Web Standards: We Are Getting There
April 16, 2007
I know: I’m throwing around a buzzword. (Or is it a buzzphrase?) But it’s one that matters to me, and I haven’t yet thrown out my two cents on the issue, so here goes.
As I see it, this is the crux of the problem: People are lazy. I don’t mean web developers. I mean users. The average user goes out, buys his new computer, and then uses it as it is. Since about 93% of home computers are PCs, they come bundled with IE, and this is what gets used. Even users who are familiar with Firefox and would even acknowledge it as a superior browser are often too lazy to bother fiddling with a pre-installed setup that “works.” But this is, slowly, changing.
Currently, about 60% of web surfers use Internet Explorer, while the remainder goes mainly to Firefox followed distantly by Safari and Opera. At the current rate of growth, Microsoft’s browser will fall below the the 50% mark sometime late next year, and Firefox could surpass it about a year thereafter. And once Microsoft’s not the one setting the pace, we can hope they will finally realize they need to fall into line and start rendering CSS properly.
So we are getting there. When I first set about writing this, I thought I’d be writing a “woe is us, nothing is ever going to change” rambling. But the numbers do seem to be looking up, and moving a lot faster than I’d previously expected. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
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