IE7 and FF2: Will my Web Sites Still Work?

As you may know, Microsoft recently released a major upgrade to Internet Explorer (version 7.0) and about the same time, the Mozilla Foundation came out with Firefox 2. Both are major upgrades, but IE in particular is significant, since it had been so long since the last major upgrade (and since about 80-90 percent of your site’s visitors use IE). Later this month, the upgrade to IE7 will come down as part of the automatic updates for Windows users — in other words, many people are gonna upgrade without really realizing it.

Which means… people will be viewing your Web site a little differently than they used to — or, maybe, a lot differently.

When I build a site, I test in a variety of available browsers, and while a few minor differences are okay with me, I’m pretty certain the site looks right in the most likely browsers before it launches. So for me, a new set of browsers means going back and testing again.

I just finished testing all the Web sites I support using the new IE and the new FF. Good news across the board:

• The new IE interface is vastly improved (over the old IE6; IMO, however, FF is still better). For people who relish their rut, it’ll take a while before they get used to the new chrome — and I will no longer be able to tell people how to find the refresh button by saying, “it’s the one next to the back and forward buttons” — but overall it’s better. Most people won’t start using tabbed browsing right away (but eventually they will, and that’ll change their behavior a bit).
• In FF, my favorite new feature is the programwide spelling checker, which flags possible errors anywhere you can type. This’ll be great for Web-based e-mail (and, frankly, this blog — which would suffer from haste and stubby fingers, were it not for my esteemed brother’s eagle eyes).
• All my sites performed well in the new browsers. I’m happy to avoid major triage, but I’m also not too surprised: I generally insist on using Web standards rather than browser-specific widgets, and this is the payoff.

If you’ve got a Web site — especially if you’re using more-advanced functions like forms, javascript, browser-sniffing, or custom programming — you should test it to be sure it’s still working. (Or, I’ll be happy to do it for you…)