In an ideal world, a web page viewed in any browser would appear identical. However, the Internet is far from an ideal world.  To date no browser is 100% W3C Standards compliant.

The web is a medium of compromise. We base our decisions on current browser usage statistics, which are published monthly. As a web participant one of the things you can do to push towards standardization is to update your browser to the current version, as each release is a move towards standards compliancy.

We do try to make all our web pages standards compliant. Of the three most popular browsers, Firefox is the most compliant to W3C standards. Therefore, we code and test first for Firefox. IE7, which is more compliant, then IE6 is our second testing. However, often our clients are so perplexed by the differences in browser handling we are forced to use browser specific designations within the code known as “hacks.”

Hacks are little pieces of code embedded in the CSS that allow for browser specific targeting. For IE, there are literally dozens of hacks to attempt to bring it into compliance with standards.

However, hacks are a temporary fix. The problem with instance on identical viewing in all browsers via hacks is that we don’t know what the next release of browsers will honor. This can cause specific display issues. For instance, some hacks for IE6 do not work for IE7.  Therefore, we now have to put in three different versions of CSS: one for standard compliancy, one for IE 7 and one for IE6.

This certainly makes the code clumsier and increases the file size. However, the more important issue is we don’t know what will or won’t work in the next browser release. This can often mean a revisit to your web design team for a tune-up when a new release becomes available. Unfortunately, until all browsers are compliant and all users upgrade to a standards compliant browser this issue has to be revisited with each new browser release for each specific browser.

The other solution is too simply accept the fact that there is a browser shift. That what you see in IE is simply going to be subtly different then what you see in Firefox and often even more so in Safari.

By complying with existing standards, rather than relying upon browser specific extensions and hacks, you can make ensure that the web sites you design will be readable by all browsers supporting those standards, not just the ones you test on, and that your page designs won't break when new browsers and versions come into existence. HTML tags that go through the standards process are evaluated more thoroughly and designed for graceful degradation on older browsers.

Again, it’s all about compromise. If you want your pages to be identical in the now then you need to understand that new browser issues will mean you have to higher a developer for a tune up. Alternatively, you can maintain a standards compliant code and deal with the shift until all browsers become compliant.