Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Safari

Remember when I said there was a problem with my template layout that caused it to display funny in every browser except Firefox? Well I finally got around to fixing it and thought I’d share the solution with you all. I figured it might be helpful to someone.

Why The Difference?

The different browsers display things slightly different sometimes because they use different “kits” (or rather — rendering engines)
to parse the HTML/CSS/JavaScript and convert all that code into the page you see (I’m trying to keep this in layman’s terms as much as possible).

Who Uses What?

Firefox uses Gecko
Chrome and Safari use Webkit
Internet Explorer uses Trident
Opera uses Presto

What To Do?

For code you only want used by Webkit (Safari & Chrome):
follow the guide here — http://css-tricks.com/how-to-create-an-ie-only-stylesheet/

For code you only want used by Trident (Internet Explorer):
follow the guide here — http://www.evotech.net/blog/2008/09/css-hack-for-google-chrome-and-safari-31/

Well apparently there is a new Firefox extension out there, but not one you or I would want. Unfortunally, if you use Windows (and install Windows updates/security patches) you have been or will likely fall victim to a dirty Microsoft Trick!

That’s right, with the latest “Security” patch to the .Net framework, Windows secretly installs an extension in Firefox. Worse yet they disable the uninstall button so you cannot remove it (at least not without hacking the registry, which could be dangerous if you mess it up). The new extension opens up vulnerabilities that were not previously there and allows easy access for new (and unwanted) software to be installed on your machine!

Here’s a link to read up the details: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/05/microsoft_update_quietly_insta.html
My guess is Microsoft is secretly trying to sabbotage Firefox and make it equally or perhaps more vulnerable to security threats as Internet Explorer, but I have no proof, yet.

Looks like this is a great time to consider trying Ubuntu!

I’ll put up a guide soon for how to remove this headache of a stealthy trojan extension when I next boot into Windows (no promise on how soon that will be).