Google says: "It's important to test your site across all browsers!"

September 4, 2008 · by Haavard

According to Google's "Information for web developers" page (emphasis mine):

Internet users have an increasing number of choices for web browsers today, including Firefox, Safari, Opera, and now Google Chrome. Sometimes web pages look and work differently in each browser, so it's important to test your site across all of them to ensure all your visitors can enjoy the experience you've designed.

Thank you, Google! Now let's see if you can practice what you preach, and get all those services working smoothly in Opera at all times.

It's also nice to see Google acknowledging Opera now, as they have mostly failed to do so in their Chrome PR material. They've borrowed heavily from Opera, but have only mentioned Firefox and Safari.

Readers' comments 7

Left under the original article, as archived.

Unregistered userThursday, September 4, 2008 10:37:11 AM
Giapin writes: I think they will first need to make Google Services work smoothly in their own Browser: One of the first things I tried in Chrome was attempting to edit a new page in Google Groups. Negative: "Editing of pages is not supported by your browser. Please download a new version of Firefox or Internet Explorer to edit pages". Oh well. No further comments.
LawrenceThursday, September 4, 2008 10:37:13 AM
This is true of many sites that are discussing the new Chrome: They compare it favourably against IE and FF, but never Opera. No matter how many people I convert, it's never enough!
AuxThursday, September 4, 2008 12:56:30 PM
Americans use only american products. They simply don't know or understand how browsers can be built somewhere else. Also you can check their music tops - it is very hard to find european music there. They simply don't like us...
scaRFhoggThursday, September 4, 2008 1:33:28 PM
Congratulations Aux, on your amazingly simple world view! Your comment is quite direspectful to all the Opera users from the US.
Michael JohnsonThursday, September 4, 2008 2:24:15 PM
@Aux: Now that's not fair. Especially the music chart bit - they're controlled by American companies. Thus, no European music to choose from. It's simply not easily available.

As for why Opera isn't as popular in the US as it is in other countries, one possible explanation is that Opera has spent a lot of time and effort making sure it is multilingual, which is needed in Europe. The other browsers aren't so much, so Opera gets chosen more. In the US, all the browsers speak English, so it's not a driving factor.

Back to the topic at hand, I think Opera is starting to get more visibility in the press, mainly because of Opera Mini. It's still not enough, though, especially since it is a simple fact that much of what the other browsers call innovation was borrowed from ideas Opera developed first.
AuxSunday, September 7, 2008 8:34:41 PM
scaRFhogg, every nation in its majority has its bad sides. Just live with that (:
Charles SchlossTuesday, October 7, 2008 8:06:35 PM
How much pressure does this put on Microsoft? I am also glad to hear that from Google that means more site managers will be aware of the web standards