4 ms·

I think it's cute but it's hard to get over the sense that it's the moral equivalent of "This site best viewed with frames at 1024x768 screen resolution with Ne

I think it's cute but it's hard to get over the sense that it's the moral equivalent of "This site best viewed with frames at 1024x768 screen resolution with Netscape Navigator 2.0."

zem 14y ago
now that the world has moved on from the two-browser days, and we actually have some standards in place, there's a huge difference between "only this idiosyncratic browser" and "anything but this noncompliant browser".
- marshray 14y ago
  So then just design and test with the compliant browsers and let IE users figure it out for themselves. If just a fraction of the sites had done that back during the browser wars then IE would have become a compliant browser.
  - zem 14y ago
    not really - during the browser wars, ie had such a large share of the market that if you didn't support it, your site was considered broken, not the browser.
    - marshray 14y ago
      Yes, everybody used that logic back then and it became self-fulfilling. There were a few Mac users back then too. At one time they were influential enough that Microsoft had developed a port of IE to Mac.
      - rbanffy 14y ago
        They'd rather build a port than risk having Mac users demanding compatibility with their competitor.
    - jlarocco 14y ago
      No it didn't. If it had, it wouldn't have been a "war" - it would have just been IE just dominating. In fact, Netscape started with a massive lead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#GVU_WWW_user_survey_.281994-01_to_1998-10.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#GV...
      - marshray 14y ago
        I think it shows that "Works best with X" can easily turn into "Works best with Y" and nobody is better at that game than Microsoft. Almost nobody can stay in business once Microsoft decides to destroy you by bundling a copycat product for free with their monopoly OS. But still it was shortsighted of Netscape to: a) Try to get the web hooked on nonstandard behavior such as lenient parsing. b) Charge money for the browser.
mindstab 14y ago
I think asking the user to use tech that is less than 5 years old is more reasonable then specifying 1 version and resolution. And in those days there barely was a browser that was over 5 years old.
- marshray 14y ago
  Back when websites were specifying frames and Netscape versions it was an attempt to preempt problems users with old and decrepit browsers too. It didn't take 5 years, a lot would change in just 2 or 3 and there were still many users running old junk (or AOL).
- rythie 14y ago
  Anyone who bought a Windows PC 4 years ago would have IE7 on it, since IE8 didn't come out till March 19, 2009.

I think it's cute but it's hard to get over the sense that it's the moral equivalent of "This site best viewed with frames at 1024x768 screen resolution with Netscape Navigator 2.0."

zem 14y ago

now that the world has moved on from the two-browser days, and we actually have some standards in place, there's a huge difference between "only this idiosyncratic browser" and "anything but this noncompliant browser".

marshray 14y ago
So then just design and test with the compliant browsers and let IE users figure it out for themselves. If just a fraction of the sites had done that back during the browser wars then IE would have become a compliant browser.
- zem 14y ago
  not really - during the browser wars, ie had such a large share of the market that if you didn't support it, your site was considered broken, not the browser.
  - marshray 14y ago
    Yes, everybody used that logic back then and it became self-fulfilling. There were a few Mac users back then too. At one time they were influential enough that Microsoft had developed a port of IE to Mac.
    - rbanffy 14y ago
      They'd rather build a port than risk having Mac users demanding compatibility with their competitor.
  - jlarocco 14y ago
    No it didn't. If it had, it wouldn't have been a "war" - it would have just been IE just dominating. In fact, Netscape started with a massive lead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#GVU_WWW_user_survey_.281994-01_to_1998-10.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#GV...
    - marshray 14y ago
      I think it shows that "Works best with X" can easily turn into "Works best with Y" and nobody is better at that game than Microsoft. Almost nobody can stay in business once Microsoft decides to destroy you by bundling a copycat product for free with their monopoly OS. But still it was shortsighted of Netscape to: a) Try to get the web hooked on nonstandard behavior such as lenient parsing. b) Charge money for the browser.

mindstab 14y ago

I think asking the user to use tech that is less than 5 years old is more reasonable then specifying 1 version and resolution. And in those days there barely was a browser that was over 5 years old.

marshray 14y ago
Back when websites were specifying frames and Netscape versions it was an attempt to preempt problems users with old and decrepit browsers too. It didn't take 5 years, a lot would change in just 2 or 3 and there were still many users running old junk (or AOL).
rythie 14y ago
Anyone who bought a Windows PC 4 years ago would have IE7 on it, since IE8 didn't come out till March 19, 2009.