Mama Don't Take My Google Chrome Away!

No, this isn't a review of Google's new Chrome browser. But the release of that browser is a wake-up call for complacent Web developers—yes, even small businesses with Web sites count as Web developers. The browser wars are back with a vengeance, and while that is great for browser users, it's a pain in the pettute for Web site owners, because you need to test for the dreaded browser compatibility.

I'm old enough to remember the first browser wars, when different browsers developed rabid followings—Google Chrome might attract some of those same fervent users as Firefox has done in recent years.

The first browser wars culminated in Netscape being overrun by the evil empire from Redmond. In recent years, Internet Explorer had begun to become the de facto browser, and with the war seemingly won, Microsoft let down its guard. Fierce determination to win at all costs gradually became a sleepy pace to slow improvement.

At first, the hardcore geeks jabbered about Opera or Safari, but Web site owners could safely ignore them. When Internet Explorer held 90% of the market, why would you need to test with anything else? If your site worked with IE, it was OK.

In the last couple of years, Firefox has begun to make deeper inroads than any browser since Netscape. With IE's share dipping below 60% and Firefox creeping toward 20% (with Netscape still hanging in around 10%), you are now at the point where it is harder to ignore browser compatibility. When four in ten of your site visitors are using a different browser, it's hard to justify doing all your testing in IE.

But many of us still want to cling to the easy approach. It's expensive to test your site with different browsers and understandable if you'd like to skip the whole thing.

Google's announcement of Chrome might finally put us to the test on testing. If Chrome can gradually build market share, knocking down the market share of both IE and Firefox in the process, you'll have enough players in the browser game that Web sites might need to get serious about compatibility testing.

Testing any Web site with multiple browsers is costly and painful, but if Chrome, Firefox, Safari and other browser upstarts continue to steal market share from Microsoft, we'll eventually have to check out our Web sites using the browsers that our customers are using.