What percentage of marketshare does a browser need for your support?

Question

I'm building a website for a small non-profit org. and I was wondering at what kind of browser marketshare a browser should have before I support it. Chrome looks like a major contender, but it's still less than 5%, as is Opera.

What browsers do you think I should completely support for this kind of project?

Answer 1

I'm going to second Robert S's answer, and expand a bit.

If you take the time, from the initial concept forward, to be standards-compliant and emit clean XHTML with CSS, you'll save yourself the majority of the pain. You'll probably be fairly close to your intended output across all the browsers right out of the gate. Sure, there will be some pixel-level wonkiness due to the way the box model is implemented, but you'll probably be "close enough" that no extra expense is needed.

I wouldn't go so far as to intentionally "tweak" my site to be sure it works with every browser -- not only is that expensive (in terms of time), but it's also doomed to fail as browsers come closer and closer to clean support for the standards.

FWIW, Chrome is a browser you absolutely should test with. As others have mentioned, it's based on Apple's WebKit. Testing Chrome and the Windows version of Safari will give you a very good handle on your site's user experience on the Mac platform, at least if you don't have a Mac available for testing. :)

Answer 2

1. Firefox, IE7 and IE6 are enough to cover more than 90% of the browser market share.
2. It is a good idea to read the new web standards and take in account what Microsoft prepares for IE8.
3. Then you can try to be compatible with Google Chrome.
4. Finally, there should be a very specific customer request to invest the time and money making support for the other browsers like Opera, Safari e.t.c.

Answer 3

Here's my testing/bugfixing priority list:

• Absolutely essential to fully support Firefox 3 and IE7
• Highly recommended to fully support Opera and Safari (no missing functionality, slightly degraded interfaces are acceptable, but only if absolutely necessary)
• Interface degradation is acceptable with IE6 and Firefox 2 as long as it is still usable (I consider these as 'end of life' browsers, and frankly, rarely worth the effort), also here are older versions of Opera and Safari, but I rarely see significant problems with these.
• If the interface does not rely heavily on Javascript then it must degrade gracefully enough to be usable in text based and mobile browsers such as Opera Mobile, Links/Lynx, iPhone, etc (this includes any necessary optimisations for the screen size)
• Informational (i.e. non-application) sites must be at least tested with a screenreader

• I will put no significant effort into supporting Firefox 1 and IE5.5 or below.

• New functionality must be tested and at least working with upcoming browsers such as IE8 and Chrome. It's pointless ignoring these, as they are both likely to become very popular in the coming months and years.

Of course, the only way to know for sure what will work for you is by looking at your own usage statistics. You may find that a significant proportion of your users still use IE6 (many businesses have yet to upgrade), or that mobile device use is particularly high, etc. Check your own stats!