Today I uploaded a new feature to my website, a scrolling RSS feeder that uses Javascript and Cascading Style Sheets. I decided to see how it rendered in 3 windows based browsers: Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2.0.0.12, and Safari 3.0.4. I also wanted to see how the rest of the pages rendered. Here's how it went.

Internet Explorer: Overall the page renders correctly with minor annoyances. The "Accordion" main menu is not positioned correctly in IE, it is slightly higher than in both Firefox and Safari. The RSS feeder works, but the Cascading Style Sheets again aren't displayed correctly, omitting a one pixel border around it. Overall IE is my least favorite browser, hopefully when I review IE 8 later this year, it will move up the ranks.

Firefox: Already I have a bias and want this browser to do better than the others. It rendered everything correctly. Page loading was slightly slow, but Firefox 3 claims to fix that problem.

Safari: Rendered correctly, was fast, and the font smoothing looks incredible. I have to admit that I originally wanted nothing to do with Safari, but was impressed with its results.

Summary: Firefox is probably the best browser out there and seems to render everything I have encountered splendidly. Safari so far gets a thumbs up but there are security holes in the program, and since it doesn't have add-ons like Firefox, it is unlikely to convert me. IE promises to render like it's counterparts when version 8 is released to the public. Having a community of developers to mend fixes and discuss changes is a big advantage that Firefox has over its competitors. If you have the choice, give Firefox a try