Browsers

[chris h]

In a moment of weakness and on a friends recommendation I've just installed Netscape 6 to compare it with Internet Explorer. I just thought I'd ask what browsers people use and if anything else pops up as well as the usual Netscape and Microsoft offerings.

Thanks

[thomasgeorge]

With the dismal connections in this part of the barely explored and civilized world, nothing works really well except standing on the back step and howling at the moon. Tom

[Ed_L]

We're using Netscape 4.02. If you think I'm bad with computers, meet my wife! If I changed browsers she would have such a tough time with it, I'd probably be looking for a home cooked meal for a month or two.

Ed

[Sanda]

I prefer Netscape Communicator 4.72 but I have IE5 installed as well. I often use both browsers to test web pages I've designed. For sheer speed when researching a topic I use Opera, it's a good no frills browser and great for research. As I said before I prefer Netscape although IE5 has some tricks that netscape doesn't support. I find that when designing a page if it works in netscape it'll work in IE but not the other way around. Netscape is far less forgiving of coding errors therefore making me more careful of my programming.

[chris h]

Interesting , glad to see somebody else using Opera which I like very much and is popular with my friends. I'm not well versed in the black arts of web design but I've noticed even on this site Netscape differs in its presentation, theres no loss of information or usability just slight variation in the graphics. I find even using the latest version of Opera It will fall down on some sites and I have to fire up IE5. I think a lot of organisations believe users like fancy graphics and frippery and reflect this in their sites. The majority of users I know especially researchers always look for text versions for speed.

Ed, Why not install IE5 or whatever to run in parallel with Netscape thus saving you from the soup kitchens of Chicago.

[cendres]

Ill be interested to see how this vote comes out. I use both browsers IE and Netscape. I just downloaded netscape 6 and I am disapointed because the main font which I use for my website is called "mistral" and is not working. It defaults to some arial font or something. In my previous version of netscape 4. something the font came thru fine. It also works great for the newest version of IE.

What is strange is in the settings of the new netscape under edit-preferences-appearance-fonts there are different font settings and under the fantasy section, I can find mistral font. I also have the box checked that says allow documents to use other fonts.

If anyone else has the latest version of netscape, I would love to know if you can see the correct font. Also If any opera users would take a look I would appreciate knowing how it comes thru on that browser. If you want to go to my webpage it is

http://members.home.net/cendres3

You will see that the link buttons show the mistral type because those buttons were a graphic I created in PSP, but the rest of the type is also in mistral but it is not showing up that way on my browser.

If anyone has any suggestions as to what else I can do I would be all ears - Thanks for taking time to read this - Carl

[Ed_L]

Chris,

I'm going to download IE6 tonight. Thanks for the suggestion. If I like it better than Netscape, all my bookmarks will go there. Thanks for the suggestion.

Ed

[Matt Elder]

After much resistance, I switched from Netscape to IE. I mainly use IE 5 as being a web designer, 90% of browsers are IE unfortunately. Coding websites these days are annoying if you are using any 'tricky' javascript coding. Each browser has it's own little quirks and these days, you more or less have to write 3 sets of code for one website. This is rediculious and I'm just waiting for flash to start to 'dominate'. You create a site once and know it will work the same regardless of the browser.

[chris h]

Matt, Am I right in assuming that sites are built to humour IE ? I try to use Opera as much as I can but as stated have to raise the white flag on some sites and use IE.

Ed, Thats a hell of a download can't you get it on a free disc ?

[Ed_L]

Yeah, probably could. But I downloaded it during the night, so it didn't bother me at all. I think it took about 1 hour and 45 minutes. But it's up and running. So far I like it real well, especially since I can save the HTML tutorials with no problem. Thanks for the tip Doug.

Ed

[chris h]

Since reading somewhere that Netscape was down to about 8% of the browser market it seems to be doing well here in the poll. I've run Netscape 6 for about a week now without problems but it doesnt seem to have anything of great difference to make the change apart from giving non MS products a crack of the whip.

[DJ Dubovsky]

Internet Explorer. Got used to it so it's just easier than trying to change to something else. Tried Netscape a little but prefered Explorer. Probably because it's what I started on first.
DJ

[Ed_L]

My vote was recorded as Netscape, but since voting I've switched to IE6. Netscape has been left for my wife.

Ed

[chris h]

Well the browser poll seems to have run out of steam with Netscape performing slightly better then I expected. I ran N for a while but am now back with Opera and IE6 which are both excellent. Opera has been revamped lately and try it if you can.

http://www.opera.com/

The latest version has handled every site so far without croaking so give it a try.

[d_kendal]

I use Opera 6.0 but because it has some problems handling java I've been forced to use IE as well for some sites. I'd probably use IE except Micorsoft automatically install someting called Alexa on your computer which will send private information back to them. My other reason for not using it is that I hate all MS products (currently the only product from them that I'm actually using right now is Win XP and IE and I plan to swith to Linux as soon as I can). if you wonder why, you might find this page interesting: http://www.geocities.com/netmaniac00/hateMS.html
Sorry about going a bit off subject like that but I thought at least some of you might find it interesting.

- Dave