In response to a blog I recently wrote about the latest version of Safari for Windows, a reader asked about the importance of such minor differences between the way that Safari and Firefox display web pages. That’s a good question.
The simple answer is that small differences don’t really matter. Big ones do. Well-constructed web pages don’t vary that much from browser to browser. However, poorly built pages can result in dramatic differences.
Consider BMW.com, as displayed in Firefox:
Looks good, huh? I think so very. Very clean. Very simple. Very elegant.
And now here is how is it looks in Safari for Windows:
A little too clean and simple now. Due to poor coding, the BMW website does not display a substantial amount of site content.
That’s why being aware of how the different browsers display web pages is important.