Something that has been bothering me lately is the use of the term “Browser agnostic” to refer to a website that works on all Internet browsers, that being it doesn’t matter which browser you use. My problem is two fold, first I’m certain that websites (especially mine) do not run on Navigator 7.2 (Go look up the browser wars if you don’t know what this is). Which means that we do not work with all browsers. Its the ‘All’ that I have a problem with. Its the ultimate setup, and over generalized statement. Anyone hearing that description can say, “ah ha!! Did you try it on Konqueror? No? Well, I caught you out! Liar!”.
Secondly, since its stealing the word from a religious context, we could interperet its meaning to be:
My website doesn’t believe the existence of your browser, but believes there is a browser out there that it will work with.
Well that’s definitely not true, I don’t have to believe a browser exists, I’m using one right now. But maybe on second thought, it could be the illusion of a browser. Maybe its just different flashing lights to deceive me. But either way I’m sure my website doesn’t believe anything….its inanimate. Although sometimes I think its deliberately creating bugs for me to find.
So this brings me to the question, so how do I refer to a website that works on most browsers? Well, I came up with this word:
Polybrowseristic
Stealing the word poly to mean many, and browseristic to refer to something that works on a Internet browser. So I’m happy to describe my websites as polybrowseristic. They work with all the browsers I tested them with.
So now we could take the next logical step.
Monobrowseristic: A website that only works with one browser.
I’m certain some of the stuff comes out of Microsoft is IE Monobrowseristic. I’m not sure if Monobrowseristic should apply to one version or multiple versions. For the sake of an augment, lets say it is. Then we could say
Iebrowseristic: A website that only works with IE. But all relevant versions of IE.
Similarly for other browsers, but it starts to be become tongue twisters.
I’m looking forward to the next conference where one of the presenters drops the word, polybrowseristic, to make themselves seem cool. Big smiley face.
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