However, nine modules are in the Proposed Recommendation stage.

However, historically one of the problems with CSS and the various web browsers is that one browser will support some of the standards and not others, and likewise another browser may support a subset of those standards, or a completely different set of standards. So, building sites that render the same way in each of the popular browsers becomes rather tricky. At the time of this post, it appears that Google Chrome 4.1.x is the most compatible with the current stages of the many CSS3 modules. Unfortunately, from the perspective of the designer or developer, as of February, 2010, Google Chrome only accounts for a little less than 12% of all browsers. However, we could see those numbers change in the future. In fact, statistics show it was only a few years ago that over 55% of all web surfers were using Internet Explorer (IE5, IE6 & IE7) and only 36% were using Firefox. The latest results show that Firefox has nearly 47% of the browser market; while IE8, IE7 & IE6 all combined for only about 35% of the browser market. For many web designers this is a good trend because traditionally, IE has been responsible for countless hours of additional work and headaches in the continuing efforts of web professionals working to get pages that render the same in all other browsers to render the same in IE browsers. According to Microsoft, they plan for IE9 to work much better with the CSS3 modules; getting away from the proprietary nightmares in their pre-IE9 browsers. However, the downside is that with IE9 they will not be supporting Windows XP. So, this may backfire on Microsoft. The other major browsers, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Sarari and even Opera support XP. Plus, in potentially 70% of the world, PC users are still using XP and have not upgraded (term used loosely) to Windows Vista or even to Windows 7. From a designer/developer perspective I will be happy when the proprietary prefixes are not needed and multiple hacks in order to get a page to render the same in one browser as in another.

Also, over the years the display size and color depth that a designer needs to take into consideration have varied considerably. 640 x 480 resolution used to be popular. Then it was 800 x 600 which was most popular. Then 1024 x 768 became a popular screen resolution. Along with this we saw the color depth go from 8 bits, to 16 bits and now 24 to 32 bits is most common. Of course, when there was a large enough demographic using each of those three display resolutions and color depths many companies and website owners would want pages to load the same for each resolution; and colors to be consistent with the lowest common denominator of color depth. With newer technology and wide screen displays, as of January of this year, the 1024 x 768 resolution only accounted for 20% of the current screen size; while a whopping 76% were at higher resolution rates … with 1280 x 1024 being the most common.

IE6 is a nightmare for web designers. Pages that are designed and look the same in all other A Grade browsers, will look differently on IE6, unless the website designer has used a bunch of CSS hacks to address these quirks inherent to Internet Explorer 6 and other quirks inherent in prior versions of Internet Explorer. I did have IE6 installed on one of my computers, IE7 on another and IE8 on another; along with Firefox, Safari and Chrome. However, not too long back I was using a computer with IE6 and was unable to even access a couple of sites, including my MySpace page. Unless I used a different browser I could not access those sites. If you have not experienced this yet, you probably will soon. If you have experienced it occasionally, you will likely run into the same problem more often, until your upgrade your browser.

Most likely, if you are using IE6 it is because it came installed on your computer and you do not want to have to install another browser due to fear of compatibility issues or time constraints. Understandably, I remember back when installing AOL, or Netscape would hose your ability to use Internet Explorer. At that time, the browsers did not like to play well with each other. They each wanted to be your only option. Now, it is quire different. You can download the latest versions of Firefox, Safari or Chrome and install any or all of them in a matter of minutes. If you install Firefox or Google Chrome you are prompted to import your IE favorites during the installation process. You can select any one of the browsers to be your default browser, and also you can check the option to have the browser check each time it loads, to see if it is the default browser. At any time, you can change which browser is your default browser.

Firefox, Chrome, Safari and even IE8 all offer tabbed browsing; meaning that you do not need to open new browser windows, unless you want to. Instead you can simply open another tab in the same window. My personal preference is Firefox because of the multitude of additional feature that I can benefit from.

Upgrade your browser and make IE6 a memory!