Browser compatibility
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When building a content driven web application, it is important to consider
which browsers your audience is using. Some might use older browsers that don't
support the latest features, while others may be using newer browsers that have
more features. Your application is accessible to all users, regardless of their
browser choice.
Utilize progressive enhancement, or start with the most basic features that all
browsers support, and then add additional features for newer browsers. Feature
detection is another strategy to reach users with dated or new browsers. With
feature detection, you can determine which features are supported by the user's
browser, and then you load the appropriate code. Your application should use the
most up-to-date features that the user's browser can support.
There are a few tradeoffs to consider when targeting both old and modern
browsers. First, you may need to use different code for various browsers. This
can make your code more complex and difficult to maintain. You might not be
able> to use the latest features in all browsers. This can limit the
functionality of your application.
Depending on the application, older browsers may still need support for legal
reasons or business use cases. If the majority of the users are on older
hardware and cannot update, then polyfills may be necessary. A polyfill provides
modern capabilities to older web browsers and can allow you to use the most
modern web technologies and APIs while still ensuring compatibility with old
browsers.
There are many great tools to check what technologies or APIs are used:
- Project Baseline: is an effort to
improve the experience of developers by providing what works well in
supported browsers and is backed by Google and other commonly used systems.
- Caniuse: is a resource to look up Web
APIs and see the support status across all tracked browsers.
Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2024-07-10 UTC.
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