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Do websites need to look exactly the same in every browser?

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Edvard:
Answer:
http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com/
 ;D ;D

I stumbled across that page purely by accident, but it made me think...

A very large amount of blood sweat and tears have been shed in the pursuit of this very goal.
The reasons are many and varied, but is it attainable, feasible, practial or even desirable?
What would be good reasons why not?
Post your thoughts...


P.S. That page looks the same in every browser I've tried.

jgpaiva:
I'm not sure what's the intention of the site, but it does look different in Opera (has a shadow behind the text). :)

f0dder:
Even if you didn't include any markup, the result would differ from browser to browser, I'm afraid.

I'm afraid we're not going to see pixel-perfect equality anytime soon, the combined html/xlm/css/blablabla conformance required is just too mindbogglingly complex. And since there isn't a "reference" browser (or even a reference renderer for pure html/xml/css without any scripting), it's hard to say what "correct" is, anyway.

As long as stuff is usable in the major browsers (IE6/FF2 and upwards (newer browsers for more complex AJAX/WEB2 stuff)) and doesn't look way off, I guess we should be satisfied.

app103:
By every browser, that would include browsers on mobile devices, as well.

Since that page uses CSS, it would not look the same on my pocket pc, which has pIE 3.0 as its browser, and doesn't support CSS.  :D

The background would be white, the text much smaller and located in the upper left, and no image anywhere on the page.

Now would someone want a page to look exactly the same when viewed on the tiny screen of a mobile device? Probably not. As a matter of fact, the mobile version should have less graphics and a few more options than the regular version.

Some of my blogs, for example, when viewed in a mobile browser, presents a link at the top of the page to give the option of skipping the content and going to the sidebar, and the entire site is a single column, with the sidebar content at the bottom.

With more people using web enabled mobile devices than ever before, it is becoming more important to remember those visitors when designing your site.

A site should look similar enough in every browser to be recognizable as the same website though. Imagine coming here in IE and seeing a nice blue themed forum and a bird mascot, and in Firefox seeing green and a snail. Your first impression after seeing it in IE first would be "I think I am on the wrong site".

But I believe it is ok to have those slight subtle differences in appearance that so many web designers lose sleep over, as long as the basic look is similar enough to retain the identity of the site. Your visitors won't mind that the bottom border is missing on long pages when viewed in IE but not in Firefox, and your loved ones would appreciate the extra time to spend with you that you would have wasted on something so silly. (now, if the footer and its content is missing, that's another story)

app103:
Oh, and the person that designed that page forgot something vital that leads to a really horrible effect when viewed by some people...not all browsers on all OS's support transparency in PNG, such as IE 6 on a 9x system. He should have used a .gif.  ;)

Do websites need to look exactly the same in every browser?

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