Desktop Web Compatibility

What Are Web Compatibility Issues?

A person should be able to use the Web with whichever browser they choose.

Unfortunately, some developers by choice or negligence will make their Web sites unusable by specific devices or browsers. We need to open up the Web to any rendering engines (Blink, Gecko, Trident, etc.) and/or browsers.

Background

Desktop web compatibility has a long history at Mozilla. Many of the compatibility issues from the past have been resolved thanks to the efforts of Mozilla volunteers, staff and web developers adopting web standards. This doesn't mean there aren't problems in the current state. A small percentage of ghosts of issues past do still linger on the web. Also with the high adoption of Webkit, some developers are choosing to use non-standard code without a Gecko equivalent or not test their sites with other browsers. Some of the same issues are happening for Microsoft's Trident engine, and to a lesser extent the EdgeHTML engine.

Goal

The vague goal for this project is to continue to pursue equal opportunity for all desktop browsers and maintain the standards based environment we enjoy for the most part today.

Scope

In scope

• Any site that serves a desktop optimized version
• Any locale

Out of scope

• Site enhancements
• Issues caused by tracking protection or ad-blocking
• Issues caused by add-ons

Get Involved

You can help keep the web open on desktop by:

• Reporting Web sites issues
• Analyzing Web sites issues
• Contacting Web sites for solving the issues

Get started here: List of Desktop Web Compatibility issues

Old Tech Evangelism Bugs

There are some desktop bugs in Bugzilla that are very old, some dating back to the early 2000's. These bugs should be treated the same as any bug today. If the issue still exists, move the bug to the Desktop component and leave a comment.

There is also a video walk through that explains how to assess these bugs.