Browser Wars - Reloaded

If you're reading this then you're probably aware that Microsoft's stranglehold on the browser market is slipping. A survey from late November tells a dramatic story. Since May, it's total market share has fallen by 5%. That's pretty substantial in 6 months, especially considering that the fall has been taken up by Mozilla's Firefox, which people have to choose to download and install. It's not part of anyone's operating system.

It reinforces the need for testing of your website in multiple browsers and operating systems before it goes live. Whilst it was always a fallacy to only worry about one browser, now it's becoming statistically significant again.

There are a few issues with testing, though. The first one is installing multiple versions of Internet Explorer on the same version of Windows. Joe Maddalone managed to figure out how it's all done, and to simplify the setup process I've packaged up version 3, 4, 5 and 5.5 into a single, simple installation file.

• Download Multiple IEs, single installation file (10.2 Megabytes)
  Install at your own risk - I didn't develop any of this, I've just popped it all in a single installer. It works for me, though!

After that installing Firefox, Netscape, Opera and whatnot are easy. Of course, that doesn't solve problems with IE5 for Mac or Safari if you're a PC-only office (like here)! So maybe it's worth signing up with Browsercam and being done with it! ;)