What is browser spec?
The term ‘browser spec’ refers to the set of web browsers—in addition to the operating systems and screen resolutions—a website can run properly on.
If you wish to learn more about this concept, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: Is browser spec still relevant today?
In some cases, yes, browser spec is still relevant today. But with the advent of responsive web design and the means to build websites with cross-browser compatibility more easily, it is no longer as relevant as it used to be.
Think about it: when was the last time you have seen a website with a ‘best viewed on X browser’ disclaimer?
These days, unless the website you are building absolutely requires components that only a handful of browsers support, then there is really no reason to not make it run properly on more browsers and screen sizes. Keep in mind that these days, people are accessing online content from a wider range of browsers on an even wider range of devices. Limiting your website’s browser compatibility is a great way to lose users.
Question #2: How do I build websites with cross-browser compatibility?
To build websites with cross-browser compatibility, you need to first take a look at what might cause browser compatibility issues in your code. Examples of this would be:
- Stylesheets that only run on specific browsers
- Databases that only run on specific browsers
- Libraries and frameworks that only run on specific browsers
Once you have identified the elements that could cause browser compatibility issues, try to find cross-compatible alternatives you can use. The more of these browser-specific elements you can replace with cross-compatible ones, the more browsers your website would be able to properly run on.
Another thing you can do is use conditional statements in your code to ensure each browser uses the stylesheet that suits it best instead of trying to render one that it is not fully compatible with.
It would also help if you could add the DOCTYPE in your HTML file. This would ensure that whichever browser tries to render your website would know exactly the language it was written in, allowing you to avoid a whole lot of rendering issues.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard you work to make your website as compatible as possible with as many browsers as possible, there is no way to tell what changes these browsers would implement in the future. What works perfectly now may just stop working tomorrow.
This is why it is important to regularly test your website’s cross-browser compatibility from time-to-time—which brings us to the next point:
Question #3: How do I test cross-browser compatibility?
To test cross-browser compatibility, you can either do everything manually or use a tool like LambdaTest or BrowserStack.
If you decide to do it manually, you will need to download all the different web browsers your target users might use on different devices and view your website on each one, taking note of all the rendering issues along the way.
Obviously, this is not the most sophisticated approach to testing cross-browser compatibility. Not only does it take a ridiculous amount of time, it is also extremely tedious—especially if your website has hundreds of pages you need to test. This is why it is better to just use a browser compatibility tool such as LambdaTest or BrowserStack instead.
BrowserStack, for example, allows you to easily test your website on more than 2,000 real browsers and devices before you even go live. You can run your code on it directly so you can make sure that your website would run smoothly across different browsers and devices right from the get-go.