Ask HN: Which browser for web development and why? - pydox
======
garethsprice
Chrome as it has excellent dev tools and a large market share. Then manually
check in Safari, Firefox, iOS Simulator during development. Then BrowserStack
for quick spot checks. Then check on real iOS/Android/Windows devices in our
device lab as emulators are bad at replicating the true user experience
(animations, click areas, godawful plastic trackpads on cheap Windows laptops,
etc).

Cross-browser testing is hell and responsive has made everything multiple
times worse for the amount of manual grunt work that has to go into every non-
trivial custom web project. Greatly envy non-web developers who can build an
interface once and it's done.

------
Jeremy1026
All of them. Because inevitably you're going to have a user on IE6 on Windows
XP that the app doesn't work right for and you'll end up supporting it because
management doesn't want to lose a customer. Ideally you'll want to be working
with IE9+, Chrome ~48+, Firefox ~40+, Safari 9+ to ensure modern
compatibility.

~~~
garethsprice
This is where clearly specifying a browser support list at the beginning of a
web project (or regularly updating one for long projects) helps to set those
expectations.

We have a list updated quarterly based on browsers with 5%+ market share that
is baked into any requirements that clients sign off on, with additional
time/money required for supporting anything outside of the list.

Saved our bacon many times when it turns out the client is using a 9 year old
Firefox browser they refuse to upgrade, or it turns out one particular branch
office is still stuck on IE8 (true stories...)

~~~
chris__butters
Completely agree with this, we tend to state that we will support the latest
version and two major previous versions and if any other support is needed we
can accommodate that at an extra cost which some of our clients have refused
to pay.

For development purposes I use Chrome for work stuff and Opera for personal
projects.

------
fenier
Firefox Developer edition - it's dev tools are amazing and rival or surpass
Chrome for anything with the possible exception of the performance tab, which
Chrome still has a edge in.

Then, using your analytics package (which you have, correct?) You run testing
either on actual hardware, or something like Browserstack for everything else
in descending order of popularity by unique visitor.

Really, you have several different rendering engines and JS engines in play at
any given time - and it's helpful to have an agreed upon support model in
place prior to starting development. Generally speaking, support anything with
5+% in the past 90, and make a argument for not spending time supporting
things below that without very good cause.

~~~
giancarlostoro
I’ve always used Firefox and enjoyed Chrome for a bit due to coworkers
claiming how much better it was but after Firefox Developer Edition I went
back and still haven’t looked back. Unless I need to test Chrome specifics.
Definitely Firefox Development Edition with Firefox Containers is the best
combination.

------
fworm
I am a professional webdeveloper for many years and IMHO the best way is to
look in your tacking tool and test in everything which has more than say 5% of
your traffic in the last months. Browser usage varies strongly from the type
of customer you have.

------
twobyfour
Firefox, because I like it as a browser. Plus its Javascript error messages
are often more illuminating than Chrome's.

Also, cross-browser compatibility is important to me, and I figure all my
colleagues test stuff in Chrome and will complain about stuff that doesn't
work there. I can't tell you how many Firefox-specific bugs I've found in our
site.

The tough part is finding someone who will regularly check stuff out in IE or
Edge, if you don't want to be spinning VMs up and down all day every day.

------
jklein11
I'll echo what some of the other posters have said about it depending on what
your users use and that it is important to set expectations and CYA.

I did find this article[1] on using chrome and workspaces as an IDE of sorts.
I think its kinda nifty.

[https://y6326.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/basic-setup-chrome-
de...](https://y6326.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/basic-setup-chrome-developer-
tools-as-ide/)

------
Spoom
Primarily Chrome, because their dev tools are amazing. (To be fair, I haven't
touched Firefox in some time.)

------
muzani
Edge, so you can be rebellious. It has good debug tools too.

------
mattkenefick
Very glad I didn't see any "Safari" in here.

~~~
fenier
Only use Safari when isolating specific bugs in OSX or iOS that are not
reproducible in Firefox or Chrome

