A Web Browser is a program you use to browse the internet. There are a number of different Web Browsers available for free and while the basic functionality is the same (with an address bar and the ability to view websites) some of the advanced functionality is different and each browser has a different interpretation of websites.

The intricacies of “browser bugs” aren’t important to anyone that’s not a web developer and even in our office here we have different opinions about which is the “best” web-browser. The important thing is to make sure that your visitors all have a great experience, regardless of which browser they prefer to use.

Internet Explorer (46.5%)

Internet Explorer is still the most popular browser and comes bundled with Windows.

Firefox (29%)

Mozilla Firefox is another popular browser and it has a large number of “extensions” which can add additional functionality.

Google Chrome (9%)

Chrome is lightweight and fast – our recommendation if you want to avoid bloat and excess functionality that you won’t use or if you’re tight on computer resources.

Safari (5.5%)

Safari is a popular web-browser on Apple Macs. There is also a Windows version.

Other Browsers and devices (10%)

Opera, Lynx... the list of browsers goes on, and there are pros and cons to each. Visitors could also use a mobile browser or some other device such as a screen reader or braille reader.

Only a few years ago, Internet Explorer was used by almost everybody. Back in those days it didn’t matter too much if a website was designed just for Internet Explorer. These days, though, it can cause problems as websites designed and built specificially for Internet Explorer (especially Internet Explorer 6) may not work correctly in other web browsers.

Up to half of your web traffic may be coming from browsers other than Internet Explorer – so if your website only works in IE you might be missing out on half of your online business!

Jack Marlow websites are all built to be cross browser compatible – that means that the website looks great and works well regardless of which web browser a visitor is using so our clients can be confident that they’re making the right impression to their customers and prospects.

*statistics used are those on Wikimedia for September 2010. See Browser Usage Share on Wikipedia for more detailed statistics and information.