Ok, so I'm going to be talking about 5 "main" browsers, well, 4 cause I have only used Safari once, but it is one of the "main" ones.
Lately, since I've been forced to remake a webpage (they sent me the design, I just made sure it looked like it), one of the things I needed to be aware of is that the site is visited mostly (oh, surprise) by IE users.
So, here's where it all begins...
First, there are a couple of places where I needed to make round corners, should be easy enough, right??? Just specify it and done... well, no... cause if you put 'border-radius: x;' in css stylesheet, guess what, only Opera and Chrome react to it, you need to specify another line for when you're using Safari, and another one for when you're using Firefox... don't even know how to make it work in IE.
That's two additional lines of code for it to work... and that's just to make round corners... now imagine to build a full-fledged web app from the ground up, and have to make sure it works on most browsers, that's time and work spent on something that could be better spent on designing or developing the app itself.
But here is where it gets real...
Obviously, like everything else, there needs to be competition, so there will never be only one... if we didn't have an IE, modern browsers would amaze us less than they do, if there was no Firefox, other browsers wouldn't try as hard on having great Extensions/Widgets/Add-ons, if there was no Chrome or Safari, other browsers wouldn't try as hard to make the browser as fast as humanly possible, if there was no Opera, well, there would be less innovations that are implemented in various other browsers. (I'm only saying what comes to mind, I know each browser is not tied down to a single possitive thing). But from those mentioned, there is one we can do without and be a good thing... yes, IE.
It's not that I hate it with all my guts (which I do), but as many big companies do, they want to do it their own way *cough*Sony*cough*, and that's what makes it very hard to develop for, either you develop for IE in mind, or for a good browser in mind but with tweaks every now and then so that the essence is not lost in IE...
I'm not saying it should dissappear cause it won't, just make an effort to be competitive and not rely on computers having it installed by default.
I would like a browser that has the simplicity of Chrome, the Extension gallery of Firefox, the many innovations of Opera (please, mouse-gestures by default!!!), and... well, I don't know what I want from Safari, but I'm sure there's something... and blend it all together in a single browser, haha... well, a man can dream... a man can dream
