Works Best in “__________”
Published by marco on
More than a decade ago, the available web browsers—Internet Explorer, Netscape and Opera—differed widely in capability. Cutting-edge pages that worked in one browser either didn’t work at all in the others, or ceased to be cutting-edge. In those days, it was both common and appropriate to include a browser recommendation. “Best viewed in Internet Explorer” or “Best viewed in Netscape” flourished.
Today, however, the various browsers have standardized to a great degree. There is no longer a huge difference between the functionality offered by Firefox, Internet Explorer[1], Opera, Chrome or Safari.[2]
The article Play Katamari Damacy on any web site by Jason Kottke[3] includes the following text in its short article,
“Works best in Firefox and Chrome.”
The demonstration works just fine in Opera and passably in Safari. There is no longer any reason to include the “Works best in…” badge unless experimentation has shown that the page really does work better in one browser than another. It’s 2011, stop knee-jerk including the “Works best in…” badge—the world has moved on.
[1] IE9 is, on the whole, a much more standards-compliant browser than its predecessors and supports most, if not all, of the cutting-edge technologies required by the coolest tech demos.↩
[2] My apologies to any browser vendor who feels offended by being left off of this list.↩