Will Browser-Neutral Web Soon Become Thing Of Past? 532
Psychotic Venom asks: "I do ASP development as a part-time job during school. ASP's not my first love or anything, but I don't have a great deal against it. I recently went to an ASP site and got this message and I just wonder what's really going on. I mean, I LIKE Netscape. I like having an option...and I thought that was part of the reason behind a server side scripting language. So are we all slowly being pushed out to the point that we really DON'T have a choice if we want to really do Web surfing? Are we going to have to keep IE on our machines to view anything Pro-Microsoft and Netscape for everything against it?" And after reading this, I suddenly found the words "Netscape-specific tags" on the tip of my tongue. Yes, the bad karma finally catches up with Netscape, but the browser market is a hell of a lot larger now than it was in 1995. Pretty soon we may see e-Commerce sites silently echoing this sentiment, upgrading perfectly valid HTML forms to ones that depend on client-side components that will only work on Microsoft (or Microsoft sanctioned) operating systems. If a few major players on the Web adopt similar practices, the standards-compliant Web, as we know it, will die. Can this be prevented?
Where does 10% come from? (Score:2)
Statistics:
Netscape 47.54% - MSIE 48.52% - Other 3.93%
This guy's an idiot (Score:2)
He actually has an article called 'The One' with the tagline 'Hard facts that prove which is the best scripting language'. This test "proves" that JScript is the best scripting language, for server and client (out of a set of JScript and VBScript). He also apparently invented the idea of client-side form validation, and I'd wager uses it instead of, not in addition to server side form validation.
The only truly interesting thing about this article, was giving me another person to put on my 'morons' list, so I don't accidentally ever hire this guy for something.
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"Don't trolls get tired?"
What if you don't have IE (Score:2)
In a way I agree with the people saying netscape sucks, mozilla is dead, and IE has "won" and to get over it. Yea, that's great. But I'm sitting here at my Linux box and I don't have IE. Sure, I could buy vmware (~$300) and windows (~$300) and install that, just to browse. Maybe VNC to the NT box in the server room and surf from there.
Why the hell can't I use a browser on my box? Here's what I have available to me:
- lynx (text mode, the choice of purists but pretty useless for the "Web experience" IMHO)
- links (text mode, but with tables and frames and such, but still lacking the web experience)
- netscape - which sucks, yes, but a solid browser that lets me do what I want, and the only mail client I know of for linux that does x509 certs for mail signing and encryption
- mozilla and derivatives such as galeon, skipstone, etc. Nice, but still lacking a smaller memory footprint and other things, but still coming along.
It's very easy to say "just use IE" but I DON'T HAVE FUCKING IE! I have access to IE yes, but if I'm at home I'd have to reboot to windows just to see a few pages that don't render, or whose authors are RUDE enough to not display pages to non-ie browsers.
Yes, I think "rude" is the right word. I'd much rather leave the page as is and let it not look as good in netscape than to totally shut the door. Hey, only like, 3 people even use netscape anymore anyway, right, so why bother to even put the check in to redirect them?
I know that even if IE came out for linux we (the linux/slashdot community) wouldn't use it (or at least admit it), but it would give us some choice. I don't like netscape, and would rather it die as well, but I'm not going to let that happen before I find an alternative. Mozilla is getting there, but much as I'd like to "just use ie" sometimes, I don't have the choice. Linux
I hope.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:When I hit a site which doesn't work, I... (Score:2)
Re:netscape not supported (Score:2)
I think I can assume from this that you have never developed a web site with a reasonably complex layout.
Web sites are starting to remind me of the ransom note syndrome Mac users caught in the 80's when they discovered fonts in word processors.
When a web site is meant to display news, informational articles or an online catalog, the questions designers need to ask is "Do we really need a dancing clown, balloons, and a marching band on EVERY page? Will the user even notice if this single pixel is one shade darker.
If for some reason, those answers are yes, the next question should be 'Is there any decent reason at all not to strip all that stuff out of an alternate version so the rest of the world can at least see something and place a best viewed with wizz-bang version 1034.2763?'. The odds are, that answer will be no.
Part of the problem is design tools. I sometimes get output from design tools to show what the output of a script looks like. 9 times out of ten, I can strip out over 50% of the HTML in VI and get a page that the designer agrees looks exactly the same in the browser, loads and renders faster, and looks at least decent in other browsers.
Not quite (Score:2)
Yes, they did charge for the browser, at least on paper. You could
also download it or find it nearly anywhere for "free evaluation," if
somehow you didn't manage to be in one of the categories that didn't
have to pay. And then they left it to you to pay them if
you felt like it and kept it, with a wink or two. "Really, pay us
[wionk]".
Eventually, prior to assorted illegal activities by ms, they did
have a noticable revenue stream from the browser. But at the time
they were adding that obnoxious stuff (whoever started flashing
gifs should be sent straight to Hell without dying first), it
was really about increassing the market for their server software.
hawk
[1] For a sufficiently clueless definition of "more" or "better"
Re:www.shockwave.com (Score:2)
It's a sad sad world (Score:2)
My biggest problem with this is that it isn't that hard to design pages that work *everywhere*. I mean lynx, netscape, opera, etc. You can still have your fancy flash and DHTML (and cross-browser DHTML is not hard), as long as your core stuff is there in the basics.
The fact that 85% of the web users are running WinBoxes with IE5 pre-installed isn't an excuse to alienate the other 15%. It's also stupid unless you like recoding your pages every 6 months for the latest greatest, want to keep working around the bugs and the changes from MS, the whims of the monopoly.
If web developers want to hand the internet over to Bill Gates, the man who didn't see the value of the web until Netscape showed it to him, fine. Just learn to accept all the stupid nuances and new technology it will take to support your dumb decision.
This is timely for me, as I plan on publishing some white papers on inkless.com about making insanely compatible pages. If anyone wants in on it, email me.
Re:Before it gets /.ed (Score:2)
It's actually much worse to let them see a broken site. If a user with both browsers comes in and sees it not accept Netscape, they'll just switch and try again.
Get some decent tools, then. You know, one that produce valid HTML 4.01 Strict, and valid CSS2 to go along with it.
There's a lot more to it than that.
Another reason this is foolish.. (Score:2)
Economic Reasons (Score:2)
Several major sites used client-side features which meant she could not use the site even to browse the products (DreamKey's lack of https support meant that whatever happened she had to make the actual purchase over the phone) -- the sites she couldn't browse went straight out of the window. Those companies lost a sale because of their dependence on esoteric browser features.
Set-top-box net access is growing in the UK, with thinks like the Bush Internet TV, OnDigital's OnNet service, and things like Dreamcast. That potential fot lost sales is growing, and I'm sure that as time goes by, the people who watch the bottom line are going to catch on to this.
I can see a time in the near future when not only do web design contracts stipulate browser independence, but also things like accessibility to the disabled. If you ran a high-street shop, you wouldn't turn blind folks away at the door -- they might buy something. Why would you treat them any different on a web-commerce site?
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Microsoft owns WebTV!!! (Score:2)
woopsie, there goes that argument.
;)
Joseph Elwell.
Re:10% ? (Score:2)
Re:Well said shoeboy (Score:2)
I'm sure there is nothing on the page which couldn't be rendered using code which is compatible with all browsers. Web developers are obsessed with stupid things like Javascript, CSS and the like. That's where most of the gut-wrenching compatability issues come in.
The point is not so much that Microsoft has won, but that crafting a site for IE-only is nothing more than stroking one's ego by showing off cool widgets.
Turn off the crappy HTML extensions and let people read the contents of your page... assuming there is content at all.
Re:Stupid website design, but Netscape don't help (Score:2)
I got some better results...
The Java applet loads on the cooperative bank, but all the labels are screwed up... lots of buttons with "Unknown text id >10113" labels.
The Javascript on the Barclaycard site does cause problems. The instance of the browser locks up... it has to be closed. It doesn't appear to affect other sessions though. On the other hand, the site doesn't do Javascript preloads for its mouseovers... poor design.
Still, in an ideal world no script should take out a browser, and no application should be able to crash X. I've had Gnomehack crash X. It is one of my greatest complaints of "Linux stability". The OS is solid... the GUI falls on its face far too often.
BTW, I'm using Win98 on this post... Mozilla 0.6
Re:tables (Score:2)
They work fine for small sites rendering graphics to relatively known platforms. As soon as you try to make the content accessible to a blind person, readable on a cell phone, indexable (and understandable) by a search engine, or in any other way try to decipher the content from the presentation, you run into problems.
The reason I say for small sites too is that by abstracting the content from the presentation, it makes dynamic updates very simple. You don't need a webmaster or HTML guru to put up a site which meets the corporate formatting guidelines.
Currently, clever dynamic page generation gets around that quite well, your backend can see the structure, to create indices and the like, but no machine in the rest of the world can understand what your page is trying to convey. Only humans who have a knack for deciphering magazine-like columns peppered with graphics and the like can read it.
Re:Well said shoeboy (Score:2)
Sorry I've struck a nerve, I'm well aware of what CSS was supposed to do. The reality is that it hasn't made the web any less ugly... yet.
The end result is that people use CSS and make their documents unreadable to Netscape users. HTML worked fine... the only problem was that people couldn't stop trying to use it to do desktop publishing.
When people start adopting CSS, the same trash will start all over again, people will start adopting the equivalent of a Netscape blink tag, only it will come from Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, or IE. All to overcome some perceived problem rendering information which could just as easily be presented in plain text.
The only advantage is that then maybe people will be able to actually see the information in plain text, trimming off all this cruft introduced since HTML 2.0.
You're just ticked off that compatability issues and market forces prevented CSS from becoming what it was/is promised to be. I agree it is a shame, but ignoring the current state of the web and using CSS is going to cause readers nothing but headaches.
Re:Well said shoeboy (Score:2)
It is a good alternate method to render data, but Microsoft (and I believe a few others recently) are the only ones who currently support it. It is almost there. I haven't done CSS development since 1.0, but I've followed the (major) developments of it on and off.. and the end results I see are analogous to the problems encountered doing pixel-perfect tables. Finding the lowest common denominator between all the browsers has more to do with hacking and experience than anything to do with standards.
But as for your response, you're telling me that it is all those pesky Netscape users who won't let you use CSS to render information... On one hand you say that standards are important, and that CSS provides clear rendering of information, but on the other hand, you're probably using tables to hack the web into a glossy magazine.
All these features provide zero improvements to the quality or readability of content... more often than not they detract from it. You're right though, CSS is a step in the right direction, but that doesn't mean that it should be embraced at the expense of giving one ill-reputed company a nearly complete stranglehold on the marketplace.
Client-side standards are improving (Score:2)
Put yourself in the shoes of the developer: You want to do a web app that does nifty UI stuff (because the standard HTML form controls don't cut it for anything other than the most basic interaction). You also want to do lots of live updating on the page without having to go back to the server, which is a reasonable request since you don't want to slow down the user nor overload your server. Netscape 4 makes it a complete pain to do this stuff well, and its API is almost totally incompatible with IE's. You're obviously going to want to cater to as large a share of the market as possible, so you go for IE, thinking you'll do a Netscape version later. (And even if you do get around to attempting the Netscape version, half of the time you'll give up out of frustration)
The usual argument against all the above is that as a conscientious web developer you should be sticking to established, open standards and not falling into the trap of using browser-specific features implemented by greedy companies who just want to get ahead in the web features game. Ironically, it's been my experience that Netscape had always, up until NS 6, been the worst offender here - for every new tag that IE ever stuck in, Netscape did two. And IE's implementations of existing standards have pretty much always (from IE 3 onwards, anyway) been more compliant than Netscape's. So bear that in mind before you start your usual rant against Micro$haft.
Anyway, the situation regarding sticking to standards is definitely better than it was. XHTML + DOM + ECMAscript + CSS2 gives you a ton of flexibility to do almost anything, and the IE 5 and Mozilla support for these is pretty good. Of course, you still have to do client-specific code if you want to do anything outside the browser (e.g. interacting with the rest of the client machine, which a trusted web app might want to do) and the arguments about how to implement this securely (or whether to implement it at all) are still raging. (Java Plug-In + signed applets is probably your best bet at the moment)
In other words, I believe the situation is going to get better, not worse, especially since the way it tends to work is
and these days, the browser makers actually go as far as submitting a standards proposal for the new stuff too, which is, of course, what they should have been doing in the first place.
As time goes on the standardised browser feature set gets more and more capable, which means less demand for new features, which means things can settle down. I hope.
BTW, for web developers looking for a nice cross-browser (works in NS 4) API to do dynamic stuff with, check out Dan Steinman's DynAPI [dansteinman.com].
-- Yoz, using too many brackets as usual
Re:netscape not supported (Score:2)
If html had simply had a "go to pixel x,y" command we would not be in this horrible mess of incompatable browsers and we would have quick-rendering pages without huge messes of nested tables. I'm sorry, but this attitude is entirely responsible for the hell we are in now.
Re:Stupid website design, but Netscape don't help (Score:2)
Yes, flowing text is nice. But html should have had a "draw in x,y,w,h" command to give the rectangle to format the text into. Perhaps x,y,w,h could be given in percentages of the window size or relative to the bottom of the last rectangle, as well as in pixels. But that and a "fill x,y,w,h" rectangle call would have gotten rid of the need to use tables and CSS and frames and all the other messiness, and probably would have been supported perfectly in Netscape 1.0 and in every other browser in the world (Lynx could even round to the nearest character cell).
90 percent? (Score:2)
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Re:Spirit of HTML or standard of HTML? (Score:2)
Re:Get used to it (Score:2)
back to the #1 application on my wish list for *nix. A decent GUI HTML editor. Man, if I could get a suitable replacement for Dreamweaver and Homesite for my FreeBSD box, NT would be something I'd only use on occasion.
The page composer in Mozilla is pretty damned good. I always used to use the composer in Netscape 3.04, as it produced much more acceptable HTML than commercial offerings like SoftQuad's thingy or Frontpage. Plus it ran on Unix. Obviously Netscape 3.04 is too long in the tooth now for most people, but Mozilla's replacement is great.
Chris
Valid HTML (Score:2)
Try the W3C's HTML Validator [w3.org].
Right, and that's why it's really important that the code be valid. Otherwise, the results are, as they say, "undefined" -- you may very well end up shutting out all but a few browsers and never even know it (unless people send you death threats or something ^_^).
It's kinda nice to have a 'strict' browser around. I've seen a lot of web designers make bad errors that don't show up in IE (which is about the most permissive browser out there).
Permissive browsers are good for users, but really bad for designers.
Probably better to use the validator anyway though.
Big thing, though, is that Netscape (<= v4) isn't exactly strict ... it's just downright broken. I make a reasonable effort (write valid & strongly semantic markup, make some minor adjustments) so that broken browsers can at least display the content (regardless of how it looks), but at the end of the day if it's just simply a matter of browser bugs, screw that browser.
For my personal projects [rydia.net] (where I just go for rigorous standards-compliance) this usually means:
Oh. HTML Tidy [w3.org] is nice for fixing HTML so you don't have to by hand.
Yes, netscape sucks, but.. (Score:2)
That said, sites should attempt some kind of browser agnostic approach; there are some users for whom IE just isn't an option; linux/Unix users (let's ignore IE for Solaris/HPUX; it's even worse than NS), phone users (as someone mentioned elsewhere), etc. You are effectively telling these people they aren't good enough for your site.
If someone pulled that on me, they'd get a mail telling them to wise up and if they didn't, they'd just lost a reader. This is especially true of shop sites; if you are excluded from that site by dint of browser choice, email them to let them know why you won't be shopping there and you won't be recommending it to your friends. Vote with your credit card!
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Re:I'm pissed off at all sites that don't use... (Score:2)
What happens is that users of ASP and (to give another example) Cold Fusion tend to use templates to generate the html, and those templates tend to have netscape-breaking bugs in them...The biggest example is that most of the common ASP templates people were using for a while all left off a closing </table> tag, which IE just "fakes" adding one at the end of the page, and netscape decides not to render at all.
Result -- netscape viewing ASP would come up blank, making it look like netscape and not the ASP page was at fault. It never gets noticed in testing because the ASP users normally only test with their one and only browser (that they may not have had a choice in getting). If you're using ASP, you're likely using IE exclusively. Its actually very rare now that someone actually tests their code on multiple browsers.
Even I still haven't fixed all my problems getting www.celticdistrict.com to act right under mozilla...
Here is the JavaScript: (Score:2)
http://www.aspalliance.com/dagon/ reads (in part):
<Script
Src='rejectNS.js' Language='JavaScript'>
</Script>
and
http://www.aspalliance.com/dagon/rejectNS.js reads:
if (!document.all)
location.href="/dagon/rejectNS/rejectNS.html";
Anybody want to comment on how it works ?
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Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
Re:So when was the last time... (Score:2)
Amazon.com and its versions in other countries are good arguments for browser independence by the way - no frames, (at least some) ALT tags, and no Javascript, and of course no browser exclusion. And most importantly, they are known by everyone and commercially successful (useful when arguing with PHBs).
However, I've yet to convince clueless sites like www.jamjar.com that they should change their policies, even after stating that I'm not going to be buying a car for them...
I love this (Score:2)
I mean, his page is being slashdotted. He could have driven to DoubleClick at 200Mph, but instead he chose to do this. I love it
if (document.all)
location.href="http://aspalliance.com/dagon/";
else
if (document.referrer.toLowerCase().indexOf("slashdo
location.href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/i
else
document.write(arrogant message);
Erwin
Re:Stupid website design, but Netscape don't help (Score:2)
it would have been an easy and quick distribution of information if we didn't have to spend time hand-hacking the html to deal with netscape's bugs.
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this is terrible, awful (Score:2)
there is a page on the web written by someone who doesn't like netscape. and he has strong opinions for jscript.
this must be stopped. the future of mankind is at stake.
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Re:Whats wrong with X? (Score:2)
i just hope netscape doesn't screw it up and create something slow and crashy that only looks good for goofy text effects, or we'll be back to square one, i tell you.
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Stupid website design, but Netscape don't help (Score:2)
Mozilla breaks javascript (if you tell them about this they refer you to a snotty page about how they are the only browser that works and it's everybody else who is wrong... yeah right), and HTTPS locks it solid every time.
Someone needs to write a decent browser. All I want is something that supports HTML4, XHTML, CSS, SSL, etc. and *doesn't fall over every 2 fsking minutes*. Currently only IE does this. Sad but true. If it wasn't for VMWare I'd have to boot into Windows to browse!
Re:10% ? (Score:2)
I know it is still just a minority and then again - Opera 5.x has been downloaded more than 2 million times in the first month.
And no, I have no interests in Opera Software whatsoever.
Greetings Joergen
Re:Netscape's bad karma -- let 'em fry (Score:2)
Yep, it's not a troll. It's just offtopic.
I agree with your bitching about Netscape, but I wonder what set it off... Does it have anything to do with the story? I don't see anybody here "rallying behind Netscape" and that certainly wasn't the theme of the original post.
Oops, and you lost me there. MS did what any company would do it in its place? I don't see the creators of AWeb or Opera or iCab or Konquerer doing anything to try to balkanize the web. Don't point at the sins of Netscape and Microsoft and say everyone would do it, because time has already shown that they didn't.
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Re:AOL/Mozilla is the only hope (Score:2)
HTML, in theory, can still be the "universal" markup language, for all platforms, driven by PHP/JSP/ASP/Perl/whatever.
Even then, however, the fact remains that what you aim to present a user looking at an HTML page on their 17" monitor from home is different from what you want to present to a user on a cell phone with a 128x48 pixel screen. Clearly you need to display different things. In fact, what you need to display is so vastly different that it makes sense to code two completely different "pages" for each user, rather than a single one that will work under both, even with slight variations.
While in theory the actual technology to display one or the other doesn't have to change, e.g. HTML for both, in reality it also makes sense for it to change also, for similar reasons. HTML has evolved around needs surrounding display on your typical CRT, and those needs are going to be very different from those for smaller devices.
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Re:Stupid website design, but Netscape don't help (Score:2)
And, I highly recommend galeon [sourceforge.net]; it's a GNOME browser, built using Gtk, but using the Mozilla rendering engine of whatever Mozilla build you have installed. Much faster than running the full Mozilla, but with all the Mozilla standards support goodies.
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HREF="javascript:openWindow('target.html')" (Score:2)
There just seem to be more and more sites using javascript when plain HTML would work just fine.
Is using HREF="javascript:openWindow('target.html')" someone's idea of a joke? Not quite the same as excluding a browser, but similar needless exclusion of audience.
Is this the fault of the authoring tools or the web page authors, (or both?) (Hint to all you "drag-n-drop" web authors: HREF="target.html" would work fine.)
(I browse with Javascript and Java off because of security concerns, in case you are wondering.)
RocketAware.com [rocketaware.com] - 30,000+ links to reusable open source software and the FAQs, references, and Q&A you need to use it.
Check out the category tree of AskSlashdot! [rocketaware.com]
My site lays out fine in IE/NS/OP (Score:2)
My site [linuxhomepage.com] lays out fine in IE/NS/OP.
Re:IF Netscape could ... support sloppiness??? (Score:2)
If piss poor coders who forget to close off their tables would just f*****n test their pages, we wouldn't have this problem. Better yet, if piss poor coders would just go back to flipping burgers at Jack in the Box, maybe we could have better web pages and worse burgers. If someone can't code HTML correctly, they have no business coding it directly. If that means no ASP career for them, fine. Let them wallow in Frontpage (which itself produces s****y HTML, but that's another whole /. thread).
It is a BAD idea to ever encourage sloppiness. When you do, the sloppy will just figure out how to "push the envelope" on sloppiness.
Re:Before it gets /.ed (Score:2)
Re:10% ? (Score:2)
My experience (I administer various popular websites with thousands of visitors a day each) is as follows:
Freeweb/Warez/Fun Sites:
- 69-70% MSIE 5.X
- 9,3-12% Mozilla 4.X
- 4,4-11% MSIE 4.X
- 2,6-3,8% Searchengines/Other
- 0,8-0,9% Mozilla 3.X
- 0,5-0,8% Mozilla 5.X
- 0-1,8% MSIE 2.X
- 0% MSIE 3.X
News/E-Commerce sites:- 65-66% MSIE 5.X
- 19,6-20% Mozilla 4.X
- 8,9-10% MSIE 4.X
- 1,5-1,9% Searchengines/Other
- 0,3-1,4% Mozilla 3.X
- 0,3% MSIE 3.X
- 0,2-0,3% Mozilla 5.X
- 0% MSIE 2.X
(Data is taken from Weblogs of January 2001)So you can see: MSIE has at most 76% Marketshare and Netscape reaches 22% when it comes to e-commerce sites (and e-commerce sites tend to enable access to ALL potential customers, as their goal is to sell goods to EVERYONE).
ms
Customers (Score:2)
Same with the "you need JavaScript because we dont know how to program without it"-sites.
Re:HTML is too open to be closed (Score:2)
But hey, most people reading this think that all British people are English...
CSS (Score:2)
Information underclass (Score:2)
It seems to me that these concerns are more likely to come true if people have to spend money on software, and on high powered expensive hardware to deal with 'the most up-to-date' OS/browser/etc... A web that is increasingly dependent on any software platform that is not free, should be of concern to society as a whole, not just geeks with an axe to grind.
Many of the posts are from people who actively chose to ignore web sites that they can't read in their browser. At some stage we might not have this luxury
Re:netscape not supported (Score:2)
Re:netscape not supported (Score:2)
"HTML's purpose is not WYSIWYG publishing. Get over it"
HTML's original intended may have been to be a general markup language, but it certainly isn't just that anymore. Things *are* what they *become*, no matter what they were originally intended to be. Get over it.
So when was the last time... (Score:2)
Re:Well, this isn't unfortunatelly the case (Score:2)
The biggest problem with these new protocols (actually that's not a protocol problem but rather a data format, WML vs HTML rather than whateverP vs http) is that there is not content available yet while there are zillions of HTML pages.
So whenever you want to setup something you want to market as webish (Mobile phones, TV, Microwave oven, etc.) you'll have to face the problem to display HTML sites to your device. AFAIK there are only two solutions around, either build a huge conversion platform or embed a html browser in your device. In both case if a web site wants to be seen by your device users it'll have to be any browser compliant or develop a specific version for your device.
Re:Netscape's bad karma -- let 'em fry (Score:2)
I guess that makes you one of the four happy IE 2 users.
Re:I didn't get an error... (Score:2)
Konqueror has problems, too. There are many sites that I can't fill out forms on, for example, I can't log into SlashDot using Konqueror. I think it's in the javascript support.
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Weirdly... (Score:2)
NS is less compatible than IE (Score:2)
So I'd appreciate it if everyone would stop spreading FUD about "MS extensions" to the language, since most "MS extensions" are really the features of standard HTML 4.0 and JavaScript 1.2 that NS refuses to implement. Just because IE is the only browser that supports a certain tag doesn't mean that it's IE-specific; most of the tags (there are a few exceptions, but not nearly as much as NS) are really HTML 4.0 tags that no other browser has gotten around to implementing. The only exception _might_ be Mozilla, but like I said, Mozilla is still betaware. Honestly, I'm dying for Mozilla to be finished, and I'm waiting for Opera to get up to speed (which reminds me, I need to check them out again...) because I'd really like to have an option that works on Linux, and I despise supporting MS. But the fact of the matter is: right now, their browser is the best production browser that I've found.
Re:Before it gets /.ed (Score:2)
If you stick to the published specifications [w3.org], you automatically support every conforming browser out there and it costs much less. This is obvious, really, to everyone except Web designers [userfriendly.org]
Sites reap what they sow (Score:2)
First, it's safe to assume that sites deployed to support a single browser are a result of a conscious choice. And that choice was likely driven by a technical inability on the developers' part to create a site that was functional across multiple platforms. If it was my site, I'd get new developers because there's no technical excuse of any substance to argue for single browser support.
Second, companies that deploy sites like this are relegating themselves to something on the order of only 25% of the potential market they'd otherwise reach. Here's the logic that escapes people who limit sites to IE5, for example.
Assume that Microsoft platforms account for 80% of the hosts connected to the Internet. Furthermore, assume that the 65-35 split between Microsoft and Netscape browsers persists and that of the remaining approximately 52%, only about half are OS versions or CPUs capable of running IE5 with the others being out of date, running AOL, etc.
Making a conscious decision to exclude 75% of the Internet seems absurd when you do the math. But a room full of lame Web developers can convince non-technical management of a lot of things. Apparently, writing a single browser web site is one of them. Fortunately, companies that pull this stunt probably won't last long in the marketplace.
Support policies, not companies (or their karma) (Score:2)
Yesterday, Netscape tried to screw up standards, and it was a bad thing. Today, Microsoft's doing it, and it is still a bad thing. Meanwhile, Netscape has done an about turn and makes a standard-compliant, open-source web browser.
Public companies do whatever they think will be most profitable. They are legally obliged to do so. Sometimes, this means that what they do now contradicts what they did yesterday. It is pointless trying to assign karma to them. The situation *now* is that Netscape is promoting standards compliance and they will not (cannot) abort the Mozilla project. Meanwhile Microsoft has a dangerously high browser market share on top of an operating system monopoly.
I'm not anti-MS or pro-NS. Next time Microsoft is promoting standards compliance in a way from which they cannot easily withdraw, I will support that. Next time Netscape tries to screw standards, I will be against that.
Browser-neutral? (Score:2)
Definately a troll (Score:2)
if (document.referrer.toLowerCase().indexOf("slashdot .org")>-1) location.href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie /";
The page displays the same way on IE as on Netscape, i.e. if you're coming from /. it will redirect you.
An old, old argument (Score:2)
The most cogent discussions -- see Jakob Nielsen.
The bottom line:
- web sites that customize for a single browser or platform lose readers/customers. It's up to the site/company to decide how many customers they want to lose.
- too much customization will eventually backfire.
- public institutions (e.g. universities, etc) based in the US are bound to provide electronic accessibility to the disabled. There haven't been too many lawsuits yet, but there will be more. Browser customization works against accessibility.
Yawn.
tables (Score:2)
Also, keep in mind that various graphic effects just aren't possible without tables, and if a client wants an assload of graphics, they'll get 'em. I enjoy getting paid.
"I'm not a bitch, I just play one on
Re:C'est le ton qui fait la musique (Score:2)
So reinventing the wheel by rewriting something that already exists 1000 times over is "efficiency?" ABSOLUTELY nothing already exists to fill the role of "Chat, file transfer, user management?"
fire up that bookmark, log in
And how does Java not fill this role? You could save time just by using the Java that already exists rather than trying to write a proprietary program.
Hey, we're both on the same boat here. We both feel that the job must be done as well as possible in the least amount of time. I just feel that using preexisting products when possible is the most efficient method.
And contrary to a lot of other people, it seems, I feel checking mail over telnet is a little silly, unless you roam like hell and don't have a laptop.
Re:Did Beta Bitch Like This About VHS? :) (Score:2)
Most designers seem to think "look nice" means "look the same", which is simply not true. The only requirement for portability is that the content be available, not the site format.
And if you had any knowledge about designing whatsoever, you'd know that making an accessible sites certainly does not "double development efforts". Doing things the "right way" isn't a matter of project time, it's a matter of education, something which 95% of "web designers" don't have.
coercion is part of the business model (Score:2)
It is nothing new for a company and its lapdog companies to adopt exclusionary business practices like this. Shockwave [shockwave.com] does the same thing, and doesn't even let you click through to get information about Shockwave, unless you play ball or code a liar-proxy.
Big railroads used to do things like this all the time to destroy little railroads. Every few months or years they would patent a new hookup technology, change the hookups on their railcars to the new type, then charge spur-line railroads more than they paid for their railcars to buy the patented, "improved" hookups. Soon enough the little railroad was broke, to be snapped up by the big railroad at bargain prices.
I have to wonder if AOL/TW will make the decision that Netscape Navigator is unprofitable. As soon as they do, IE will be the only client. Once IE is the only client, MS can decide what the only servers are.
--
Re:Works fine from Netscape on my Mac? (Score:2)
especially a nightly build.
http://www.mozillazine.org/build_comments/ [mozillazine.org]
Re:Netscape's bad karma -- let 'em fry (Score:2)
I run Linux. Tell me a program (or programs) that come CLOSE to the functionality of Netscape for both Web and Mail that has all of the compliance, alleged robustness, and features of IE.
Here's the requirements:
- Full HTML4 (ins. the rest of the alphabet soup here) compliance.
- Plugin capabilities (Shockwave, Acrobat, etc.)
-IMAP/SMTP/POP3/LDAP/MIME/SMIME based mail program
So, if Netscape is 'so bad', what do I use.
Re:Content Versus Style (Score:2)
Help me out here... There IS no IE for Linux.
I can relate to the sentiment of the campaign... (Score:2)
So I simply gave up, and put a item in the FAQ explaining why I wasn't going to write crappy code just to make it work with Netscape.
Of course the difference is that my pages were all made to be HTML 4 and CSS 1 compliant, so they for the most part work great in Moz. They also work in IE, Opera, Lynx, and apparently are usable on a cellphone (if the person who claimed he tried it can be believed anyway).
The sentiment of not wanting to dumb code down to work in Netscape 4 isn't a new one, and you can expect it to get popular very quickly. The idea of using all this wacky Microsoft stuff to make pages that only work in IE is something thats limited primarily to MS type developers (who tend to do a lot of ASP work), and most likely won't last as the use of set top boxes and cellphones for browsing begins to pick up.
So I wouldn't really worry, market forces will force things to not go that way for very long. Of course if your using Netscape 4 still, then it might be time to worry, since its about time that died off. (now if only they could make Moz not slow, we'd be set.)
Re:IF Netscape could ... support sloppiness??? (Score:2)
1. Convince the masses to follow you (which isn't easy), or
2. Convince the government to instate laws that force the masses to follow you.
What could help fix part of the problem is:
If IE and Netscape kept a shitlist of sites with Bad HTML or HTML that used proprietary extensions, and warned the user before going there, as well as automatically mailing the owner of the site and informing them that "At Jan 07, 2001, at 03:41:55 PST, 214.56.17.184 may be unable to access your web site because of problematic code and/or proprietary extensions." -- granted, site owners wouldn't like it, but if they had decent HTML code then they (probably) wouldn't get their inboxes spammed
Browsers almost revolutionized client computing! (Score:2)
by providing a platform for universal distributed computing. The browser,
operating system independent and using universal standards, could have
supplanted the operating system itself as the platform for client applications.
This would have allowed us to escape from the OS wars and start afresh.
Apparently this was Brad Silverberg's (formerly of Microsoft) vision.
BUT IT FAILED. Netscape failed to properly support Java,
making applets nothing but toys (proper support would have included the
ability to store applets on the user's machine, solving the applet
download problem).Netscape also failed to provide a powerful dynamic HTML capability.
Microsoft, ironically, came much closer.
They provided (starting with IE4) powerful dynamic HTML coupled with ECMAScript.
In addition, the provided (albeit subtly) a way to store applets on the
client computer, and even a way to securely store data between sessions. All
of these are *necessary* components of a true distributed platform. However,
their browsers were buggy and the event management was not quite adequate.
Caveat - I have not investigated 5.5.
Unfortunately, because of the estrangement between Microsoft and Java supporters,
we are unlikely to see a suitable Java platform on IE - which would be IMHO
a great distributed platform.
let 'em fry - but don't fry the net (Score:2)
Netscape was HATED by the online community in the mid-90's
Exactly! because the product of that day was not interoperable.
Now we have another company, which happens to have a lot of weight to throw around, trying the same old tired trick.
Netscape eventualy got a clue, and the newer version is attempting to be 100% standards based. Meanwhile other folks are tring to create the MS internet.NET
In many commercial settings, Netscape is the standard, and so other browsers are not allowed. Persumably in a lot of other places, other products like Opera may be prefered. I suspect hat most folks reading websites don't have a choice, or perhaps dont even know that there is a choice.
Now as for what to do, well I include a link to Any Browser [anybrowser.org] on any web site I have control over. and I write a to the odd webmaster who is clueless.
I will say my reading of this particular case is that the webmaster who went to all the trouble in this case, is probaly not clueless, but may be trying to bring attention to his or her self.
Re:This guy is just a freak (Score:2)
---
Re:I'm pissed off about malformed code (Score:2)
True. A more accurate translation: "I'm a lazy fuck of a web designer who would rather sear your retinas with K00L ActiveX widgets than close a standard tag". That attitude pisses me off every time, and the worst part is that it's so damn common.
For example, JHU uses an employee timecard form [netcraft.com] written in Perl. The designers recently added NEATO KEEN font coloring for vacation, sick leave, etc. But they didn't bother to /CLOSE most of the new tags in the script. So the result is that my browser of choice (the highly standards-compliant [alistapart.com] MSIE 5 for MacOS [microsoft.com]) chokes halfway down the page and says the rest can go to hell. Mozilla 6 also fails to load it.
I emailed the bastards and told them exactly how to fix the problem. Their reply was "Your Remedy ticket #HITS00000013578 has been Closed" which is TechSupport-ese for "fuck off". Too bad for them -- I still get my salary either way.
doesn't mean anything... (Score:2)
Re:Oh dear... (Score:2)
I mostly browse with java and javascript disabled, as even sites I frequent (like CNN) are likely to pop up a window here and there, which just pisses me off. So when I come across a site that won't let me get past the front page because all the links are java scripts that simply perform the link...well, I "quickly head for the exit", too. It's the first warning sign that the site will do things I don't want it to do...like popping up advertisement windows.
But I'm also guilty...I have junkbuster set to tell sites that I'm using IE so I don't get bogus error messages. Some sites are definately designed to screw Netscape users, while I have yet to run across one that complained I was using IE. It is arrogant and stupid of them to design websites this way. The most important thing is content, not the way it's displayed. While some sites don't display that well with my method, at least they display instead of giving me a blank screen or something.
----------
I'm pissed off at all sites that don't use... (Score:2)
One of the most annoying things I saw lately was that, when I went to eBay to complain about being spammed, I decided to take a quick look at their privacy policy. So, I clicked on the link, and it gave me a mostly-blank page. There were a couple of lines about their regs, but that was it. So I clicked on links for their policy from all over the site--same page. Come to realize, from looking at the source. that the page used such badly formatted BS that if wasn't rendering properly. I mean, it was a simple page, they could have used plain old HTML for the whole damned thing, but no, they had to go and muck around. And sadly enough, I was using IE 4.0 at the time, and it wasn't displaying the policy, just the couple of lines intro mentioning the policy which I had no idea was hidden on the page. If you can't even make text that will render on IE 4.0, of all things, then there's something wrong with you. There was nothing there that couldn't have been done in plain HTML.
Naturally, I complained to them. I hope they've fixed something as important as their privacy policy, so that every user can see it. But somehow I doubt it. More and more pages are doing BS like this. For example, the Wired article referenced in the Steve Jobs story below wouldn't render very well, because it wanted me to download an ActiveX object that my security settings wouldn't allow. Maybe on non-IE browsers it doesn't try to slip in the ActiveX, I don't know, but it's annoying that they were using it in the first place...
unprofessional (Score:2)
If you have access to serversidescripting of any kind (ASP,PHP,JSP,etc), then it becomes even easier. Making a serversideAPI to generate the right layer-tag and include the right stylesheet is done in 5 minutes to a professional programmer.
Please dont fall into the microsoft-trapp doing exacly what they want.
Re:netscape not supported (Score:2)
I couldn't disagree with you more.
As a web developer, I find that even with complex layouts, the key is not how cool I think it looks and the user expereince MUST come first, so if you need to design a site that only works on one browser, you are limiting your client base. If your site doesn't work under AOL's integrated IE (which some stuff doesn't you should be checking) that is a HUGE client base to loose.
If you are using browser dependent code you, need to find a different way around it. Don't expect the user to switch to your platform because you want to develop in it, expect the user to go elswhere for services.
The _only_ exception to this rule is on a corporate intranet, where the organization has the right (as they own the hardware) to say, you must use IE, AOL, Netscape, Lynx, Amaya, WebTV or whatever.
I don't want to start a flame war here, but lets be realistic, the web isn't about what you design, its about what the average user gets out of it.
Re:netscape not supported (Score:2)
Please think about what that statement means before you allege naivety. I fact, I find it naive for people to assume that plain old HTML is adequate for the task of document preparation, in general.
If HTML can be used for any purpose, why did HTML 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 emerge? Why is MathML for? What is CSS for? Why, if the purpose of this HTML standard is so malleable, that people chose to define new standards?
You use a hammer to hammer nails and a screwdriver to screw screws. You would laugh at any person trying to do one with the other. It is not "naive". It is classic case of people not understanding the tool.
To the original poster who complained about not having control over document layout, I say again: Go ahead and push for some new standard that defines document layout. Perhaps a ready one like PDF would be nice. Then go get netscape, MS and others to write browsers for them. Complaining about how browsers don't render things similarly simply means that you have not read the RFCs. It says very clearly that browsers are allowed to render layouts with differences. But that is not a law from high. By all means change it formally if you want to.
BTW, why are the high numbered posters in slashdot getting so asinine?
Not so good a troll (Score:3)
the source to even see the message. I expect this also applies to those using those silly graphical browsers who have enough sense to browse with javascript off . . .
Re:Stupid website design, but Netscape don't help (Score:3)
It's that they willfully decided they were going to break IE compatibility by not supporting document.all in favor of (the correct) document.getElementById().
I haven't really followed all the details of these "standards", but I'll take your word for it -- you sure make Mozilla's position sound wrong. A solution just occurred to me: I agree that they should add support for this (and, I assume, other analogous things), but if they want to do it "with attitude", they could do like OmniWeb [omnigroup.com], which has a Preferences panel with a label reading "Features" with the quotes included in the label beneath an icon that is a picture of a bug (a fruit fly, it looks like). In this panel, they give checkbox options to turn on the various "nonstandard features", but the label and the icon (especially in combination) never let you forget the old programmers' joke about "feature" being a euphemism for "bug". Programmers, at least, would get it, as well as almost anyone who has spent any time around them.
It lets them keep a "holier-than-thou" attitude about standards-compliance without impacting their functionality. They could turn them off by default in the "Mozilla" builds and on in the "Netscape" releases or even, if they have the balls, leave them off in the "Netscape" releases too, but with a prominent help message to make people aware of the issues (with the proper spin) by explaining that "For viewing sites designed with certain non-standards-compliant practices, you may wish to select options to support these practices in the 'Features' Preferences panel."
David Gould
AOL/Mozilla is the only hope (Score:3)
Yes, I'm sure there currently are, and always will be, standards compliance issues, but by the time AOL switches to Mozilla these will be for the most esoteric and cutting edge features, so for most sites, they will hopefully not be too bad. Even at this point, the latest Mozilla and IE support is supposed to be excellent.
Note that it's only AOL's use of Mozilla that will make Mozilla mean anything. Without AOL adopting Mozilla as its default browser, Mozilla will be relegated to the likes of Netscape, Opera and Lynx... no, I'm not bashing Lynx and Opera. It's just the truth that they will simply not be on any large commercial site's radar screens. They will not do anything to stop the tide of sites converting to IE only.
Some say that web access for other devices will help this situation, but I doubt it. The display needs and platforms for PDAs, cell phones, and whatever are so different that companies will code entirely different interfaces for those devices, instead of hoping that their HTML will work across all possible devices. This actually makes sense. Architecturally the "right thing" is to do the usual content/presentation separation, e.g. XML as the data stream and JSP/ASP/PHP for standard web display, WAP for wireless, etc.
----------
Re:Netscape's bad karma -- let 'em fry (Score:3)
Ditto here.
I used to run a couple small websites. One day I forgot to close a table, causing the table to not display under Netscape. IE rendered the table just fine, assuming that since the page/HTML section was over, I was likely not adding more to it.
I got six or seven e-mails about this, all of them nasty and insulting. My logs showed that fewer than a dozen Netscape visitors had even visited!
I fixed the error, but included some code to suggest an IE download to Netscape users. Insults poured in, someone attempted to DoS the site, and I even received a snail mail letter with some rather nasty material (feces?) smeared on it.
Frankly, I don't know what conclusion to draw here. At least people seem to have calmed down about the browser wars -- things like the story's hilighted site are less the norm, though I'll wager his Netscape bashing has tripled his site traffic overnight thanks to Slashdot's troll story.
Works fine from Netscape on my Mac? (Score:3)
Re:Stupid website design, but Netscape don't help (Score:3)
I have to ask this... WHY do you want to view HTML4, XHTML, CSS, and the rest of the alphabet soup? How does CSS add to the CONTENT of the web? How does HTML4 add to the content of the web? I think people get so engrossed in the technology that they forget the important thing about the web.... The content. Graphic designers and Marketing people want special tools for layout because they want their web sites to be a mirror of the rest of their marketing literature. Graphic Designers don't want to be limited about the way their pages look either..
The CONTENT is more important than the style. I don't go to a website because they don't have CSS. The reason I wouldn't go to a website because there is no useful information.
The notiable feature of the web is the EASY, QUICK distribution of information. It's what made the web a 'killer app', and when people get caught up in dumb things like browser wars, and blocking content BECAUSE of a browser, then I guess it's time to find a new technology because this one is corrupt.
www.shockwave.com (Score:3)
Have a look at what you get if you try to call up shockwave.com with a linux box.
Re:Stupid website design, but Netscape don't help (Score:3)
and download mozilla-0.7-3 and psm and all your complaints are resolved. BTW do you have an example of a page that breaks JavaScript, as I haven't seen any since M17.
Before it gets /.ed (Score:3)
In my book the guy's a fucking arrogant dweeb.
He has certainly every right in the world to target whoever he wants, but he might consider a message that doesn't blurt to the world that he's full of it.
But then I mostly use Lynx [browser.org] most of the time anyway.
Nice troll Cliff (Score:4)
I've seen the same thing done by linux sites but with ie users as the targets. It's not new and it's not likely to become popular as it alienates customers.
Finally you'll note that the URL is http://www.aspalliance.com/dagon/rejectNS/rejectN
Dagon is a demonic fish god that was worshiped by the heathen cananites. This smacks of the actions of a lone satanist rather than a major corporation. Although I would expect satanists to like mozilla, the mascot is a demonic fire-breathing lizard after all.
--Shoeboy
Errors of fact (Score:4)
Off topic: it's amazing but I've known people who work with and for MSFT and they really do believe the claims the company makes for inventing and having exclusives on various technologies.
Re:I'm pissed off at all sites that don't use... (Score:4)
*sigh* ASP, like JSP, PHP and Perl CGI works by generating HTML on the server, which is then sent to the browser. It's not like some weird ASP code is sent to Netscape, and Netscape gets confused and doesn't know what to do. From a browser point of view, there is absolutely no difference between ASP and plain static HTML files - the browser still gets plain HTML.
And the JavaScript sais: (Score:4)
That's right it special cases people who come from slashdot .... so I suspect people are seeing several different things on this page (Konqueror just ignores this stuff and continues on to the main page)
Did Beta Bitch Like This About VHS? :) (Score:4)
1. A well designed & implemented web site which works on all browsers is more robust, better planned and easier to maintain.
2. It doesn't take much effort if you know what the hell you are doing!
3. Alienating even 5% of your potential audience is not a good idea if it doesn't take much more effort to make it right for "everyone" (don't forget, one happy person tells another, one pissed off person tells as many as they can
4. The "top sites" are coding for all browsers - if we use them as examples of good design, why not extend that to implementation as well?
Basically, those who can't be stuffed to write "generic" sites are lazy non-professionals who are taking advantage of an "easy out" argument.
Unfortunately, I do not see much progress towards a more balanced client-side of the web. Most office & personal installations are using IE (hey, it comes with the OS, installs out of the box, seems well integrated, hmmmm - bit of a no brainer - I just want it to work, I don't care who makes the engine - etc etc etc). The ones using non-IE browsers are those using alternate platforms - usually people with Unix workstations or a grudge against Microsoft
Until the non-Microsoft browsers are less than 0.5% of audience, though, I will keep recommending that people code for them. One can only hope that they will claw back enough marketshare to be taken seriously...
Re:netscape not supported (Score:4)
Other technologies exists for that purpose. HTML's purpose is not WYSIWYG publishing. Get over it.
Re:Definately a troll (Score:4)
This column focuses on Microsoft (only) technologies (take data binding and xsl for example) and, as
an intranet applications developer, I dont see any reason for me to bother myself with works of horror
such as netscape (no offense, its a fact).
This site's traffic (as well as the world's) is 90% Internet Explorer, I wont bother with compatibility issues
over a misely 10% who use an inferior browser.
In order to view this resource please switch to Internet Explorer 4 or higher.
ASP Alliance [aspalliance.com]
Complain [mailto]
- Dagon
"Evil beware: I'm armed to the teeth and packing a hampster!"
Mistaken Approach (Score:5)
So anyway, in all that time I have learned that it does not matter what browser 90% uses, or what browser has the most features, or best features, or whatnot. What matters is that when your client calls, and says "A reporter I wanted to cover our new web opening called, and he says it doesn't work" or "THe vice president in charge of marketting says your site crashes his browser" or "My college buddy says that your page looks like crap on a Sun using Netscape 3.0 beta 7 with a 1600x1200 screen (because the background image is a 1x1000 image...)" All of this has happened. Infact I had one of the earlier uses of Javascript to do roll over menus for one of the top Internet Providers, and they had me remove it from 300 pages (well ok search and replace made that work really easily) because it crashed a Netscape 3.0 beta user on Sun (a really small impact but) who was covering the company for Newsweek.
Folks like to claim that 10% is a small percent of the user base in the world. 10% of the 100 million users in america is 10 million. That is a very very big group you are alienating.No one would in their right mind give up 10 million potential customers merely because of a browser choice. Any web producer who suggests they can will lose to the one that says it is no problem to support both. Basicly I can say as an experienced web developer that I deliver 10% more client eyes automatically than someone who makes it IE browser dependent.
Javascript has it's place. ASP's are certainly used a great deal by companies that DON'T find it difficult to produce for Netscape. Hell. My Mozilla doesn't have problems talking to Microsoft websites.:) They certainly don't want to lose my business...
In the long run, the web is not the best manner to do alot of things we want to do, and PC's aren't the natural client for them. Handheld browsers, consumer set top boxes, PLAYSTATIONS, and other NON MICROSOFT products are going to dominate the user base, just as AOL began to do 5 years ago. You all don't remember what a panic it used to be "Our page won't show right on AOL browsers! %!@$@!$" before they started using more standards.
Let me remind you all that Microsoft was late to the internet party. They had their own proprietary page format they were going to use for Microsoft and then slam bam, they had to change directions. That allowed Netscape to grow so large they forgot to make good products, and forced Microsoft to accept all sorts of standards. I can assure you that Amazon can't afford to run a server with software that cuts off 10% marketshare. That 10% will go right to the one who doesn't.
Lets talk about it from a sheer number argument. There are 10 sites. There are 100 users. 90 use IE, 10 use other... All the sites but 1 say, Well IE is the only way to go... Each site is equally good besides that. Ok... Well each site gets 9 IE users....(including the 1 that supports other browsers) but the 1 supporting the other browsers gets the OTHER 10... Which site survives longest?
So while I can see arguments why one might want to use Microsoft only technology in a web page having some virtue (Well yeah it only works for 90% but it lets me enhance it enough to make a big difference to my usability...) there is no excuse for not delivering some service to any class browser. I have basicly rejected employee applicants because their sample websites were all graphics for instance. No search engine would find anything ont heir site. Or blind folks. Or Text only browsers. ETc...
And that is another thing. The ASP Alliance site is rejecting search engines if it only allows IE browsers. It's content is an island.
If it has any.
DLG
Netscape's bad karma -- let 'em fry (Score:5)
I'm SO SICK of the open source community rallying behind Netscape as if it were the second coming, just because they are anti-Microsoft.
Netscape was HATED by the online community in the mid-90's. Don't you remember the protest pages, people turning their pages black-on-black with netscape-specific tags, with little comments "If you can't read this page, you're using Netscape."
Netscape tried to do the exact same thing MS does. They offered their software for free, and then tried to screw up an existing standard by securing market share and then making their own extensions more popular than the standard.
Netscape is just as guilty of shady practices as Microsoft. You can't be anti-MS for these reasons and be pro-Netscape. Some of you people are just so blind with your anti-MS fervor that you don't realize MS did what any company would do in its place -- even your beloved Netscape.
I stopped using Netscape 5 years ago and I'll never use it again.
Prediction (Score:5)
Will the browser-neutral web soon become a thing of the past? Yes, by about 1996, I would say.
-