DHTML in Netscape 6.2?

[Akalon]

Why doesn't most DHTML work in Netscape 6.2? Is there a patch or something I can download? :confused:

[Coolin]

It works in Netscape 6.2.
It's probably the website that doesn't support W3C Standards and has IE only code.

[Akalon]

It's actually www.comsec.com.au - "Australia's Most Popular Broker"

I emailed their support about it and they said:


Netscape 6.0 is still a relatively new piece of software and is quite
different in function to previous versions of Netscape. One notable difference
that will affect the use of the CommSec site is the change in support for
Dynamic HTML (DHTML) which our site users for menus.

In the past Netscape did support DHTML such as the 4.7x series which predate
version 6. This issue has caused many other sites that take advantage of DHTML
to appear broken when using Netscape 6.x.


hmm...

[Coolin]

That's because those people are using IE style DHTML.

[Archbob]

DHTML and style sheets have never worked well in netscape for me. Vbscript if not supported by netscape either last time I checked so I use IE.

[Coolin]

That's because VBScript is an IE proprietary format.

[trenzterra]

Originally posted by Akalon
It's actually www.comsec.com.au - "Australia's Most Popular Broker"

I emailed their support about it and they said:


hmm... geocities can go out of business due to DHTML problems with netscape 6... :D

[Coolin]

Originally posted by trenzterra
geocities can go out of business due to DHTML problems with netscape 6... :D Not when everyone is using Internet Explorer...

[Daniel]

Originally posted by Coolin
Not when everyone is using Internet Explorer...

Statistic says that 30% of all internet viewers use Netscape...

[Coolin]

Originally posted by Daniel
Statistic says that 30% of all internet viewers use Netscape... That statistic is like 2 years old...
It's practically 10% or less now.

[trenzterra]

Originally posted by Coolin
Not when everyone is using Internet Explorer... Perhaps its another bandwidth scheme from Geocities. They make the ads look horrible on Netscape 6 so that they will not come back again...and they save bandwidth...

perhaps...

[Coolin]

The point of ads is not to drive away customers but to keep them here and make them click on it. :rolleyes:

[Dusty]

Actually, Trenz has got a point. If the ads aren't making any money then you can only hope to spend as little money as possible, if the ads actually keep people away that means you're saving money on bandwidth and the ads have served their purpose. :D

Statistics are pointless, you can use the same statistics to argue either side of an argument. Here's the main flaw in browser use stats:

1) Probably 90% of the websites online would be considered "personal".
2) Most people feel that if they're just making a personal website, they don't have to give a damn about compatibility.
3) Ergo, they only look right when viewed using the webmaster's browser, with the webmaster's resolution, and using the webmaster's operating system.
4) This means 90% of the Web is seen correctly only in IE 5.5 at 800x600 on Windows 98.
5) If you use a variant system from the webmaster, you're not likely to go back a website that looks terrible.
6) Therefore, that webmaster's browser stats show 99.99% IE, .01% other.
7) The other 10% of the websites online are designed with compatibility in mind and look and work exactly the same on virtually all browsers.
8) Their stats are closer to reality, but are still skewed by people who have switched browsers because of the other 90% of the Web. Let's say, for the sake of argument, 60/40 in favor of IE.
9) The "average browser stats" for the Web are found by averaging the Web's 90% of .01%'s and its other 10% of 40%'s, resulting in the extremely slanted 96% IE to 4% other.

This isn't even taking into account browsers that fool the websites into thinking they're IE or those stupid websites that don't even allow non-IE browsers to view them (the ones that just say "Get IE" or, even more arrogantly, automatically start downloading IE).

[Coolin]

Ok. First of all, the point of ads is for the user to *click* on them. If they don't click, they get no money. So if you make ads that can't be displayed correctly, then just use no ads at all.

Also, webstats services don't count personal homepages or else the stats will be like 99.99%/0.01% for IE. And what you said about how they measure the percentage of browsers is wrong. Most statistics services get the data of the number of hits from big websites such as Yahoo or c|net. Then they add up the number and make a percent from that. They are not dumb, they don't just take the percentage.

[Dusty]

Ok. First of all, the point of ads is for the user to *click* on them. If they don't click, they get no money. So if you make ads that can't be displayed correctly, then just use no ads at all. That was a joke, Coolin. Notice the big grin that followed it.

I don't exactly know why people continue to believe a word that comes from places that claim to offer statistics for the entire Web. It's akin to trying to determine the world's percentage of Bulgarians by holding a poll in Bulgaria.

There are basically two ways to come up with a web-wide statistic for anything:

1) Take the stats from large websites and assume all others must follow suit. This is the Bulgarians in Bulgaria scenario.

2) Take the collective average stats from counter/tracker services. This is the 90% 0.01%'s and 10% 40%'s one.

Neither is very effective in judging anything. I've already explained the flaw in option two, I'll do one now.

IE is one big monopolistic cycle that I'm amazed so few people have figured out yet. Here's how it works, this cycle started several years ago and gets progressively larger each month:

1) First you start with bundling a browser with the OS, under it's icon you have written "The Internet".
2) You get a flood of newbies wanting to try out "the Internet" for themselves, and what better way to do it than with "The Internet", i.e. IE.
3) Buggy, proprietary, total lack of understand of the word "standard" IE.
4) They start making their own personal pages, these are the pages that will make up the 90% I spoke of in web stats option two. They make them to work specifically in IE, exploiting any and all of IE's little foibles to get the design they want.
5) A little later they discover the existence of other browsers, Netscape, Opera, what have you. Their ill-written pages don't look right outside of IE. "Damn those other browsers!" they cry.
6) Vocal bunch as they are, they introduce their friends to the "virtues" of IE and they condemn the other browsers to everyone they can get to listen for "screwing up their sites".
7) Meanwhile, bearing in mind the number of personal websites proliferating the Web, the uses of other browsers are finding themselves in more and more IE-only Internet. They begin to switch over out of necessity (I briefly mentioned this in my last post). Some use IE only to view IE-only pages, retaining their original browsers for everything else. Others are forced to change completely.
8) The cycle continues, people are weaned on IE, make IE-only pages, blame other browsers for their IE-specific pages, more begin to use IE either because they've been told it's better, they know of no other browsers, or from their "personal experience" at seeing how a poorly written page in a stricter browser renders while being told that it's somehow the browser's fault. Repeat step eight indefinitely.
9) Now, present day. Again, for sake of argument, let's say 60% use IE and 40% use something else. I'll even give into you a little, how about 70/30. Why would statistics based on the visitors to large websites suggest otherwise? Easy answer really: First off, despite that they're big, the entire web population doesn't visit them regularly. Second, mostly newbies would be a daily visitor to someplace like yahoo.com, and I'd be willing ot bet my life, based on what I've said above, that they'll be using IE. Like I said, Bulgarians in Bulgaria.

And another problem arises for both options. We really have no viable means for measuring anything on the Internet. We don't even know how many people are online, we don't even have a rough estimate. Estimates we do have are all over the place, none of them concur because they're all little more than stab-in-the-dark guesses. If we don't even know the number of people, how can we begin to pin a browser to them? Example:

One person, uses IE, dynamic IP.
* Connects, visits Yahoo. Yahoo log now says one unique hit, one IE user.
* Disconnected. Tries several times to reconnect, finally does. New IP, not at all similar to last. Goes back to Yahoo. Log now says two unique hits, two for IE.
* Has to leaves, disconnects, goes to a friend's. Connects using the friend's ISP, new IP, goes back to Yahoo. Three unique hits, three for IE.
* Evening. Goes home, reconnects. Finishes up whatever he was doing at Yahoo. Four unique hits, four for IE.

As far as Yahoo is concerned, four different people all using IE visited their site. That's just one person over one day. Depending on Yahoo's definition of unique hit, this person could be counted again and again as being new every 24 hours.

Let's say that day was the norm for this person, that would mean Yahoo would have logged him, over a year's time, as 1460 people all using IE. Now, one person used another browser, let's say Opera, and another used Netscape. The Opera user only visited once, got what he wanted, and never returned. Tally one person, one for Opera. The Netscape user came three times. Three more people counted, three for Netscape.

In reality: 3 people, 1 IE, 1 Opera, 1 Netscape.
What was recorded: 1464 people, 1460 IE, 1 Opera, 3 Netscape.

33% became almost 100%.

This situation was exaggerated, obviously, but the point stand that these statistics mean squat. You can take a hit count, even a unique hit count, and presume it to reflect your actual number of visitors, much less can you take the percent of browsers in use for those hits and derive the number of non-IE users online web-wide, or even on that site, or even that page for that matter. You simply can't no matter how you go about it. Your percentages are going to be dramatically off.

[Coolin]

First of all, your "proof" that the latter option doesn't work is blatantly false.

Also, you blame the newbie population for the high number of IE users. But the point is, more people are using IE. It doesn't matter if they are newbies or programmers. They are still people. The webstats count people, not programmers only and not count the newbie population.

[Dusty]

First of all, your "proof" that the latter option doesn't work is blatantly false.Care to elaborate on that or would you rather just make an accusation without backing it up with anything at all?
The webstats count peopleNo, they count hits and that's a large part of the problem.

[Coolin]

Ok, I just reread your post and now I know what you mean. I misread it the first time. My fault.

Anyway, the "90%" of personal sites probably recieve about 5% of all the hits on the internet. So the 10% of the popular websites will get most of the hits. Anyway, the personal websites will not skew the results as much as you think. It may skew it a couple percentage points perhaps, but not from 60/40 to 96/4. It would skew it to about 64/36.

[trenzterra]

last but not least, take these affairs to your PM box. :D

[Coolin]

Originally posted by trenzterra
last but not least, take these affairs to your PM box. :D I hardly check my pm box, so that wouldn't help.

[meow]

This most certainly includes personal sites.
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2001/October/browser.php

The Netscape+Moz curve has been pointing upwards for a while. And it's not 4.x. :)

[Bruce]

Originally posted by meow
This most certainly includes personal sites.
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2001/October/browser.phpI'm not quite sure I'd believe those stats. More people use IE 1.0 than 6.0? I don't think so...

[trenzterra]

Originally posted by Coolin
I hardly check my pm box, so that wouldn't help. so learn how to check it.

[Coolin]

Originally posted by trenzterra
so learn how to check it. I already know how to check it :rolleyes:

BTW, what browser do you think "Netscape Compatible" is?
I'm guessing it's probably some versions of IE and Netscape.