Website designer's choices of browsers are limited. A web surfer will soon realize that no browser is perfect, and will choose the one that serves his or her purposes best. Read on for some pointers.

But if you want to create own website, it would be dangerous to use only one browser, and I'll tell you why...

First let's see what you might want as an Internet surfer, then we can look at what web site designers want.

Security Did you know that the main target for 80% of viruses is Internet Explorer because it's such an easy target? Why design a virus for a difficult browser like Firefox when an easy victim is so popular?

When you use Firefox, the strict anti-malaware and anti-phishing security will protect you.

Trade unionists aim to get as much money for as little work as possible. "Open source" programmers work to show that they are better than their rivals who are also doing free programming.

So their attitude is totally different. Nothing but the best will do for them. And Firefox is designed and constantly updated by open source programmers.

User friendliness

Some people have closed minds, and ignore the claims of web browsers other than their favorites. I like to keep trying the top three or four popular browsers. Apart from that, it's mostly your personal taste. What suits you?

Firefox is my default browser just now, because it is secure, user-friendly, and has lots of great plugins.

However some web pages are designed so that they won't work with any browsers other than IE. I keep IE to use then.

website creator

As a webmaster, I advise you to install the top four browsers on your computer. My latest site, teaching beginners how to create their own website, took me six days of re-writing and testing on four browsers before I got a site that looked good in all the browsers.

You should have seen the mess when I started! IE showed my r.h. column first. I thought it had missed the other column till I found it at the foot of the page.

This might seem like a lot of work, but it's worth it. My traffic statistics say that no browser has more than 40% of the traffic, so if your pages only work with one browser, you will lose at least 60% of your visitors.

That is money down the drain.

In conclusion, if you're interest is surfing the web, try several browsers to see what you like. If you're a web designer, get several browsers, and take action on the free tips about website design.