Can I Use ___?

What is Can I Use?

Can I Use is a site that provides information about browser support for various CSS, HTML, JS, and other features. For each browser feature, Can I Use displays a table showing which versions of which browsers support the use of the feature and which do not. According the the site's About page, the site creator chooses features that are useful to web designers and developers, likely to eventually be implemented by the majority of browsers, and are not already fully supported even in old browsers.

Specific Uses

Here are a few ways the information provided on Can I Use can be utilized:

  1. Users can see if CSS functions such as calc(), units such as ch, and features like animation will work on different browsers, as well as older versions of those browsers.
  2. The Browser Usage Table shows displays the current global usage of old and new versions of all main browsers, based on data from StatCounter GlobalStats. According to this table, the most used browser is Chrome for Android, with 40.53% of browser usage. A developer can ensure their sites will display the best on the most frequently used browsers with this information.
  3. The Browser Comparison page allows a user to compare different browsers against each other to see which features both/all browsers can share, which features are partially supported on one or several browsers, and which features have no support. The user can select features of all categories, or select only CSS, HTML5, JS, JS API, Other, Security, or SVG, or a combination of several; they can also select which versions of browsers to compare with each other.
  4. The Filter Features menu allows a user to select from a list of categories and statuses, which will generate a list of features that can be sorted by publication date, most supported first, least supported first, alphabetical, or reverse alphabetical. A user can quickly see which features they are trying to implement have the best support, and which features to avoid or use sparingly.

Properties

Here are 2 interesting features listed on Can I Use:

  1. Audio Tracks is an HTML5 property that allows a user to specify and select between multiple audio tracks; it allows users to access audio descriptions, commentary, additional languages, or other audio information available in the web page. It currently has full support only in Safari and Safari for iOS, but can be enabled in Chrome, Opera, and Firefox by enabling "enable-experimental-web-platform-features" in chrome:flags (Chrome/Opera) or "media.track.enabled" in about:config (Firefox). Other browsers have no support for this feature. It appears the feature is in developer trial on Chrome and may be more widely available in the future. This feature seems like it will be very helpful for accessibility purposes and to provide important embedded information about audio content displayed on websites.
  2. Built-In PDF Viewer allows a browser to open PDF files within the browser instead of opening in an external application such as Adobe Reader or Acrobat. Almost all current desktop browsers support this feature. However, Chrome for Android has no built-in PDF viewer support. I find it interesting that this is the case despite Chrome for Android holding the largest global usage percentage. Safari and QQ Browser are the only browsers listed that support this feature.

Summary

The site is a great resource for developers to know how various features they may want to implement will appear on different browsers and devices. They can utilize proper progressive enhancement and ensure that no matter what browser an end user is accessing their page from, they will still get the best possible experience and no features will be broken. They can also use the information on Can I Use to test out new and developing features.