Firefox why does it have trouble with certain sites?
Avid Fan
I cannot understand why the Mac people went to all the trouble of
writing Safari when they just could have supported the Firefox people
to keep their Mac version updated.
My I have been told by experts that Internet Explorer does not truly
follow the HTML standard while Firefox does.
Why is it that a tiny number of sites do not work properly on Firefox?
but do on internet explorer. Do the developers use broken code to
deliberately stop Firefox?
What is going on?
ray
Firefox has much fewer issues with standards than does ie. ie has some
extensions which work on it and not much else - what you are seeing is
the effect of web developers not following standards. For an eye-opener,
run some of the offending sites through the HTML validator at www.w3c.org
- I'll bet you'll see lots of exceptions.
Mostly, it's due to carelesness and use of MS proprietary products like
frontpage to generate web pages.
Bit Twister
> Firefox has much fewer issues with standards than does ie. ie has some
> extensions which work on it and not much else - what you are seeing is
> the effect of web developers not following standards. For an eye-opener,
> run some of the offending sites through the HTML validator at www.w3c.org
> - I'll bet you'll see lots of exceptions.
>
> Mostly, it's due to carelesness and use of MS proprietary products like
> frontpage to generate web pages.
Heheheh, saw an article several days ago where Latest IE would not
render microsoft.com M$ had to go back and put a hook to IE to allow
poorly coded sites.
Java Jive
non-standard IE-specific fixes, and/or not been adequately tested
using more compliant browsers. Personally, I develop in FF3, and then
make any additional fixes necessary to get IE compatibility, it's
usually much easier, quicker, and the result is better
standards-compliant than the other way around.
On my own site, http://www.macfh.co.uk/CEMH.html, all the live
(non-test) pages, and many of the test pages, are fully HTML and CSS
standards compliant (the textarea elements in some test pages being
the only departures). This includes the Satellite Calculator page,
but that didn't stop this page from being a nightmare to obtain any
thing like cross-browser support, particularly trying to support it in
older browsers and any version of IE - the page uses internet
mapping, which is frankly is a mess the world over with conflicting
APIs, standards, etc.
The most popular browsers visiting my site are IE6 (17%) and 7 (35%),
and FF3 (30%). The rest are all below 3% each.
In general, cross-browser support is difficult to achieve, because
none of the popular browsers are entirely standards compliant.
FF3 is certainly more standards compliant than IE, but even it is not
completely so, for example it doesn't implement a number of the
@print{} styles. Opera is reputed to be one of the most compliant,
but it also has troubles, for example with VML graphics and CSS form
color styles.
But, from the point of view of the web-developer trying to comply with
standards, *all* current versions of IE are maddening piles of sh*te.
I finally got so p*ssed off that I implemented a special version of
the Satellite Calculator just to collate and demo all the mapping
problems - perhaps there is a faint chance that someone somewhere in
MS might just get embarrassed enough to think of doing something about
IE7 & 8 at least, but I'm not holding my breath:
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Test/SatelliteCalculator.html
Tim Greer
Some site designers just aren't qualified. Between them forcing people
to use a specific browser like IE, to awful sites like myspace with all
of its badly done flash and other content crashing browsers for MAC and
Linux users alike, you will likely just find that sites whom force
people to use specific browsers aren't worth using. I don't know of
any major site that's worth going to (for any type of reason) that
would force or give problems to people using any normal and common web
browser.
--
Tim Greer, CEO/Founder/CTO, BurlyHost.com, Inc.
Shared Hosting, Reseller Hosting, Dedicated & Semi-Dedicated servers
and Custom Hosting. 24/7 support, 30 day guarantee, secure servers.
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Van Chocstraw
Every time I start up IE7 it locks up and crashes. I have to start it
twice on Vista. Firefox and Seamonkey give me no problems.
--
<<//--------------------\\>>
Van Chocstraw
>>\\--------------------//<<
Michael Black
I seem to recall that IE can handle tags that aren't standard, or
something like that. It's based on the premise that it's "universal"
and hence they are improving things by adding more tags.
But then those tags cause problems with browsers that are merely
standard.
Another factor that may play in is that some webpages are terribly
bloated. They are "composed" on software that puts all kinds of junk
in page, and nobody can really follow what it's all about because it's
just there. I suspect the more complicated a webpage is, the more
trouble it might give some browsers. SOme may be more expecting of
standards, and then will choke on not so great webpages, while other
browsers are more lenient and will handle oddities without a problem.
I use lynx as my main browser, and except for Flash sites, I find few
webpages that I can't use it with, though some may render better than
others.
But I have every so often hit webpages that check for browsers, and
turn you away, even though you can generally deal with the page.
Last year, I hit one page that offered up an error message, and
some searching showed that it was browser related. But I'd never
seen the message before. I could change the user agent header to
anything, random words or insults, and the error message went away,
but I got the error message the moment I changed the header back
to lynx. Really odd, initially I thought it was deliberate to
that site, but then I hit one or two other sites that offered
the same message. I assumed it was an "upgrade" of server software
that issued an error message when it wasn't really necessary. Since
July, I've not come across the message again, though I'm still using
lynx and the user agent header remains the same.
Michael
Avid Fan
Thank you for all the replies.
I wonder if Mac users using Safari experience the same issues?
If you were going to the trouble to create a site for a major company
you would think that you would test it a few of the major browers.
I am very happy with Firefox if 0.01% of companies do not want my
business - So be it.
J.O. Aho
> I wonder if Mac users using Safari experience the same issues?
Try Konqueror and see, they share engine root.
> If you were going to the trouble to create a site for a major company
> you would think that you would test it a few of the major browers.
You are funny, there are too many people just believing that there is one
operating system and that only a few misled users uses anything else than MSIE.
I have encountered this in my work and it's not been fun when the people on
top tells you to drop support to all the browsers you have supported and only
focus on MSIE, but of course it's a delight when they get back and wonder why
things don't work for their main customer, who has a company policy to not use
untrustworthy browsers as MSIE within their organization.
--
//Aho
B
Hilarious eh? This is the affects of corporate lock in, where the user
base is so large they must code however they feel like to reach the end
user. A lot of 'trial and error' type programming. It's terrible. Hate
web design just for this reason. Throw in Adobe Flash and the
wheneverware; silverlight and you have trouble. Push HTML5 and we could
help end this madness.
Google Chrome possibly joining the browser wars will be interesting to
see.
I am also a web host. I notice an older user base that refuses to move
from Front Page. Schools, for one; off the top of my head. So... :-/
IIRC. Certain content management systems, and other Web IDEs are also
culprits, cold fusion.
Using noscript, flash block, and web dev tool bar can help a lot. Though,
personally I never find much information I need anyway on a poorly coded
site; I just move on. If a page fails to load properly in 10s most users
just move on. Maybe do the same in this situation.
Bryan T