Livin' the life...

In working with asp2 lately, I've made it my business to make sure that I test sites with both Internet Explorer (IE), the world's leading browser and Firefox (FF), what I consider, the fastest growing browser with reference to use. Sad to say, this just gives me headaches. Most of the people who've tried to develop a cross-browser sites would know what I mean.

Now I mean, I understand that different companies may want to render content in what way suits them best but if this is the case what's the purpose of the W3C ?!? Is it not to develop and encourage a clear standards track by which companies can develop programs (or in this case browsers) that all render/deal with content in the same manner?

Also, I thought the difference was between IE and FF only, however, I checked out Opera lately and that too renders a bit differently. Now I mean, all 3 can't be following the standards, two must be playing around, even if only at least a little... I sympathise with Web developers greatly who have to deal with this problem, because I've had to stomach it for a couple days now and I just .