IE versus NS frustration
 

87% of my users are IE, 13% are NS or other.

With all the issues tweaking my site for Netscape users, I've finally decided to give up. I'm thinking about putting some javascript in the header to redirect all Netscape users to a page that basically tells them the site is not going to work for them at all, and we're not supporting NS anymore.

Has anyone else done this, and what was the reaction from your users?

No offense, but that sounds a bit... 1998'ish...

I've said it before and I'll say it again:
"This page works best in Internet Explorer 5 or higher"
translates into:
"I'm too lazy to make proper HTML and CSS, and/or rely on amateur IE-only effects to get my site to work the way I want it to"


In the past 2-3 years, you're one of the VERY VERY few people who actually still did that, drop support for anything non-IE.

What I've done is the opposite: drop support for IE and only make sure that the site works properly in IE, all the really spiffy features go to people using a real webbrowser (which, with the exception of the obscure and the text/speechbrowsers, is anything not IE). The response I've gotten so far from these plans (not fully implemented yet as the site that this is happening on is in private development) is most positive, Windows people switched to Mozilla and Firebird and were amazed at how much better those browsers were, how useful their features were and wondered at why they didn't know about this yet. :)
I've not had a single person complain about me dropping support for IE, but then, I'm a Site +++++ and make sure that everything does work in IE. Just not as fancy or speedy, which is due to the incredible limitations of IE.

I can appreciate that position. :) Personally I didn't switch over to IE myself until a year ago because I didn't want to make the move. Nevertheless, I did when I saw the stats for our visitors and have been using it ever since.

ie is good an all but you really shouldn't drop dev for non ie browswers, to draw up proper CSS an HTML/XHTML is a simplistic task.

But to test views, do you guys load up several different browsers and then look at your site with each? Or do you all use Mozilla or some other? I've been just using NS.

Part of Kura's post is correct, due to the frustration I have gotten lazy. :) Just seems nuts to load up several browsers to check my work and it's appearance everytime I make a change.

i'd think about redirecting all nutscrape users to a IE download screen :)

I was so close dooing that for Mozilla, too.

Maybe mozilla will become a good Browser in the future, but currently it isn't and users of Mozilla should be aware that some things won't work properly...

I didn't really take that good of a look at your site, but I didn't see any problems with Netscape.
Very well put KuraFire. :)

I spent some time playing around with code again, then downloaded Mozilla to see what it looked like. The site looks better now, only a few small things I'm not going to worry about.

Thanks for the input.

Within the past week I’ve been designing a new style for my site, and it's 100% strict-XHTML compliant (meaning it relies on CSS for about all design).

I've been designing side by side with IE and Mozilla. In most cases, I found Mozilla displayed CSS more flawlessly than IE, and IE often was the vulnerable one to weird glitches. As of yesterday I finished my homepage, and IE and Mozilla display the page identical--pixel perfect.

In the past I disliked Mozilla for its awkard handling of CSS. Now I find it just as good as IE, if not better (considering its not easily subject to all the adware crap IE gets). I would defiantly suggest all Netscape users to upgrade to the latest version of Mozilla, if they must continue using that browser.

I would never suggest building your site to support just IE, for not only will you be putting a message out of how low your web design skills are, but you’ll be losing a lot of visitors in the future.

...
I'm terribly sorry, but my respect for you as a webdeveloper has dropped to an all-time low, Xenon. Your idiotic 'solutions' on vB.org for certain issues were only barely tolerable, but this is just beyond ridiculous.

I'll not bother with repeating myself all over again, instead I shall just point you to my run-down of why IE is too crippled to be called a Browser. That link points to post 77 in a thread, the rest of the thread is mostly some more discussions that continue on my post there. Oh, and someone realizing that Firebird is a much better browser than IE and permanently switched to Fb. :)

Well put :up: :)

No reason to be so insulting about the issue, Kura. You make yourself look more of a disrespectful fool to others. I was once annoyed by Mozilla's functionality in past builds, and thought of ways to at least direct people to using IE. Now I see it is up to standards with IE.

Speaking of erroneous, IE certainly is not a "crippled" browser, that's more off-the-wall then anything Xenon spoke about.

lol, the browser issue is a sensitive one ;)

I'm sorry, but if he finds it offensive he should not make such insulting and wrong statements or take such bizarre measures on websites.

I don't see how you can say that. IE has ridiculously crippled CSS1 and CSS2 support on certain parts. It is severely crippled in usability. It lacks most of the useful things that every other 'major' webbrowser has (Opera, Safari, Konqueror, Galeon, Mozilla, Omniweb), and it is a direct security leak to your entire computer. Why should a BROWSER be part of your OS in such a way that a website can erase your entire Harddrive?

I'd say IE is quite a crippled browser. It renders crappy markup properly and renders proper markup crappily. How is that not crippled?

i think xenon was joking :)

someone who can read behind the content?
wow i thought already it was too high ;)

Ok, now that's enough. I promised Chen i'll stay objektive about you, but that's one step too far now....

This thread has also gone too far, so closed. Some final closing facts, however, such that you can make your own opinions:

1. Mozilla is designed to render pages according to modern XHTML standards.
2. Internet Explorer often renders many pages, including those coded improperly by the webmaster, better than Mozilla.
3. Many people use Internet Explorer for three primary reasons: it is simple to use (for the most part), it is already installed in Windows, and as such, it is very fast to launch. Many use Mozilla because of its standards compliance, its improved security, and, blindly, because it is not made by Microsoft.
4. Both are extremely powerful browsers that are forced to try to keep up with a continuously changing set of rules put forth by the W3C. The matter of which to choose is still a matter of preference.