Will Browser-Neutral Web Soon Become Thing Of Past?

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?

Comments

Mistaken Approach

[DLG]

I have been a web designer for approximately 7 years now. That is a long time. I have seen what the web is, and what a web designer is, change several times.Like back when all transparent graphics made the same grey as the default background of Mosaic because if the browser didn't support transparency it probably didnt support backgrounds either. And we were taught to never count out the text only users. Alt tags!!! Hell back then we didn't assume anything about layout. We didn't have tables or other methods. The best we had was we could run the text next to a graphic on either the left or right side. Oh and Lists...

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

[SnowDog_2112]

This isn't a troll. It's a vent.

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

[Elvis Maximus]

Will the browser-neutral web soon become a thing of the past? Yes, by about 1996, I would say.

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