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[JabezStone]

As a developer, I regularly have to answer client questions regarding Browser Compatability. My clients want to make sure, justifiably, that their content will be viewable by all web-users who will visit their site.

Perhaps some of you remember a company called Netscape who was once a major contender in the so-called "Browser Wars". This company, who was also a highlight in Microsoft's anti-trust case, at one time put up a fight to gain consumer loyalty. However, they just couldn't get one thing clear... The consumer wants it all. Netscape couldn't keep up with the features of Microsoft Internet Explorer, and refused to bend to the will of their most coveted possession... the user.

In a recent report by StatMarket, Netscape has fallen to a mere 3.4 percent penetration among web-surfers, as opposed to 13 percent only a year ago! Even the NEW NETSCAPE, packed with the Gecko engine, hasn't been able to sway the tide in the least bit.
Soon, it appears that Netscape will have to go head-to-head with the Opera browser just to get the last 1 or 2 percent of Web-surfer penetration.

It's a sad demise, really. A solid company with a solid product. Because of some bad choices in the Netscape ranks the "Browser wars" have turned into a bloody, browser massacre.

Here are the current rankings...

Global Browser Usage Share as of 8/26/02:
Microsoft 95.97%
Netscape 3.39%
Other .64%

So, the question comes to mind...
Do we leave Netscape as a contender and focus on primarily IE users, or continue with the painstaking task of Browser Compatability?

Any thoughts are coveted...

Written by Jay Jones

[nocrapchurch]

Interesting stats, interesting thoughts, and interesting question.

Well, to add to this discussion, here's a stat for you:

Morgan Stanley and Citibank are both Netscape shops. How do I know? The company I currently work for had to make some serious changes to one of our programs because of this.

Should we just forget the Netscape users? We can't. Morgan Stanley and Citibank need to be able to interface with our clients.

-scott

[Sysdomatic]

I think within the next year, you'll see Opera catch Netscape, as Opera gains in popularity and Netscape continues to tank. Until Netscape has numbers of less than 1%, you have to continue to keep them in mind, 4% is still a large number of people.

This is similar to Internet users having Flash-compatible browsers. A year ago, enough people still weren't able to view Flash that you had to have an html page and a Flash page. But now, most developers that I know just have one single site that contains Flash, and if the viewer can't view the Flash portion of the site, tough luck. I sense we're within a year of seeing that with Netscape browser issues. Luckily I'm a programmer

[le_saut]

I think you'll see Mozilla taking off soon... as a browser it craps all over IE. I finally can surf without pop-ups - the first time since I used Mosaic on an old Apple.

It's interesting to see how Mozilla is marketed - completely unrelated to NS although owned by it, as an independent browser though with the "feel" of NS.

Netscape kicked themselves by releasing 6 as a finished product even tho it is built on Mozilla alpha code. And 7? well why bother when Moz 1 is out without all the AOL crap.

Time and time again I hear people say "IE is 95% because it's the best" No... IE is 95% because it's there on your PC when you sit down at your new job. It's there on your box when you turn it on for the first time.
Who wants to spend 25 minutes on a 10 meg download when they can hit the e and surf straight away?

What would the percentages be like if people had to download IE like they download other browsers? different? I think yes...
Unfortunately Joe Public sits back and gets fed an inferior product.

I think it's up to people like us to support the standard supporting browsers and promote them to our clients as better alternatives.. I am doing a contract at a well known co where people think IE is the browser and AOL is the internet.. They didn't know that they could download another browser (it wasn't available in AOL).

Now I wonder what happens when AOL uses Gecko?

my thoughts
James

[crisward]

To be honest I dont care which logo spins at the top right of peoples screens when they view my web page. I don't care if their back button is all glossy and pretty.

The only real issue with browsers is the same as ever 'COMPATABILITY'!! I don't want to design a webpage to detect 'which browser' and write a ton of extra code to deal with it. I don't want to spend hours of extra time testing it on different platforms and browsers. More importantly my clients don't want to pay me to do this.

The browser wars must have cost online companies millions. If Microsoft is all powerful online then GOOD. I would rather see a monopoly of a free product than another late night trying to get form elements to appear correctly in bloody netscape 4.

Is it just me, or isn't it easier to change the way a browser works instead of changing how the 32 million websites in the world work. I for one think that browser compatability is something webdesigners should demand. I think we should have a say because we are the ones who get the ear ache when things look bad. I think we should be able to fine anyone who produces a browser which screws up our websites.

and while I am ranting on....

You dont see TV stations produce special programmes for portable tvs, or film companies producing special films for in car DVD players. Why should we be expected to produce special code for palmtops, WAP devices, etc... Why can't people build palmtops which can actually view an 800x600 screen. We call ourselves web designers, not compatability consultants. The web works better when things come together, it works better when compatability is put before competition.

Just my thoughts, what are yours?

Cris.

[Musicman]

I would rather see a monopoly of a free product than another late night trying to get form elements to appear correctly in bloody netscape 4.

It is only free if you have bought their OS first (note the IE for mac is quite different from the windows one, and there is not even an ie for unix systems - if you find one in MS download pages, just try to follow that link
So once you choose an OS that is not bothered by virus, does not require you to reboot on almost everything but runs and runs and runs, you will also choose either opera or one of the "gecko inside" browsers.
Also remember that not all surfers are those young dynamic people who always have the latest hardware and software and download everything - I recently talked to a customer who could not view html content because it contained javascript to reduce file sizes, and the admin at the place where he worked had decided to turn everything off in response to one of those daily security alerts - those guys probably cannot view any of the pages that are done for IE due to some features that designers ... need for their lives ... such as forcing fullscreen on the visitor.

Of course I suggested that the admin should consider a safer browser with settings that allow to view the majority of sites

Musicman

[pissant]

I think Netscape faces a tough battle to get back to a decent percentage, but the AOL thing may help!

As for designing for cross browser compatability...
well I code to the W3C standards now, and tell my clients that we can code for the older browsers, but it will increase costs by 25% for 3% of the audience... they have always so far told me to forget the old nasties.

Seriously though if you design to standard, and accessibility, the older browsers will usually be able to display the info, without the design.

It is only when you try to do "special" things that you trip up...

I love my new N7, I'm using it more and more!

[BrainTea]

Lots and lots of fine amenities-still noticeably slow.

At a site I built earlier this year that contains a Netscape detector script, I used NS7 to dial up a page and bypass the redirect. The issues that necessitated the redirect script are now even worse.

I would like to love it, but.........

[pissant]

Originally posted by BrainTea
Lots and lots of fine amenities-still noticeably slow.

At a site I built earlier this year that contains a Netscape detector script, I used NS7 to dial up a page and bypass the redirect. The issues that necessitated the redirect script are now even worse.

I would like to love it, but.........

what were the issues...
It is always good to try and find out each new browsers quirks, that is what makes me worth paying on some days

[l0ungeb0y]

Am I the only one around that still has a copy of Netscape 4.72 on hand for compatability testing?

Dunno, but I don't care what market share IE has, and I do use IE as my primary browser. But I'd consider myself an ass by not accounting for those who choose other solutions as I do enjoy having the freedom of choice. May it be my soda-pop or my browser, having a choice is better than no choice at all and I say respect the fact that choice exists.

[pissant]

I no longer test with NN4
After the W3C put out their call to upgrade and design to standards I stopped supporting the older nastier browsers...

However, when I'm not using flash my html should be readable in older browsers, just without the styles and design...

http://www.webstandards.org/act/campaign/buc/

[BrainTea]

what were the issues...
It is always good to try and find out each new browsers quirks, that is what makes me worth paying on some days

I had a Flash menu at the top of a page, in a table cell with a percentage width, and fixed height.
When scrolling, Netscape would shred the Flash movie into tiny horizontal slivers.
I ended up making a parallel site for NS, with fixed dimensions for the Flash menu. It wasn't the scaling effect my client wanted, but fortunately he understood.

I never did take time to figure out the problem, and probably never will. This was apparently unique to Mac OS
(please, no anti-Mac flames), though I suspect the mixed dimension specs were partly to blame.

I do not like the negative aspects of a monolith like Microsoft, but I don't have time for that crap.

Here is a great commentary on this subject by Jeffrey Zeldman.

[johnie]

Design to W3C stats and all the new browsers, IE, NS, Moz, Opera will display it.

I agree that users don't use IE becuase it is better but rather becuase it is there.

I use two Gecko inside browsers on a regular basis and I actually like NS 7.0 a lot and swere it loads pages faster than IE. Also Tabbed browsing, search on right click, the built in download manager, XUL skins, ECT are all amazing features that I don't think I could give up. After I got hit with several viruses from Outshnook I have done away with it and have gone to using NS mail as my mail client. Why on earth would anyone design an Email client that can transmit a virus just by previewing the E-Mail is beyond me but outlook does it. Cleaning my machines of Outshnook viruses is frustrating and cost me so much time.

Also see this: http://www.pivx.com/larholm/unpatched/

IE is not secure. They find a security issue for it what? Every other week?

There is actually a strong case to be made for not using IE.

[Musicman]

Hi,

@BrainTea: once you are special casing for browsers, you can use this NS4.x goodie to size your flash nav
<script>
wantwidth = window.innerWidth - 50;
</script>
<embed src="movie.swf" width=&{wantwidth}; height=80>

BTW: just a bit of ranting - I have seen many "IE only" sites that happen to contain a little script to detect whether they are running under ... Win3.1
More ranting: suppose you want to relocate and are looking for a school for your kids, would you consider it acceptable if the school authorities offer a downloadable "schoolfinder.exe" on their website rather than a list?

Musicman
[Edited by Musicman on 09-03-2002 at 05:02 AM]

[le_saut]

1.I'd be interested to see some browser stats from the log files of sites everyone here does. If you have log access then run em and post em here...you don't have to publish the domains.

2.I can do some sitechecks in Netscape 1.12 on a Mac if anyone wants...

@braintea.
I find problems with using %ages for Flash width etc on NS4.x on Win and I'd really like to know a solution. I've even tried specifying widths in CSS

EMBED
{
  width : 100%;
}

it sort of works.....
cheers
James

[nocrapchurch]

Here are the browser stats for Scottmanning.com visitors:

56.4% MS Internet Explorer v6
36.0% MS Internet Explorer v5
2.35% Netscape Navigator v4
1.59% Netscape Navigator v5
1.50% AOL's Browser v7
0.74% Opera v6
0.57% MS Internet Explorer v4
0.28% AOL's Browser v6
0.14% Opera v5
0.12% AOL's Browser v5
0.08% AOL's Browser v4
0.03% Other Agent
0.02% WebTV
0.01% Netscape Navigator v2
0.01% AOL's Browser v8

[Spizak]

Yes people use IE because it's there. But Netscape really does suck. They don't follow all the HTML rules with the release of 6 even after a slap on the hand from the W3C. It's slower and unstable. You can't make transparent flash movies because they don't work in Netscape. Netscape doesn't run Vbscript without a plugin. Don't even try using layers if you want them to display in the right spots in Netscape unless you want to spend double time testing each page. Trying to beat IE by refusing to incorporate these new standards will kill them. Netscape is simply limiting a designer's potential and creativity while increasing their frustration because of 4% of surfers. If you had to download one before you could surf the net, which would you choose?

[johnie]

Originally posted by nocrapchurch
Here are the browser stats for Scottmanning.com visitors:

56.4% MS Internet Explorer v6
36.0% MS Internet Explorer v5
2.35% Netscape Navigator v4
1.59% Netscape Navigator v5
1.50% AOL's Browser v7
0.74% Opera v6
0.57% MS Internet Explorer v4
0.28% AOL's Browser v6
0.14% Opera v5
0.12% AOL's Browser v5
0.08% AOL's Browser v4
0.03% Other Agent
0.02% WebTV
0.01% Netscape Navigator v2
0.01% AOL's Browser v8

Where are the Moz 1.0 Stats?
Where are the NS 7.0 Stats. I know I hit your site at least 5-6 times last month with NS 7.0?
Where are your Amayou stats- I personally hit your site 1 time with Amayou.

Also you are missing the point. The stats are meaningless as the browsers lie about what they are EG; You hit the site with Kmeleon and it tells the site it is IE 6 and is thus recorded as an IE 6 browser instead of a Mozilla distro. Opera is set by defualt to do this and Kmeloen does this through its settings.

Opera has been doing this ever since MS locked out everything except NS 6 and IE at MSN.

[kendawg]

if(AOL8.isReleased){
netscape.stats++;
ie.stats--;
}

/**
@Reasons
+ Most users are PC.
+ A majority of users are on AOL.
+ Almost every AOL user doesnt know that they can use IE
+ AOL pushes its new versions out in a whirlwind

@Causes
+ Netscape doesn't die
*/

[MasterSwitch]

hmmmmm well i still use netscape 4+ to browse.....
its much faster, and much more stable than explorer
of course, i do have to contend with all the designers that then tell me to upgrade before i can look at their site.... so i go elsewhere.... why should i have to **** around with a site that a designer is essencially telling me to upgrade.,... to a worse browser nn6+, or use ie...... which i cant be bothered to copy n paste the address......
personally, i know that if a site works in my ie 5 and nn 4, it will work on most of the browsers and platforms out there.......
of course i only build the flash side of it and i use a popup, so the visitor needs javascript...... but after that, the sites i design look the same for everyone..... and no messing about with these damn browser wars....