Both Netscape 6+ and IE6+ are nearly perfectly compliant on HTML4, CSS1, and DOM level 1.

And most other standards are either experimental or barely used, so support or lack of support is pretty much meaningless.

Okay, there seems to be a lot of people pulling "facts" out of their ass, so allow be to provide something solid for those who care.

First of all, Netscape 4.x sucked, and continues to suck. Netscape people know this, IE people know this. Netscape 4.x is just as standards-ignorant as IE 4.x was, if not moreso.

The codebases is IE5 for Mac and Windows are totally different. IE5.x for the Mac is currently the most standards-compliant version of IE. Second is IE6 for Windows. Third is IE 5.x for Windows.

Netscape 6.2, as far as web standards go, is not only better than IE, but is SO much better it's not even funny. HOWEVER, nearly all websites avoid using advances CSS2 or DOM2 because IE barfs on it. Would you make a website IE couldn't view? In other words IE is now the lowest common denominator, much like Netscape 4.x used to be.

Now let's start naming solid facts:
- IE 6 doesn't support CSS fixed-positioning. Netscape 6.2 does.
- IE 6 doesn't support CSS transparency. Netscape 6.2 does.
- IE 6 doesn't support nearly all of DOM level 2. Netscape 6.2 does.

In fact, I challenge anyone to name THREE web standards supported by IE6 that are not supported by Netscape 6.2.

Now, I'm not saying you should use Netscape 6.2 at all. Actually, Netscape 6.2 has some major UI and usability problems. What I'm saying is that if you say IE6 is more standards-compliant than Netscape 6.2, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

Don't be ignorant and babble about standards compliance. Are you actually a web developer? If you were, you'd know that Netscape says they comply to standards, but there are so many implementation bugs that realistically IE ends up doing a better job. Netscape 6.2 STILL renders some thing incorrectly that both IE5 and NN 4.x did fine. It's getting better with each release as bugs are fixed, but it's still not perfect.

Thanks for being so specific about the things IE6 does better than Netscape 6.2. You have proven to me and everyone here that you know what you're talking about.

I apologize. Yes, I am a web designer, and yes I have scars from having to bend over backwards to deal with Netscape 4.x, but now IE is the one I'm having to "downgrade" my code for.

I don't know why you hate IE so much, but It's a pretty good broswer. it's fast with many features.if you used IE for 1 month without using netscape, you'd see that IE is the better browser. I wouldn't call IE a downgrade. most people use IE, yes I know it's installed in windows. but if if netscape was really better, people would have used IE to download netscape.

Kilroy at al,

I do not *hate* IE. I just think it has worse standards compliance. This is a different thing. Hate is subjective. IE's standards compliance problems are facts. IE has many lovely features that I like that Netscape 6.2 doesn't have, but they are unrelated to standards compliance. I LIKE IE. I just think it has worse standards support.

Furthermore, did you even read my post? IE, being the lowest common denominator, is guaranteed to be able to read nearly all of the content on the web. It's only when web designers try to take advantage of a new CSS or DOM feature that they say "Oh no, IE doesn't support that, I'll do something else". The end-user never sees that part of the development process.

So why would any end-user thing IE was worse? They wouldn't! It renders existing pages just as well as Netscape 6.2, AND it has a friendlier interface. Standards-compliance doesn't even enter the equation. So there I am, saying "IE is a better real-world browser". But it still has worse standards compliance.

Here's a nice "developer-oriented" page showing off the flashy stuff IE6 can't do yet: http://www.meyerweb.com/...complexspiral/demo.html

This isn't about likes and dislikes. It's about cold hard facts.

You are a web developer and yet you don't write for Netscape 4.x anymore. That's a little odd since last time I checked my logs 98% of my Netscape visitors still use 4.x. I also still get hits from 3.x browsers.

If you write complex DHTML, you pretty much have to give up on the 4.x line anyway. For a nice static page you don't, but most businesses are using at least a little DHTML in their web applications.

It's okay to cut off 4.x users (tell them to upgrade) because of their small marketshare. It really is! Why is it not okay to do the same for 6.x? Because if you code a web page to be *forwards-compatible* with FUTURE browsers, you stick to the web standards--and if you stick to the standards, Netscape 6.2 shines.

If you are going by marketshare then why not forget Netscape all together. I get on average 10% hits from a Netscape browser with at most 10% of those being 5.x (which is how 6.x shows up in the logs).

As for future-browser compatible - you are trying to hit a moving target. The best way to be compatible with the future is to stay away from any of the new/still evolving standards.

The standards are not moving, and new standards are backwards-compatible. CSS2 is OLD! 1998 for crying out loud and IE still chokes on it! DOM2 is from 2000! These are FINALIZED STANDARDS.

Yes, CSS3 and DOM3 are moving targets, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about etched in stone standards.

I can't believe I'm providing links, specific features, and all kinds of evidence, and yet people are still saying "Are you sure you know what you're talking about?"

I am not questioning that you know what you are talking about. What I am saying is that unless websites are only your hobby you have to say - forget standards - I have to write to what will work on the most browsers.

You can write all the pages you want that will work great on Netscape 6.x but make sure they are still readable on Netscape and IE 3. You might as well do your entire site in Flash - it works great (with plugin) in most modern browsers.

Is that your site or is the Kat thing a coincidence? It's actually a really well-designed site. Sticks with the easy-to-read black on white, standard link colors, images are conservative, etc.

Look--

We're talking about a different class of web development here, okay? I am talking about web applications, you're talking about web pages. Yes, a nice static web page should gracefully degrade for all browsers a site can reasonably expect users to have.

When you code DHTML (which is basically just a marketing term for "using DOM"), you can't code for browsers which simply CAN'T do what you're trying to code no matter what you do. So IE5.x is a pretty good cutoff for that, although most people try to extend back to IE4.x, and some even try to use Netscape 4.x's attempt at DHTML support.

When you write a web application, you do NOT code for a specific browser. You code for capabilites. So you write a nice web site totally according to the standards, and you know it works great before you even look at it in a browser, and then you start your testing process. Here's your typical process:

Netscape 6.2 test: works great
Netscape 6.1 test: works great
Netscape 6.0 test: crash!
IE 5.x Mac test: Javascript bugs, use a document.all workaround and use an innerHTML workaround
IE 5.x/6 Windows test: Same Javascript bugs as IE for Mac, but some CSS breaks too. Code a CSS workaround.

Done. Now you have a web application that works in IE5+, Netscape 6.1+, and is future-compatible because it is based on web standards that all future web browsers will support.

Actually it IS a coincidence. In spite of my rants, I never NEVER make sites that don't work in IE. (And in spite of my rants, I personally used IE exclusively until Netscape 6.2 came out, and I still like some of IE's UI features better!) This is a good reference site for me though.

I think you should be careful using the phrase web application. A DHTML page is hardly a web app no matter how fancy it is. A web app implies server-side scripting, databases, etc. If I am writing a web app for public consumption (i.e. shopping cart) I sure as hell am not going to use any browser specific DHTML unless it is just fluff.

Sorry - I didn't mean browser specific. I meant anything that isn't at least 4.x compatible.

If you'd like a nice list of items that don't work correctly, have a look at http://bugzilla.mozilla.org. I've entered quite a few in there myself.

It's very nice that Netscape 6.x may follow the DOM closer than IE, but due to other bugs in the browser in everything from layout to the plug-in API, I couldn't list it as a supported platform. A recent build of Mozilla FINALLY got things working well enough that the next Netscape release can be supported.

My gripe is that people knock IE over incomplete support for features that you can barely use without alienating a large portion of web browsers while Netscape 6.x is given praise for this magical compliance while it doesn't render some sites well that IE4.x and NN 4.x did!

6.2 is decent and as I said the next release should be fine, but it took what, 5 years?

Ah, good. Sorry, you never know who you're talking to on these forums so you have to generalize. A very simple example of something used everyday on e-commerce sites is "innerHTML". They use it to swap data onscreen when the user selects a new inventory item, etc.

Except innerHTML is nowhere to be seen in any standard web specification...

So why do people use it? Because if you coded according to web standards, you'd use appendChild and your site wouldn't work on IE5. Nice. So people code using "innerHTML", which is a Microsoft invention, not a standard, and they're locking themselves out of future browsers. Cell phones, web pads, kiosks...are they ALL going to be using IE-derivatives in the future? You've just coded yourself a proprietary page, which could mean limited page lifespan & usability.

So instead you code using appendChild, and everything works hunky-dory in Netscape 6 (and to be fair, this PARTICULAR feature also works in IE6), and you've got a "future-compatible" site because it's 100% standards-compliant. Then you can do a "document.all" check (another property that isn't defined anywhere in any standard) and put the IE-specific innerHTML call there.

Poof! You have an interoperable web site. But wouldn't it be easier if you just had to code one page, just knowing it would work because it was coded by the book?

Also, to be fairer, Netscape 6 supports innerHTML and many other non-standards invented by IE, so that it can view broken proprietary pages reasonably well.

I am so tired of responding to stuff like this. There's an intelligent debate going on further down the thread. Take a look. Here's some quick responses:

"If you'd like a nice list of items that don't work correctly, have a look at http://bugzilla.mozilla.org.";
- That's great. Can you point me at IE's bug database? No? Does that mean IE is 100% bug free? Ah, you have no point. I see.

"It's very nice that Netscape 6.x may follow the DOM closer than IE, but due to other bugs in the browser..."
- Wow, I said the same thing in my message. Netscape 6.2 beats IE6 on standards compliance, but is lacking on other issues. Glad to see you read my post so carefully, and that you agree completely with me.

"My gripe is that people knock IE over incomplete support for features that you can barely use without alienating a large portion of web browsers while Netscape 6.x is given praise for this magical compliance while it doesn't render some sites well that IE4.x and NN 4.x did!"
- Er, if Netscape 6 supports a great new feature that IE doesn't, BY DEFINITION it means you can't use it without alienating most of the web. You show a deep understanding of marketshare. And yeah, Netscape 6.2 won't work on sites that require document.all or document.layers, because they are two totally fictional elements, that serve no purpose other than to further fragment the web.

"6.2 is decent and as I said the next release should be fine, but it took what, 5 years?"
- Wow, a grudging admission that the browser is decent, following an admission that Netscape 6.2 has superior standards support. You agree. No, wait, you're attacking the development time. I see. So the faster they crank out browsers, the better they are? No? Ah, I see. You have no point again.

I believe that appendChild is supported in IE6 although I haven't used it. I also don't use innerHTML, though. We have a very large population of Netscape 4.07 users here at work and we rather reload the page then have it dynamically update.

Yeah, that's a judgement call, and it's usually not made by the web designer anyway. appendChild is cleaner than reloading, so I actually appreciate when clients say "it's okay to forget Netscape 4.x". I appreciate the discussion. I'm tired and am now going to abandon this thread now. Good day. Keep an open mind and eat your vegetables.

Likewise. Hope to hear from you again on here. It's pleasant to talk with someone who doesn't just say "M$ sux Konqueror rulz" or something inane like that.

Your attempts at sarcasm fall short.

Bugzilla has a entire classification for bugs of things that worked in older versions of Netscape that no longer work the same way in Mozilla. THIS is my major gripe. Sure IE has bugs, but there are no where near as many things that are broken by new releases. I understand Mozilla was a complete rewrite, but it was irresponsible of Netscape to release a browser 6.x version with so many items from 4.x broken. They did this because they were embarassed by how long it had taken them to get even that far and simply had to release something to not be labeled vaporware.

Your original argument was that Netscape 6.2 was more standards compliant. I countered with the fact that I consider it to be non-compliant if it breaks items previously working in NN 4.x found in HTML 4.0 or just generally accepted rendering principles. This non-compliancy on accepted feature IN USE is more important to me than new features.

I explained the obvious to you about market share because apparently you were more concerned about your fancy features than having a browser that works and is used by 85-90% of people online (as opposed to Netscape 6 which is 2-3% at best). We all like neat little programming toys, but in the real world you deal with the user base whether you like it or not.

Again, read mhinck's responses below for some pointers on how to respond rationally.

Yes, bugzilla has an entire category for stuff that worked in 4.x and doesn't work in 6.x. That category is almost entirely reserved for mail/news and GUI features (thus, not affecting web standards on bit). If a site works in 4.x and doesn't work in 6.2, there's a 99.999% chance the site is broken. And why in the world are you even dragging 4.x into this mess. I said IE6 is less standards-compliant than Netscape 6.2. Are you suggesting that Netscape 4, document.layers (a Netscape-invented abomination) and its ilk are SUPERIOR to web standards agreed on by the World Wide Web Consortium? If so, you can comfort yourself in the knowledge that you're the only one.

Netscape 6's incompatibility with Netscape 4's fundamentally broken features is not a bug in my mind.

But we're getting sidetracked, aren't we? I said IE6 supports "web standards" worse than Netscape 6.2. By your last few comments, you clearly think "web standards" is a nebulous, fuzzy, and constantly changing term for whatever most people commonly use on the Internet. My definition is right on the World Wide Web Consortium's page, solid and unchanging. I certainly know which "standard" I'd rather write a web site for.

And frankly, my standard is consistent. IE4 and Netscape 4 were both horrible in the web standards department, giving birth to Opera, which wouldn't have even existed if they both didn't suck so bad then. IE5 improved the situation markedly, then stagnated and allowed Netscape 6.2 to catch up. By your standard, whoever's got the most browsers is de facto the most compliant, because people code pages to those bugs. Good standard.

You consider a browser broken if it can't render a broken page. I consider a browser broken if it can't render a correct page. Fundamental difference of opinion I guess. Let is rest there. Please. I'm already one post over what I'd care to be.

Hmmmm, well standards compliance is a hallucination that will never exist.

Mainly because Microsoft pulls out their check book to convine web developers to use IE-only pages, and IE, as we all know, is really a sorry mess under it's pretty interface, it doesn't support standard HTML, in fact Microsoft arrogantly added non-existent tags to screw up non-MS browsers, and their implementation of JAVA is pitiful, a proprietary VM based off of a very old SUN JRE (1.1, SUN is now on 1.3.1 btw), although this is bound to improve now that MS has been forced to ship a decaffeinated IE 6 with Windows XP, and let customers DECIDE to use the industry standars SUN VM if they wish it, which you can hear Microsoft b**** and moan about at http://www.microsoft.com/java

And while we are on the topic, IE (especially version 6) is a bloated hog, a full install, which is included with Windows, takes over 110 megs, whereas Netscape Communicator (without AIM, do a search, you'll find out how to avoid installing it) is only 18.5 megs, and thats WITH multimedia and flash, as well as JAVA, Composer, Mail/News, etc.!!!

I don't like IE, it simply is too slow for my taste, and Netscape 6.2, don't even go there.

I still use Netscape Communicator 4.79, and if these so-called "web developers" want to lock out anything but MSIE, I'll seek out a similar site, or one of their competitiors to do business with.

And that brings me to why you SHOULD NOT lock out anyone but MSIE users:

1. Internet devices, things like WEBTV that can't have their browser upgraded.

2. People who do not want to use IE.

3. People who can't take the huge system performance hit that installing, using, or keeping IE entails, I use 98lite, a utility that removes IE from Windows 98 and installs the fast Windows 95
shell, this gains back system performance, and I'm not about to re-install IE just because a developer is too lazy to write good pages.

Mr. Prince:

Stay off my side.

Thanks.

CatBus

we're taking sides now?

Ah, I was waiting for the part where it's better to comply to a standard that almost no one develops for yet than work the way people expect things to. That's a good idea.

Bugs in Mail only? Ha! Perhaps you'd like to see a small portion of the layout bug list. These are outright rendering bugs including items that rendered fine in 4.x. It's convenient to blame the page authors, but you won't stand on that leg very long if you peruse this list.

At the top of the list it says "This list is too long for bugzilla's little mind; the Next/Prev/First/Last buttons won't appear.". How nice that there are so many layout bugs :)

http://bugzilla.mozilla....;order=%27Importance%27

i use Opera so i dont want to get really involved here but i hate the fact that Netscape 6.2 (as well as all older versions) does not support layers, such as the layers on the microsoft website. this is an excellent website feature as it is clean, fast, and doesnt kill your system resources like mroe complex menus do. i cant list 3 things but just that one is pretty major in my opinion! also NS6.2 needs to sort out that JAVA stuff i have it and i wont install it on my personal system while i have to install that stupid java console also. that is why i shooes opera, there is a java free version :)

> there seems to be a lot of people pulling "facts" out of their ass
> Now let's start naming solid facts:
> - IE 6 doesn't support CSS transparency. Netscape 6.2 does.

Funny solid fact, that - IE6 supports many more transparency effects than NS6.2 does.

http://msdn.microsoft.co...rence/filters/alpha.asp

> First of all, Netscape 4.x sucked, and continues to suck. Netscape people know this, IE people know this. Netscape 4.x is just as standards-ignorant as IE 4.x was, if not moreso.

Please don't bash IE4 for being standards-ignorant, as most of the standards simply did not exist at the time of its release.

Maybe you could give the IE6 team for a bit of praise for actually attempting to follow standards (near-full HTML4, DOM1, CSS1, SMIL2) - instead of comparing it to an unstable, beta-quality browser?

Netscape is not down to a 2% share. If you really think so, go ahead and try to prove it. Most estimates have Netscape between 13% and 20%.

heh

ok, NO, MS doesn't let "The Man" control them. and anyways IE is a better browser the mozilla/netscape/opera put together (in my eyes).I hear IE was 100% compliant on Mac OS or more compliant then mozilla/netscape. if I got it wrong please, let me know.

Yep no doubt abt it. MS got it right with IE. IE really rules

So far IE 6.0 has complied more standards that Crap-scape. For user there might not be any difference, but for developers such consistency is very important. Netscape 6/Mozilla 1.0 have picked up some, but they still have terrible support on CSS features such as "overflow-y: hidden" ... but thank them for competitions, without them MS won't be so successful!

IE is faster and more stable then the other broswers, and MS shows they are interested in making it better by keeping it free and adding in the error reporting feature. I wish they made a version for Linux then maybe Linux users would understand MS isn't that bad, but they do make a good product when they put thier mind to it.

Yes it does! :D Never heard Crap-Scape before though. I've heard NutScrape, NetRape, NetCrap, NetScrape and some others.

They have to keep it free; it's integrated with Windows. :-)

It was free before it was integrated with Windows. Netscape is the one that used to charge for their browser.

It was originally free so they could take over the browser market. I'm sure they never made it free just to be nice.

It is free because they still have the pressure from Netscape. Ever remember MS was thinking IE 6.0 only for Windows XP? And since MS has many more revenue streams to offset the cost of IE -- such as making more releases of Windows -- MS always has the fund to make IE better because it is part of the OS now. Have we not had IE, Windows XP could have been launched 2 years ago and we payless to get to it.

Was it just me or did that make no sense whatsoever?

IE 6 was never going to be "Windows XP Only" that is crap! someone made up a rumor in a chatroom or newsgroup and it spreads etc etc. IE supports more site i go to than Netscape does, it loads them fast, they look nice, and are smooth to navigate (i like layered manus which NS doesnt support!) i use Opera mainly and i do like it but IE for me is the best, Opera is faster tho :) i personally dont like Netscape because of the JAVA console i HAVE to install! IE doesnt need it, nor does Opera (it is optional) i with NS6.2 had this option!

I swear on this bible to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. IE 6 rules netscape 6.2! Face the facts Netscape 6.2 blows big time, it sucks, it loads slowly, its another piece of lame AOL S**T, Opera now they have sucky standards compliance while at least microsoft produced a fast browser that is highly compatable with the most commonly used standards used by web designers. It also loads fast. All you people out ther b****ing about IE 6 think about this Bill Gates has done more for the computer than mother teresa so stop complaining damn it, IE 6 is my choice of browser and 2nd choice is K-Meleon which is based on Mozilla

Ummm, sorry, wrong. I have seen an IE box with a price tag on it from IE 3. Microsoft charged $40 for IE until they realized the only way to kill Netscape was to use monopoly pricing, and the rest is history.

No, it's not crap, it's true. IE 6 nearly came out only for WinXP. Feel free to search around at CNET.

Honestly, take your inflammatory drivel and stick it. CNET has already proclaimed NS 6.2 to be equal in quality overall to IE6, and Netscape even beats IE in benchmarks for Windows 2000. The next version of NS will be far and above what 6.2 was, even. Anyhow, I for one use NS exclusively except in cases where I have to use IE, because I like NS. Sue me.

"CNET has already proclaimed NS 6.2 to be equal in quality overall to IE6"
WTF?!? Who do you claim CNET to be? The one and only truth?

"Netscape even beats IE in benchmarks for Windows 2000"
I'd LOVE to see these benchmarks! Another CNET thing is it? The one thing that EVERYONE complains about Netscape is it's slow speed...even with the recent improvements, even the Netscape-zealots. Of course the Netscape-zealots then try and s*** the blame onto Microsoft that they're cheating by pre-loading IE.

"Anyhow, I for one use NS exclusively except in cases where I have to use IE"
Well, as long as you're using it exclusively...