Until recently I was one of the only nerds who had yet to upgrade to Firefox 3. I'd been waiting until I could find an easy way to install it alongside (rather than in place of) Firefox 2. When I'd tried doing this a few months ago—with the beta version of Firefox 3—it hadn't worked properly, so I'd put the idea on hold.

I mentioned this in a meeting, when a colleague piped up with a simple solution. He suggested using the PortableApps version, a standalone version of the program that can be installed on a Flash drive—for portability—or simply in a directory you designate on your computer. This was so obvious I immediately wondered why it hadn't occurred to me before, but then, practical ideas are like that.

PortableApps.com offers a plethora of portable software solutions—including Firefox—for Windows

Once I got back to my office I hopped over to http://portableapps.com/, looked for Firefox 3, then proceeded to download it. Within minutes it was installed, separately and independently of Firefox 2. When I tried to start it up I discovered that you can't run them both at the same time—I had to close out of 2 to open 3, then close out of 3 to reopen 2—but you can run them on the same computer. This will be tremendously useful if I discover some quirk in Firefox 3—such as an add-on that no longer works and has yet to be updated—or if I need to see how a Web page renders in each version.

That solved the problem for the Windows P. C., but what about the Macintosh?

FreeSMUG: Portable Applications for OSX

Firefox 3 from FreeSMUG (Mac)

A quick Google search turned up FreeSMUG's portable applications section. FreeSMUG offers a portable version of Firefox 3—in several languages—as well as other popular open source programs such as Open Office and Audacity. Those new to many of the Open Source programs available through FreeSMUG can learn more about them through a variety of helpful tutorials available on the site.

FreeSMUG says of its portable applications, "OS X FOSS portable applications are packaged so you can carry around on any portable device, USB thumb drive, iPod, portable hard drive, memory card, other portable device (or also on your internal hard disk), taking your preferences with you." This of course could be handy for any number of reasons, but the ability to run multiple versions of browsers to use for testing Web sites, is particularly useful to me.

Why test in multiple versions of the same Web browser? Why not just upgrade?

As a Web developer, you probably upgrade your browsers fairly often. That's not true of the average user. In many cases the people who visit your site are using the same browser that came with their computer.

The most popular browsers used by visitors to the Web Development Blog this month are:

• Internet Explorer 7.0 - 24.6%
• Internet Explorer 6.0 - 24.3%
• Firefox 3.0 - 12.7%
• Firefox 2.x - 17.8%
• Safari - 5.4%

Interestingly .5% were still using Netscape 4.0, which is over 10 years old!

To ensure that you, my site visitors, can view and use this site with ease, I need to make sure that it works properly in the browsers that most of you are using. This requires testing in multiple browsers and versions.

When a browser releases a minor upgrade, this isn't a big issue. But when a Web browser makes a significant upgrade it can make a big difference. A site that looked fine in version X, may look horrible in version Y.

When Internet Explorer 7 came out, users and developers quickly noticed that many pages didn't render properly in the new version. I.E. 7 was actually more standards compliant than I.E. 6, but developers who had used I.E. hacks to make pages look right in I.E. 6 found they didn't work with I.E. 7. This led to a lot of sturm und drang about I.E. 7 "breaking the Web," as those developers needed to modify those hacks to make their sites work in both I.E. 6 and 7.

Here at Case our templated sites don't rely on many I.E. hacks so they transitioned smoothly from I.E. 6 to I.E. 7. But when I'm building new sites, I may sometimes incorporate new styles or features that I've not used before. This is when I make a point of testing in multiple browsers. Tredosoft's Multiple I.E. Installer provides a convenient way to run different versions of Internet Explorer on Windows XP. They also provide information for running I.E. 6 natively on Vista.

Must your site work in every browser available?

No, the Web has evolved enough since 1993 that making a site backwards compatible with every browser version is pretty much impossible. But if you adhere to Web standards, build sites that degrade cleanly in older browsers, and test in the browsers used by most of your readers you should be able to provide a good user experience for all of your visitors.

Web Browse Testing Resources

• Browsershots
• Browser testing CSS and JavaScript
• Browser Tests, Services and Compatibility Test Suites
• CSS: Browser testing order
• Why your site should work on multiple browsers