Web Browsers and their Development Tools

Web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari are the tools we use to view websites. But did you know that each browser can display the same website a bit differently? This happens because different browsers have their own ways of interpreting and showing the code that makes up a website.

As a web developer, it’s important to understand how these differences can affect what users see and experience. This is why we talk about browser compatibility. It’s about making sure your website works well on all popular browsers, so no one misses out just because they’re using a different one.

To make sure everything works as it should across different browsers, we do something called cross-browser testing. This involves checking how your website looks and behaves in different browsers and fixing any issues that might pop up. This way, you ensure a smooth experience for everyone, no matter what browser they’re using.

At the heart of every web browser is something called a browser engine. It’s like the brain of the browser that reads the website’s code and turns it into the pages you see on your screen. Different browsers use different engines, like Blink in Chrome, Gecko in Firefox, and WebKit in Safari.

These engines play a huge role in how fast a page loads, how it looks, and how it behaves. For example, one engine might handle animations more smoothly, while another might be faster at loading images. Understanding these differences helps you create websites that look good and work well, no matter which engine is used to view them.

Below are some of the current engines being used by a number of browsers. A large number of browsers currently are built on chromium, the base code behind Google Chrome.

Source: Comparison of browser engines – Wikipedia

Cross-browser Compatibility

As mentioned in the previous lesson on HTML, when developing web applications, not every feature of HTML, CSS, or JavaScript might be supported, and it is important to be aware of that so that every user sees exactly what you want them to see. The website, caniuse.com, allows you to compare browsers supported features, as demonstrated below:

Developer tools, or dev tools, are like a secret toolkit built right into web browsers. Every major browser—like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge—has them, and they’re incredibly useful for web developers.

These tools let you see what’s going on behind the scenes of any website. You can check out the HTML, tweak the CSS, debug JavaScript, and much more. To access these tools, you can usually just press F12 on your keyboard or right-click on a webpage and select ‘Inspect’. Once you’re in, you can explore and play around with the code to see how it all works.

These tools let you see what’s going on behind the scenes of any website. You can check out the HTML, tweak the CSS, debug JavaScript, and much more. To access these tools, you can usually just press F12 on your keyboard or right-click on a webpage and select ‘Inspect’. Once you’re in, you can explore and play around with the code to see how it all works.

Source: What are browser developer tools? – Learn web development | MDN