By now everybody should already know this. You should not rely on browser detection. User-agent sniffing is evil. Use feature detection instead. Sound and solid advice. At least until you start looking at some of the more unusual browsers.

Earlier this summer I did extensive research on smart TV and console browsers. It showed me that these browsers are a lot like mobile browsers 10 years ago — before Chrome and Safari. Everybody is trying, but nobody really knows what is right. More on that at a later time.

One important lesson I learned was that we as developers make a lot of assumptions.

Continue reading “The problems with feature detection”

Two weeks ago I attended EdgeConf in London. If there is just one thing you are allowed to say about EdgeConf I would say that interesting things always happen during EdgeConf. It was just a year ago, during the previous EdgeConf in London that Yoav Weiss launched his crowdfunding campaign for implementing the picture element. When you put that many smart people in one room the level of the discussions is just astounding.

Continue reading “Safari and IE”

Yesterday I posted a slideshow on Twitter and got many comments and questions. I’d like to address some of them below.

Continue reading “The Android browser”

A little over a month ago I decided to start an Open Device Lab. It’s been something I’ve been thinking about ever since it was first mentioned during PhoneGap Day in September of 2012. Over the years I already collected enough devices, so the decision wasn’t a difficult one. But having the devices is just one step.

Continue reading “Starting an Open Device Lab without breaking the bank”

Last week Google released Android 4.4 — codename KitKat.For web developers there is a big change — one we’ve all been waiting for. The build-in WebView has been updated to use Chrome. So, this seems like a good moment to take a closer look at the Android browser and the WebView.

Continue reading “The Android browser – which one do you mean?”

Yesterday Google announced they were going to create a new rendering engine based on WebKit. The new engine will be named Blink and it is going to be an integral part of Chromium, their open source browser on which Chrome is based.

Why did they leave WebKit and how is this going to affect Safari and other browsers based on WebKit?

Continue reading “Thoughts on Blink”

After implementing a new reporting backend for html5test.com, I noticed something strange. It seemed like there were an unusually high number of visits from browsers that claimed to be Safari but did have scores that were different from my own devices. It looked like there were quite a lot of visits from browsers that were lying about their identity.

Continue reading “Everybody wants to be like Safari – or why Apple’s browser marketshare is inflated”