CSSquirrel A look at web development and web design by Kyle Weems

Next week we’ll be concluding my AEA stoyline. Today’s comic, a continuity-free interlude, features Opera Mini. I should say, rather, that it features Opera Mini if it were a moose instead of a browser installed on hand-held devices. A short moose. A midget moose with some sort of glandular problem.

I hope you’re able to follow the metaphor I’ve created, as I don’t think I can devise another way to repeat what I just said above.

Frequent readers may be aware of the fact that I have not been too kind to Opera in the past. Typically, these tussles have dealt with how they’ve handled conflicts with certain competitors. Today,  it’s a different story.

What Matters With Mobile: Speed

I own an iPhone, a device that comes pre-installed with Mobile Safari. Safari is a great modern browser that renders most (non-Flash) websites beautifully and accurately. And when I’ve got a decently strong connection, it even does it in a time-frame approaching (but not reaching) quickly.

The fact is however that my phone’s provider is AT&T. And when I’m at home, my WiFi access is through Comcast. Despite their many bold claims and lovely commercials stating otherwise, neither vendor provides what I’m going to refer to as a fast connection. Quite the opposite, I’m positive that there are several times in any given day where a 28.8k modem would more quickly deliver me the information I am seeking to consume.

Tell me, why as a society is it acceptable to charge people for a speed that they might, but usually won’t, receive from any given service, rather than the speed that they actually are receiving?

Regardless, these modern day robber barons aren’t making my service any better anytime sooner, so experiencing the web through Safari on my iPhone is similar to experiencing a milkshake through one of those really tiny coffee stirring straws. Yes, sooner or later you’ll get the shake, but it’s not exactly at a speed that’s enjoyable.

This is where Opera Mini comes in. Yes, it’s a less-capable browser in the rendering sense. But if I want to wait for a minute or longer per page,  I can certainly do so for my rounded corners. Usually when I’m on a mobile browser, I want data quickly. Very quickly. So Opera Mini serves me just fine. Better than fine, in fact. It’s very fast. Which makes surfing the web effortless again. Which I dare say is how it is supposed to feel.

Addendum: Privacy & Security

A few days back, I made the following pro-Mini tweet: “Speed matters. Especially on mobile. And that is exactly why I’m using Opera Mini more than Safari, despite the rendering deficiencies.”

Ben Adida offered the following question as a counter: “Does privacy matter? Cause Opera Mini proxies all of your connections, even SSL, via its servers.” It’s a valid question, especially considering his expertise in the field of privacy and security. Not being an expert on how Opera does things, I poked at both Bruce Lawson and Molly Holzschlag, both Opera employees.

Both of them said “If you don’t trust us (Opera), then don’t use the service,” and then each followed up with more details.

Molly backed up the security conversation with this gem: “Regarding proxy serving in Opera Mini? We are a public company in Norway, which has some of the most stringent privacy rules.”  as well as the very honest tweet: “As such if you cannot trust based on the integrity of a product or its company, no matter who, then don’t use that product!”

Well said.

Bruce gave us reasons to trust Opera with two security-related links. First, he indicated that Opera Mini is actually more secure on public WiFi than other browsers (with this link to back his claim) as well as linking to a post about how well Opera scored with security according to Symantec (here’s the abridged version: very well.)

So is Opera Mini fast? Yes. Is it secure? Yes.

That’ll do, moose. That’ll do.

Today’s comic, the first in a small An Event Apart related storyline, features Andy Clarke, Nicole Sullivan, Pete LePage and Naepalm in a future where rogue browsers must be “retired” by browserrunners.

It touches on what people may find hard to believe: Microsoft (like us) wants IE6 to die, already. In less than two hours after I post this, Pete LePage is going to get in front of the AEA audience and tell us that very thing.

I’ve got to get back to listening to more awesome speakers. Enjoy! (And if you’re at AEA, feel free to say hi to the guy in the CSSquirrel shirt. I don’t bite.)

Today’s comic features the Squirrel, mentions the forthcoming An Event Apart: Seattle, and hints at the sobering difference between the spec for HTML5 and the reality of its adoption speed.

The comic is also the creation of the winner of my Dribbble invite give-away/AEA-theme guest comic contest, Miro Keller! Congrats, Miro! In addition to his comic filling the #59 spot for all eternity (or at least a year after I die and my hosting goes offline), he will also receive an invitation to Dribbble and will appear in a CSSquirrel comic this April!

I’m sure when interviewed on his success, he’ll declare his intent to go to Disneyland.

His comic won for a couple reasons. First, it showed the squirrel’s skeleton, which is no easy task. Secondly, it feels like the sort of thing I’d make a comic about, and was funny to boot. HTML5 is going to be awesome, I’m sure, but it’s not exactly to the point where we’re throwing Flash install discs into burn barrels. IE9 will be a great boon towards adopting those features, not because they’re first, but because so many people use their product… but a lot of people are -still- using IE6, even after its funeral.

So let us all remember, we may need a fallback plan for that lovely <video> tag for a while yet.

In addition to Miro’s great victory, there’s two other winners today. #2 in the contest is the entry of Ryan Parr. Warning, parents, he uses swears. #3 is from Mihai Petica. Congrats to both of you as well. You’ll be receiving Dribbble invites as well as appearing in a future CSSquirrel comic this April.

Let’s celebrate these heroes with a round of applause.

P.S.: I don’t know exactly what’s going on in Morten Gresseth’s entry, but despite its failure to mention AEA it was so darn odd that I just had to link it here. Does anybody know what this is referencing? Morten?

Today’s comic features Internet Explorer 9. Well, it features that browser if it existed as a tough-as-nails video-game playing entity in the world of Tron. The theme of today’s jaunt owes itself to the gorgeous new trailers for Tron Legacy. I used to think every geek worth their salt had seen the original movie in this franchise, but recently learned at least three of my co-workers at Mindfly have gone their whole lives without witnessing the amazing light-cycle battles and disc duels.

As a result, I now live in a world where everything I’ve taken for granted is flipped upside down. I need to make a rental and rectify the situation.

The rest of the comic owes itself to the cornucopia of information now flooding the web tubes about IE9, starting at SXSW and running over us like a tsunami from Redmond. The IE team’s blog is a pipe filled with revelations. Drink from it. HTML5 support including <video>? Check. Prettier typography? Check. SVG? Check. Way faster JavaScript? Check. Adding support for some CSS3? (Note the word “some”, folks. The concept of complete “CSS3 Support” is a myth.)

What the heck is going on? If there was one thing we could rely on as website creators, it was that the Big Blue E was a drunken frat boy knocking over the furniture, throwing up on the carpet, and generally making a mess of any tidy rooms you designed. Yet, version Nine Point Oh is not only helping wash away the stink of earlier failures (like Eight’s noble attempts at correcting the errors of Six and Seven), but rather pushing aggressively forward to be off the bench and in the game with other “modern browsers.”

I guess we’ll all have to accept the truth: Microsoft is not in fact a bunch of blithering idiots. Having met several of their employees, I’d say it’s quite the opposite. They’re aware of what they need to do to keep relevant (or rather, regain relevancy) in the browser game, and they’re doing it.

I’m not adopting IE as my browser of choice anytime soon. But I for one am jazzed and excited to think of how soon I can ditch <embed> and <object> in future sites for a simple clean <video> without making 62% of the web’s users incapable of seeing a video.

IE 9’s improvements might be bad news for competing vendors trying to distinguish themselves from the dominant browser (although I doubt IE is catching up fast enough to cause worries for them yet), but it’s good news for designers and users everywhere.

Today’s comic is a bonus, bringing the count for this week to a nearly unprecedented two. I know, such generosity on my part staggers the mind. The comic also seems like fodder for some form of novelty t-shirt. I’ll get right on that.

Like most people that make websites, I heard of the funeral held for the cantankerous, ancient and malformed IE6; a funeral doubtlessly inspired by Google’s announced discontinuation of support for IE6 in many of their products this month. Like even Microsoft itself, I’m glad that there’s another nail in the coffin of this undead browser that still clings to the computers of many, many web users.

I realize that, funeral or no funeral, IE6 isn’t gone. Not yet. There’s entirely too many people still using it, making it unsafe to simply pile in the dirt over its head. But for me and my amazing coworkers at Mindfly Web Design Studio, it’s as good as dead. Seizing the opportunity provided by Google’s announcement, I pitched an idea taken from one Andy Clarke, Brit rockstar: Let’s stop explicitly supporting IE6, and feed it instead a universal, generic stylesheet for all sites. Those users who visit a site with IE6 will still get what they’re looking for, just in a more modest package.

Being hip designers on the cutting edge of awesome, they naturally all agreed with me. The hours once slavishly chained to the moribund beast in the woods now will be devoted to more fun tasks, like convincing clients that random pictures of their children will not increase online sales of tractors.

Today’s comic’s title is a reference to the Battlestar Galactica equivalent to “Amen” for those few of you not as deep in the sci-fi geek rabbit hole as yours truly. (This came directly from a great idea by Shaun Inman regarding “Six” that I failed to implement due to time.) It acts as a solemn affirmation of what’s being spoken.

So let’s get solemn: IE6 is dead to me. Let’s move on without it into the modern era web. So say we all.