Bring It On AOL. I'm Ready.
Today News.com published a piece entitled "Web developers wary of AOL switch," that takes a look at the ramifications AOL's rumored switch to Netscape may have on web developers.
The title was enough, but my jaw dropped when I read this...
For all practical purposes, the Web has become a one-browser world over the past few years. Web authors mostly write and test their sites to work with one browser: Internet Explorer. If the sites work with Netscape, Opera or other small-time browsers, that's a bonus, but not one to keep most Web authors late at the office tweaking their code.
Now, I don't know what group of web developers they're referring to, but anyone worth a damn spends a least some time tweaking their code to help non-IE browsers access their content. On face value, News.com is telling their average reader that web developers, as a collective, don't care about the other 20% of web users who use browsers other than Internet Explorer, which from my experience is just ridiculous.
Maybe I live in a vacuum. Maybe I believe too strongly in standardizing the browsing experience. But the news of AOL possibly moving to Netscape is anything but bad news for web developers. I'm not wary. I'm psyched. Maybe I'll get some extra work out of all the lazy developers who only coded for Microsoft's products. Wouldn't that be nice.
Comments
amen brutha! Of course if these hack develeopers they are talking about used webstandards at all, then they would not have to worry much about netscape 6, except maybe that their scroll bars and such won't have the neato color they specified, that ONLY works in ie 6 on windows... sigh... closer, but still far off
Posted by: Jesse at March 26, 2002 6:39 PM
lol! I wish I hadn't had to code for every browser from Netscape 3 and up, on all platforms from interactive TV to Macs and PC's - if there is a company out telling their clients that they only code for IE, great! Next time I need a break, I'll work there for a bit. But I doubt it would be for long. No company that blinkered could survive for long.
Posted by: Carl at March 27, 2002 5:50 AM
Hello? May I remind you how many times in the past I have contacted you about your website looking crappy in Opera 6...
Posted by: Konstantinos at March 27, 2002 7:27 AM
This is a moment for much rejoicing. I was just back at my parents' house this weekend and booted up my site on their iMac, and was floored by how poorly AOL's built-in browser renders CSS. If Netscape is even halfway standards-compliant, there are going to be a whole lot of AOL users out there suddenly shocked by how much better the Web looks. And, of course, AOL will get all the credit for this massive improvement. Sheesh.
Posted by: Geoff at March 27, 2002 8:12 AM
I am not sure what version of Opera 6 you are using, but it looks fine for me!
Posted by: Doug H. at March 27, 2002 8:12 AM
Netscape rendering better than IE? ..Yeah.. right...
Posted by: Chad at March 27, 2002 11:32 AM
Doug, I'm referring to the not-so-distant past.
Posted by: Konstantinos at March 28, 2002 7:01 AM
Two comments:
First - I've worked in a few corporate companies now... consulting firms... they don't give a shit about anything but IE - trying to convince them to think otherwise is a serious uphill battle. Even after I show them the stats that show one of their european sites has a 30% usage from netscape 3 and the rest netscape 4. wee europe!
Mozilla rendering:
Mozilla 0.9.9 on both Windows 2000 and Mac OS X renders better than their latest IE counteparts... and thanks to the latest from the Mozilla group - faster. Athlon 1ghz and G4 500 each had 1gb of ram behind it. Not your typical computer setup... but I've switch from IE on my Mac to Mozilla completely... I barely use my Windows machine anymore.
The only crappy part of Mozilla is the bookmark handling. grr.
Posted by: Shawn at March 28, 2002 12:26 PM
I NEVER TEST ANYTHING ON INTERNET EXPLORER.
If I publish and the page crash, I blame Microsoft. Just after that I'll fix the page. Not before.
My browser of choice is Mozilla.
Posted by: Jacques R. Blier at April 3, 2002 2:47 PM
i was a little shaken by the comments in that
article too. I almost wrote the authors.
i know a lot of people don't -- but i believe
testing and at least making a site is
usable/accessible in some way in as many
browsers as possible is just the right thing
to do.
but that announcement shouldn't have surprised
*anyone* who was actually paying attention.
Posted by: rob at April 19, 2002 3:13 PM
