mac – the default search engine is Microsoft’s own Bing. The mac version of the browser is supposed to have the same look and feel as the Windows version. So, hooray Microsoft!
4. Microsoft Edge
Initial release year:
Windows 10, Xbox One: 2015
Android and iOS: 2017
macOS: 2019
Programming languages: C++, C#
Engines: EdgeHTML (Chromium-based using Blink), Chakra (JScript)
Mobile version: Yes
Edge dev tools:
5. Mozilla Firefox
Initial release year: 2002
Programming languages: JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets, C, C++, XBL, XUL
Engines: SpiderMonkey, Gecko
Mobile version: Yes
FireFox dev tools:
Mozilla has their own alignment tool, when using the selection tool horizontal and verical hashed lines are shown – I suppose this could be useful, too.
6. Opera
Initial release year: 1995
Programming languages: C++
Engines: Chrome V8, Blink
Opera uses the same rendering engine as Chrome – so the developer console looks the same there too. Earlier this year, the Opera team released a version they referred to as Reborn 3, focused on the browsers “look and functionality”, according to their blog.
Opera dev tools:
Well, that’s about it. I hope this is helpful and maybe you’ll be motivated to do a little exploring of your own with a new browser that you regularly do not use.
Images: Screencaptures of individual webpages by Alicia Pflaumer on macOS