Browser Compatibility Standards

Unless your project requirements prevent compatibility with any particular browser, all of our work is guaranteed to be compatible with the following industry-standard browsers:

Microsoft Internet Explorer v6+
Netscape v8+
Mozilla Firefox v1.5+
Opera 9.10+

It must be kept in mind that browsers tend to have different ways of interpreting HTML, CSS, even fonts and other standards. The differences can be slight or significant. HTML and other features that are “cross-browser compatible” may appear differently between browsers. They are still cross-browser - the browser creators just interpret the standards differently. We do not implement anything that isn't compatible with all of the above browsers unless you specifically ask us to.

Unless specifically requested, we do not test in the following types of browsers:

shareware, or otherwise non-free browsers
why anyone would pay for a browser, when there are so many very good ones that are completely free continues to baffle us.
little-known browsers, and browsers that are designed to display content in a certain manner (e.g. text-only browsers)
As a general rule, most modern, lesser-known browsers tend to render content very much like Mozilla browsers. Odds are, if a site works in the above browsers, it should work in most others.
obsolete browsers and configurations
This applies to major browsers listed above, that have a lower version number than those above

There are countless possible combinations of programs, operating systems and configurations that a site can be tested in. By limiting ourselves to the handful of configurations that just so happen to include 96% to 98% of all web users on the planet helps us keep costs down and greatly reduces turnaround time, while still allowing us to produce a top-notch product. Again, if you have a specific need for compatibility with an environment we don't test in, let us know and we'll do everything in our power to accomodate you.

Mac Compatibility

We currently test for basic display on Safari, Mac's default browser. It is generally safe to assume that if a site works in Mozilla, it will perform very similarly in Safari.

Mobile Browsers

We do perform testing on Pocket IE for Windows Mobile 5.0. However, it must be noted that mobile browsers are designed to render web pages to display on a very small screen with a small system cache. They also rarely support JavaScript or other client-side scripting. Flash is technically supported, but users must manually install the plugin, and complex Flash tends to perform poorly on anything but high-end devices. In general, if a website was not specifically designed for a mobile device, it cannot be expected to look or perform the same way as it would on a desktop browser. If you would like your website to be compatible with mobile browsers, we can develop a Mobile Companion Site. This is essentially a mirror of your main website that will be automatically displayed for users of mobile devices. These companion sites can contain everything your main website contains or, if you prefer, it can contain content specifically designed for mobile users.

Minimo: Minimo is Mozilla's mobile browser. It boasts full desktop browsing capability, including tabbed browsing. We do NOT test in Minimo, and until the code is significantly improved, we recommend against using this browser entirely due to performance issues, even on high-end devices. To date, Minimo is the only Windows Mobile program we've tried that caused crashes that resulted in data loss.

ISP-based Browsing Environments

AOL: We DO NOT test for compatibility in an AOL-based interface. However, the last time we checked, the guts of an AOL browser window were a Mozilla or IE browser (whichever is your system default). So, if your site passes testing in IE and Mozilla, your site should work with AOL too.

MSN Explorer: This is the browsing environment that is integrated with MSN Internet Access. However, unlike AOL, it is included in a regular installation of Windows XP, and a paid MSN subscription is not required to use the software. As such, many people may use MSN Explorer as their preferred browser, regardless of their actual ISP. But fortunately for us web developers, MSN Explorer not only uses the Internet Explorer rendering engine, but from what we can determine, the browser portion of MSN Explorer IS Internet Explorer. So, if a site works with Internet Explorer, it should perform identically in MSN Explorer.

MSN TV (formerly WebTV)

Since MSN TV users are few and far between, we do not recommend specifically designing your main website around an MSN TV compatibility requirement. The system is designed to scale graphics and make other modifications to web pages for the purpose of making them display "better" on a TV screen. We do not automatically test for performance on MSN TV, but we do maintain a testing environment that we can use to test MSN TV performance upon request. If you have content specifically targeted towards MSN TV users, we can certainly ensure that content is fully capable.

Phone Browsers