Introduction

For information about browser usage statistics and features, see browsers.html .

For a description of available ECMAScript shells, see shells.html .

Note that your choice of "language" and "type" attributes in html script elements can affect how the browser treats your ECMAScript. So can your decision to use an XML declaration and/or XML doctype in your pages. These issues are discussed in the Programmer's Guide .

Browser Support Policy

Generally speaking, we support only browsers with a DOM that allows dynamic creation and removal of elements ("5th generation" browsers, using PPK's definition).

We also only support browsers implementing ECMAScript E-262 edition 3 (equivalent of "JavaScript 1.5"), with a special exception for IE5.0 Win.

Browser Support Table - Summary

Briefly:

Currently supported:
- IE Win family ("Trident" engine: IE5.0 Win, IE5.5 Win, IE6.0 Win, IRider, Avant and other IE-based browsers)
- Gecko family (Mozilla 1.x, Netscape 7.x, Doczilla, Galeon, etc.)
- Opera family ("Presto" engine: Opera 7.5)
Currently not supported until they fix their bugs:
- KHTML family (Safari, Konqueror, OmniWeb, Atheos)
- ICE family
Currently not supported because we haven't tried them yet:
- links family ( for explanation of variants, see http://www.elinks.or.cz/history.html and http://links.sourceforge.net/ ) links2 has its own home-grown js engine, built with --enable-javascript : http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/%7Eclock/twibright/links/download.html Elinks uses spidermonkey: http://pasky.ji.cz/cvsweb.cgi/~checkout~/elinks/doc/ecmascript.txt?content-type=text/plain
- W3M family (the w3m-js patches add javascript support, using NJS)
- Netrik http://netrik.sourceforge.net/ (javascript planned, not there yet)
- Access NetFront http://www.access-sys-eu.com/NetFront_Pocket_PC.765.0.html (there is a Linux GTK+ version downloadable too, as part of the SDK)
- Pocket PC IE
- Opera Embedded
- Oregano (for RISC OS, see http://www.castle.org.uk/oregano/oregano2.htm )
Never to be supported:
- older versions of the supported browsers above (Safari 1.0, Opera 6.x, Netscape 4.x, IE4.x)
- IE5.x Mac ("Tasman" engine)
- browsers such as OmniWeb and iCab, which do not satisfy any of these criteria: 1. high quality, 2. open source, or 3. large market share. (OmniWeb is now based on KHTML, so it might work.)
Not supported because they don't support ECMAScript:
- Dillo (www.dillo.org)
- W3 Amaya
- lynx

Browser Support Table - Details

Family	Brand Version OS	Interpreter	Status
IE (excludes IE5Mac)
	IE 6 Win	JScript 6.0 (ed 3, runs JavaScript1.3)	passes
	IE 5.5 Win	JScript 5.5 (ed 3, runs JavaScript1.3)	untested, interested
	IE 5.0 Win	JScript 5.0 (ed 1, runs JavaScript1.3)	passes.
Gecko
	Mozilla 1.4a Mac OS X	SpiderMonkey 1.5	passes
	Mozilla 1.3 Win	SpiderMonkey 1.5	passes
	Mozilla 1.1 Win	SpiderMonkey 1.5	passes
	Netscape 7.0 Win	SpiderMonkey 1.5	untested, interested
	Netscape 6.2 Win	SpiderMonkey 1.5	untested, somewhat interested
	Netscape 6.0 Win	SpiderMonkey 1.5	untested, somewhat interested
Opera	no XMLHTTP equivalent. Opera 7.1 has problems loading scripts after document load (ok in 7.5).
	Opera 7.10 Win	? (runs JavaScript 1.4)	passes
	Opera 6 Win	? (runs JavaScript 1.4)	untested, somewhat interested
KHTML	Safari 1.2 has XmlHttpRequest; Konqueror has W3 Load and Save. Problems loading scripts after document load.
	Safari 1.2 Mac	KJS 3.0.2 + patches (runs JavaScript1.5)	most tests pass.
	Safari v73 Mac	KJS 3.0.2 + patches (runs JavaScript1.5)	some tests pass. no dynamic iframe.
	Konqueror 3.1.1 Linux	KJS	some tests pass. no dynamic iframe.
	Konqueror 3.0.4 Linux	KJS	fails (buggy Array.concat)
	Safari v60 Mac	KJS 3.0.2 + patches	fails (won't even run JsUnit)
ICE
	ICEBrowser 5.4.0 Java	Rhino 1.5 (runs JavaScript1.5)	fails (won't even run JsUnit)
IE5Mac	will never be supported
	IE 5.x Mac	JScript (ed 1, runs JavaScript 1.4)	fails (won't even parse instanceof)

Supported ECMAScript Shells

Shell	Status
SpiderMonkey 1.5	passes
XPCShell	untested, but presumably passes since it is also SpiderMonkey
Rhino 1.5R5pre	fails. We can't find an implementation for getting the current scripts url. decodeURIComponent('a%20b') is ' b', not 'a b'. A 'for in' loop is not consistent on objects that are deeply equal. encodeURIComponent uses lower-case hex.
WSH	untested
KJS 3.0.2 + initial JavaScriptCore patches	fails due to buggy ECMAScript implementation