Within the times today, where people want to code their sites completely w3 compliant, which is a great thing, does the Internet population have the browsers to cope with sites created in CSS and XHTML only?
If we look at the statistics, kindly provided to us by:
W3Schools we can see that within the past few years, IE6 has increased, ever since it's release. As has Firefox. Both of these browsers support XHTML and CSS; although, CSS does have limitations on IE. It does not always display the elements in the correct format, unlike Firefox and Opera. But, I digress, we can see that there has been a large rise in browsers that fully support most CSS elements.
Code:
2005 |IE 6 IE 5 O 7/8 Ffox Moz NN 4 NN 7
March |64.0% 3.9% 1.8% 21.5% 3.7% 0.2% 1.0%
February |64.8% 4.2% 1.9% 20.4% 3.9% 0.2% 1.1%
January |65.3% 4.4% 2.1% 19.3% 4.0% 0.3% 1.1%
2004 |IE 6 IE 5 O 7 Moz NN 3 NN 4 NN 7
December |66.0% 4.8% 2.0% 21.3% 0.2% 0.3% 1.2%
November |68.5% 5.0% 2.2% 19.3% 0.2% 0.2% 1.2%
October |69.5% 5.7% 2.2% 17.5% 0.2% 0.2% 1.3%
September |69.6% 6.2% 2.3% 16.9% 0.2% 0.2% 1.3%
August |70.3% 7.0% 2.3% 15.5% 0.3% 0.3% 1.4%
July |71.0% 7.7% 2.3% 13.8% 0.3% 0.3% 1.4%
June |72.4% 8.3% 2.3% 11.8% 0.3% 0.3% 1.4%
May |72.6% 9.2% 2.2% 11.0% 0.3% 0.3% 1.4%
April |72.4% 10.1% 2.1% 10.3% 0.3% 0.3% 1.4%
March |72.1% 10.7% 2.1% 9.6% 0.4% 0.4% 1.4%
February |71.5% 11.5% 2.2% 9.0% 0.4% 0.4% 1.5%
January |71.3% 12.8% 2.1% 8.2% 0.4% 0.5% 1.5%
2003 |IE 6 IE 5 O 7 Moz NN 3 NN 4 NN 7
November |71.2% 13.7% 1.9% 7.2% 0.5% 0.5% 1.6%
September |69.7% 16.9% 1.8% 6.2% 0.6% 0.6% 1.5%
July |66.9% 20.3% 1.7% 5.7% 0.6% 0.6% 1.5%
May |65.0% 22.7% 1.4% 4.6% 1.0% 0.9% 1.4%
March |63.4% 24.6% 1.2% 4.2% 0.9% 1.1% 1.4%
January |55.3% 29.3% 4.0% 1.2% 1.7% 1.1% 1.1%
As we can see, the vast majority of the Internet users are now completely CSS able. However, there is still that 4% that are not using a completely able browser. Although 4% may sound slim, if you consider that in real numbers it is more than likely to be hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. As such, I still feel inclined to lean toward the side of safety; rather than use the brilliant technology that is now available to us.
My final point is this: if you do use CSS as a major part of your website, make sure that it is coding standards, and research your target audience. If you are creating a site for the 'Internet Dummies' then I would have to advise you against CSS. If you are creating a site like this one, or like
Hick Design then use CSS. Your target audience is crucial.
Entire sites in CSS/XHTML
