I’m always surprised at how many small business websites I come across that don’t display properly in Firefox. I usually blame sloppy web design by their webmasters, but many small businesses cut corners and try to design their websites themselves. Sometimes they succeed,

Internet Explorer is still the most common browser in use, but other browsers are catching up. Last month Internet Explorer had 55% of the browser market, Firefox was up to 21%, Chrome had 10%, Safari had about 5% , and the rest filled out the remaining 9% or so.

That means that about half of the visitors to your web site are likely to be using something other than Internet Explorer. Web sites that haven’t been designed for cross-browser compatibility are usually designed to work properly only in Internet Explorer, with questionable results elsewhere. Common problems are misalignment of elements on the page, text overlaying images or other blocks of text, text running off the edge of the browser, and so forth. And you don’t just need to consider other brands of browser — there are differences in display even between different versions of the same browser.

A ruined user experience on your website loosely translates into a lost sale. Don’t let that happen to you!

Search Marketing Standard magazine has an article on how to approach the issue. They recommend checking your web pages for compatibility in a number of different browsers. While few of us want to install a dozen or more of the most popular browser, there’s an easier solution: BrowserShots. Just check off the browsers you want to compare, enter the URL of your web pages (one at a time) and wait while BrowserShots compiles screenshots from each browser you chose. If you find a problem, check your code and explore the suggestions in the Search Marketing Standard article.

In last month’s blog, we wrote about making sure your web site displays properly in all the popular browsers. It’s just not safe anymore to assume that everyone uses Internet Explorer.

Now there’s a tool that will let you see exactly how your web pages display in almost any browser you can imagine. You’ll find it at www.BrowserShots.org. Don’t get carried away, though. You can chose to see any page on your site in dozens of browsers, but the process takes quite a bit of time and the more browsers you choose, the longer it takes.

For priority service they request a donation, and that’s a good idea if you’re a web designer working on multiple web sites. If you just want to check your own site, though, the service is free as long as you don’t mind a little wait for the results.

One of our brand new clients has a web site that just doesn’t look right when viewed in Firefox. It looks great in Internet Explorer (IE), which is the only browser it was checked in. But it doesn’t look right in Firefox and probably not in Opera or Safari, either.  So as part of our client’s SEO, we’ll have to make sure his web site appears properly in all the major search engines. Sadly, this is a problem we run into far more often than we should, so if you have a web site, you should check it out in other browsers to make sure it still looks right.

Cross browser compatibility is increasingly important because more and more people (especially the more savvy ones) are switching to Firefox. You probably should, too, if you haven’t done so already. Here’s why:

Quite a few years ago, Microsoft and Netscape engaged in The Browser Wars, and Microsoft, by including IE for free in every copy of Windows since Windows 98, won the battle handily. Sometime early in the current  decade, Microsoft stopped improving IE. so complacent were they in their indomitable market share among browsers.

But a few years ago the Department of Homeland Security (yes, it’s true) encouraged users to use browsers other than IE because IE is such a security nightmare. There are some web sites that can infect your PC as soon as you visit one of them with IE. Some make your PC into a “zombie”, sending spam and other viruses out to people without your knowledge.

There are a number of reasons to switch to Firefox, but the most important is security. On July 7, PC World published a blog entry entitled Study Finds Firefox Users Safest, IE Users Unsafe – it’s not very long, and is worth the read.

Firefox seems to load web pages faster than IE, and includes some neat features like a popup blocker, a password manager, and alerts when you visit phishing sites (ones that try to steal your identity). One of the most obvious difference is all the add-ons you can get for Firefox. As an example, there are several we use here at Rank Magic for SEO analysis purposes..

Finally, Firefox is free.

The major Web browsers are getting facelifts as they are increasingly used for handling business transactions and running programs over the Internet instead of simply displaying Web sites.

The upgrades are the latest skirmish in the browser war that started in the mid-1990s and led to Microsoft’s (arguably evil) triumph over Netscape. The battles reignited in 2004, when Mozilla’s Firefox launched and revealed many new features. Firefox has been steadily increasing market share since.

On Tuesday, Opera Software ASA is releasing its Opera 9 browser, while Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Firefox are in line for major overhauls later this year.

<read the full story from Business Week>

There has been tons of buzz in the blogosphere about Google promoting Firefox on the Google.com homepage. News.com has a quick write up on it, that links to screen capture of what was promoted. We know Google and Firefox have always had positive relations and we can see how Google is primary promoting the Google Toolbar for Firefox. They even pay you a dollar for each person you refer to download Firefox. Just another little fillip to Microsoft.

In only about a year, Firefox has gone from relative obscurity to being the second most popular browser in the world. It’s got only about 9% of the Internet browsing market, but that’s incredible for a version 1.0 product, especially since the top browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer, comes bundled with new PCs. And the number of Firefox users is growing steadily and rapidly. The release of Firefox 1.5, the first major upgrade since Firefox 1.0 came out in November 2004, is almost certain to drive adoption rates even higher. <Full review by PC Magazine>