LoGD on different browsers?

[Pwyll]

I recently installed Firefox to see what all the hubbub was about, and one thing I've noticed is that LoGD runs much faster on Firefox than it does on IE 6.0. I'm just curious as to what browsers other folks are using out there and if anyone else has noticed differences in game performance using various browsers?

On a vaguely related note, I was relieved to find that my band's website looks and works fine in Firefox - I wasn't looking forward to adding any more browser hacks! :D

[White Knight]

Firefox is, hand-down, the best browser out there. The fact that it is open source means that all kinds of great extensions are available. Anyway, that's the one I use!

[BLOODDRAGON]

im so used to Internet Explore that i dont even use the Mozilla Firefox though we do have it on both our computers i got it on my laptop but all it does is sit there collecting dust (i mainly dont use it because it doesnt play my music videos or my yahoo launch internet radio)

[Acemaster]

Firefox absolutely owns. I don't notice a difference in speed in logd though.

[Ohtaren]

Firefox is good, but there's still a lot of stuff it's not compatible with. I found myself using IE anyway just because everything works with it.

As for Green Dragon speed, Firefox seemed faster at first but I think that's just an illusion caused by the way Firefox displays partial pages while IE downloads everything before displaying it. If you use the hotkeys you don't have to wait for the page to display in IE, so it doesn't slow you down.

[Acemaster]

Never been to a website that Firefox doesn't work with, but I have heard from others that it does happen with some.

[Syrius]

I love firefox so much that I don't have anything resembling explorer on my new computer. I honestly believe it is a bunch quicker with firefox as compared to explorer, (not by a huge ammount but every little bit adds up).

The only problem I have come across is that I can't use Messenger without IE (if anyone knows of a solution that doesn't involve using IE I'd love to hear it, I am not computer savvy at all so now, I am stuck). :?

[Deimos]

I use Firefox; it's great.

The reason some pages don't work on Firefox is that they're written to adhere to Internet Explorer's misinterpretation of html.

[White Knight]

im so used to Internet Explore that i dont even use the Mozilla Firefox though we do have it on both our computers i got it on my laptop but all it does is sit there collecting dust (i mainly dont use it because it doesnt play my music videos or my yahoo launch internet radio)

Have you tried the Foxy Tunes extension available on the Mozilla page? I'm not sure if it will do what you need it to, but it's pretty cool, nonetheless.

[White Knight]

Never been to a website that Firefox doesn't work with, but I have heard from others that it does happen with some.

The only one I'm familiar with is Macray's Keep, an online play-by-post role-playing site. Firefox works with it, but not exceedingly well. It is, as Deimos said, " written to adhere to Internet Explorer's misinterpretation of html." (God, that is so funny, yet so true!)

[Ohtaren]

Actually, I've never had a problem with displaying HTML. It's just that Firefox didn't support some types of embedded content, such as ActiveX. Also, it doesn't work with embedded Office XML, which some of my professors use to post homework. I know its unfair to Firefox, but its benefits just didn't outweigh compatability issues for me. I've never seen a site that displays correctly in Firefox but not IE, and I'd rather not have two different browsers installed.

[Kadina]

The only problem I have come across is that I can't use Messenger without IE (if anyone knows of a solution that doesn't involve using IE I'd love to hear it, I am not computer savvy at all so now, I am stuck).

I use trillian (http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/) to connect to all IM type services. The free (basic) version is plenty of functionality and I've used it for years.

I also use firefox, but with the "view this page in ie" extension for those pesky sites that host invalid html. :)

[Elessa]

I've never seen a site that displays correctly in Firefox but not IE, and I'd rather not have two different browsers installed.

:sits and laughs as she looks at her browswer applications

hmmmmm... i hath four browsers installed

safari
firefox
internet explorer
camino

i suppose ye could say i collect them

though, personally, i find firefox to be the best for me. there is only one frustration with not being able to use HTML for composing messages in my yahoo e-mail. other than that, i prefer it.

[Booger]

I don't really consider not supporting activex to be a bad thing =P I do understand why you would have to use it for that school stuff if firefox doesn't support it. Firefox also doesn't open ascii files without the file extensions like IE does (and I have seen some web pages use them), but that is actually safer than trying to guess the right extension and open the file without asking anything. You might be interested in this (http://lotgd.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=718) post and especially the link in MightyE's last reply as an example for a page that works right in firefox, but not in IE.

/me winces at the thought of html emails

[BLOODDRAGON]

im so used to Internet Explore that i dont even use the Mozilla Firefox though we do have it on both our computers i got it on my laptop but all it does is sit there collecting dust (i mainly dont use it because it doesnt play my music videos or my yahoo launch internet radio)

Have you tried the Foxy Tunes extension available on the Mozilla page? I'm not sure if it will do what you need it to, but it's pretty cool, nonetheless.

meh too lazy, iI;d rather just use IE to listen to music, its a lot more easier on my part, doesnt require too much thinking

[Nightwind]

ok, because nobody did

Opera

[Elessa]

/me winces at the thought of html emails


as a copy editor, if i am trying to send some corrections to a website design i find having the ability to use html in the e-mail message explaining the edits needed to be more expedient then taking everything to a document and creating an attachment to go with the e-mail message.

[Pwyll]

Not downloading ActiveX controls is one of the things that makes Firefox less of a security risk than IE. As such, I'd say it's a good thing. :D

[White Knight]

ok, because nobody did

Opera
The only thing that has kept me from trying Opera is the fact that it costs $39, where Firefox is (and as Open Source, always will be) free.

[blarg]

Links (http://links.sourceforge.net/)!

Sorry, couldn't resist.. :D

[Nightwind]

ok, because nobody did

Opera
The only thing that has kept me from trying Opera is the fact that it costs $39, where Firefox is (and as Open Source, always will be) free.



there is the adware suported version you know, FREE (ok, minus three square inches of screan)

[Booger]

/me winces at the thought of html emails


as a copy editor, if i am trying to send some corrections to a website design i find having the ability to use html in the e-mail message explaining the edits needed to be more expedient then taking everything to a document and creating an attachment to go with the e-mail message.

html is pure ascii so you can just write the code in the message body for the recipient to read and/or copy. I know many like to use hrml or rtf format to be able to use text formatting, colours and images in the emails, but I just don't like the email client to automatically render the html for unnecessary effects. I choose easier reading over a cloudy sky background and pink text any time ;)

I have my work email set to display all emails as text by default. I only have to convert it back to rtf/html maybe 1/100 emails to see some info that was lost because of that, and maybe 1/5 of those times the info was actually essential. granted, I'm not a copy and I suppose it could be handy when doing some other kind of work..

in the end it's just a personal preference of mine, and I am a bit stubborn about some things like that.. just ask saucy ;)

[SaucyWench]

And yeah... Booger has an IRC client that I would bludgeon into oblivion with a pickaxe if he ever let me near it, but he hangs on to it like grim death ;)

Actually, I've never had a problem with displaying HTML. It's just that Firefox didn't support some types of embedded content, such as ActiveX. Also, it doesn't work with embedded Office XML, which some of my professors use to post homework. I know its unfair to Firefox, but its benefits just didn't outweigh compatability issues for me. I've never seen a site that displays correctly in Firefox but not IE, and I'd rather not have two different browsers installed.

Office XML and ActiveX aside, Firefox displays the HTML correctly. IE does not. In the vast majority of cases where a page looks different in the two browsers it is because firefox follows the HTML standard and internet explorer does not. So enshrined are the mistakes that IE uses and exploits that a LOT of web designers now put those mistakes into their designs, so IE appears to be the browser doing it right - but it's not.

In reality, for nearly all the sites that show up looking different, the differences don't matter (for example, the line spacing or the table borders). However, ActiveX controls are not even part of the HTML standard (someone correct me if that has changed). It's a pity that people use these things in design and force people like yourself to run insecure browsers. I challenge you to do an Ad Aware and Spybot S&S scan. What you will find is craploads of spyware, and 99% of it is because you use Internet Explorer for everyday surfing. I also challenge you to open 5 IE windows and check your memory usage... and then close them all and open the pages as 5 tabs in Firefox (in one window!) and see the amazing difference.

I still have IE installed. I use it on the rare occasions where as you mentioned, the site won't display properly in Firefox because the designer did something outside the standard. For me, that's my internet banking for my building society account (something I rarely use) and for McAfee, who stupidly force me to use IE for a security program (!).

For what it's worth, I was a diehard IE fan who said she would never ever touch another browser. But as I saw so many people embrace it, I decided to give it another try. I'm a convert now. I have no problem having both installed. The speed and clean tabbed display it has given me far outweigh the few extra megs of disk space in having two browsers installed.

Syrius, in answer to your question, removing IE is possible, but convoluted, and I don't recommend doing it. As long as Firefox is set as your default browser it shouldn't matter anyway.

[Syrius]

Firefox is set to my default browser, it is the only one, I don't have IE on my computer at all to remove.

My question (I am not very good at explaining, see) was how can I use Windows Messenger to chat to people without having to put IE on my computer.

It seems that I will have to bite the bullet and install it, much as I hate to. ;)

[Acemaster]

:laughs at the incompetence of IE and AOL designers.

edit- spelling. I should be in BOI.

[Furion]

:wonders whether to laugh at Acemaster's spelling of incompetence, considering the irony. :lol:

[Ohtaren]

Ironically, one of the sites I visit that requires ActiveX is a diagnostics site which scans for spyware and viruses. ActiveX has more access to your system making it more powerful and giving it a higher potential for abuse. I use custom security setttings and keep McAfee VirusScan running and have never had a problem with spyware or viruses spread through browsers.

As for supporting standards, it is true that IE falls way behind Firefox and Opera. It is also important to note that none of the browsers support all of the standards. The group making the standards (W3C) does not make their own browser but instead makes recommendations on what a browser should be able to do. An open-source browser like Firefox can be changed to meet the standards much more quickly than IE. In the meantime, the majority of people online still use IE, so websites that don't work well with it are just asking for trouble.

Anyway, Firefox works great and I think you should use it if you don't visit sites that require IE. We'll see how Microsft responds to Firefox when it releases IE7, which is supposed to be beta testing later this summer.

[sativ]

Firefox works perfect for me. So in my opinion it's the best alternative. ^^

[Maaya]

I mainly use IE for most cases on my main computer, and use a combination of Firefox and IE on this laptop.

I had bad experience with Firefox on the main computer, which involved multiple failures to run smoothly, dying without no explanation, and cache infected with a virus.
I would admit that IE also dies on me without any explanation, but it happened on Firefox far more frequently than I could stand.

That and reinstallation seemed to have a bug of some sort and now that computer is Firefox-free.

I still don't trust Firefox, and probably won't for a long while.
I'm content with my security, as I keep Norton Anti-Virus, AVG, Spybot S&D, Ad Aware and Admuncher running in a regular basis. (4 of them always on process)

Or maybe it's just the whole "WinXP Home made into a LAN server" experimentation went out of hand... Used to do a pretty good job though, been online at one time for nearly a full year... until I made a mistake of going through a few virus-infested sites consecutively...

[Elessa]

I still don't trust Firefox, and probably won't for a long while.
I'm content with my security, as I keep Norton Anti-Virus, AVG, Spybot S&D, Ad Aware and Admuncher running in a regular basis. (4 of them always on process)

Or maybe it's just the whole "WinXP Home made into a LAN server" experimentation went out of hand... Used to do a pretty good job though, been online at one time for nearly a full year... until I made a mistake of going through a few virus-infested sites consecutively...

how sad that the computer operating system and its browser require such measures be taken. having to run four security programs concurrently must surely slow the resources for the computer significantly.

i use firefox and haven't had any issues with it whatsoever. i do not even have nor do i even want to have IE installed on my computer.

:is happy to have a laptop with an operating system not affected by viruses or security breach issues requiring third party software

[Maaya]

*shrugs*
It's not the OS and browser's fault that I need the security measures.
It's because of what I do, which often leads to underground streams of info. Not sure, but it's probably the difference in the computer usage between yours and mine? Better to have security than finding out later that you didn't have enough and lose valuable information on your computer. Losing an entire harddrive isn't that hard to do.

AdMuncher isn't a security process, it's just a nice advert-removing software that takes out webpage coding that involves most adverts(pop-ups, flash/swf-based ads, etc)... makes for faster web viewing.

Even on my laptop, I still find problems with Firefox, mainly that it sometimes take massive CPU load to open up a page(the Firefox problems I mentioned in the previous posts are with the main computer, not laptop). I've yet to have problems in IE.

And on the matter of the functionality in tabbed screens instead of separate windows like IE... I'd agree that it's more memory-efficient, but it's more cumbersome in the sense of user interface. I find it easier and faster to switch between screens using alt-tab (or even better, align each new screen in orderly manner so that little movement of the mouse is needed to click on each new window) than to find the tab and click.

I don't deny that Firefox is more versatile and dynamic. But the point I'm trying to make is that people overrate it, and underrate IE too much.

[Atom]

And on the matter of the functionality in tabbed screens instead of separate windows like IE... I'd agree that it's more memory-efficient, but it's more cumbersome in the sense of user interface. I find it easier and faster to switch between screens using alt-tab (or even better, align each new screen in orderly manner so that little movement of the mouse is needed to click on each new window) than to find the tab and click.

I don't deny that Firefox is more versatile and dynamic. But the point I'm trying to make is that people overrate it, and underrate IE too much.

Maaya changing tabs is one mouse click or you can set any keyboard shortcut you like. How could that be cumbersome?

[Maaya]

It takes more time and effort moving the mouse and finding the right tab (especially when there are many tabs), at least for me, as opposed to alt-tabbing or organizing the windows for easier clicking. You can't arrange them like that when the tabs are all stuck up there.
... if you find clicking and moving your mouse around not cumbersome, then I guess I just type/press keys faster?
Keyboard shortcuts for what? Switching to the n-th tab? I don't remember seeing any feature of that kind.

Same reason why I prefer and love the keyboard shortcuts to navigating through LotGD than clicking away. It is MUCH faster.

[Elessa]

*shrugs*
It's not the OS and browser's fault that I need the security measures.
It's because of what I do, which often leads to underground streams of info. Not sure, but it's probably the difference in the computer usage between yours and mine? Better to have security than finding out later that you didn't have enough and lose valuable information on your computer. Losing an entire harddrive isn't that hard to do.

I don't deny that Firefox is more versatile and dynamic. But the point I'm trying to make is that people overrate it, and underrate IE too much.

actually, having been a network administrator for over 18 years in a microsoft windows environment, i would never have windows on my personal machine due to the security issues with it. hence, i have no fear of losing anything on my hard drive. there are no threats to the platform i use.

i find the opposite is true with the browsers. IE is the one which is overrated and firefox is underrated, yet gaining in marketshare as word of its functionality and performance spreads.

the thing to bear in mind is that a computer is merely a tool. each person has a different task and different preference for which tools they require to complete their task.

myself, i left the wintel world behind for a tool that better serves the purpose i need it for.

[Maaya]

Strange. Because almost wherever I go (here, local college geek newspaper, geek forums, etc), Firefox is the more "praised" than IE. Which is why I believe Firefox is the overrated (due to my experiences with both browsers).

I'd be using a Mac or Linux... if I didn't need WinXP for its compatibility with so many games and programs.

[neongrey]

Popular, well-regarded != overrated.

Your experiences with the browser are highly atypical. That doesn't make Firefox overrated, and it doesn't make IE anything remotely resembling decent in terms of security.

[SaucyWench]

I am one of the people who missed ALT-TAB when I changed to Firefox.

But changing tabs in any program, the convention is CTRL-TAB (try it in Excel, Access, etc). It works in Firefox and it quickly becomes habit. I also use it in mIRC anyway, so it wasn't too hard change.

[Elessa]

Popular, well-regarded != overrated.

Your experiences with the browser are highly atypical. That doesn't make Firefox overrated, and it doesn't make IE anything remotely resembling decent in terms of security.

i was also trying to reconcile how a program that only has 8% of the market vs one that hast 85% of the market could possibly be considered overrated.

t'would seem to me that the overrated one wouldst be IE.

i am curious about opera and hath considered trying it. i hath used camino, but it is a long way from reaching final release.

[Maaya]

I agree with neongrey, and that's exactly what I was thinking. Just because a large portion of the market uses IE doesn't mean its overrated. It's when people RATE it, just as the word means. Take a good look at the dictionary once in a while. Popularity has nothing to do with over/underrated-ness. ("Popularity" also doesn't mean that it's "good", I might add, whichever way that word maybe applied to. Each person should decide for themselves which is better.)

Didn't know about ctrl-tab. I'll try it next time, and I might like it.

Still not liking how Firefox inexplicably takes up massive CPU usage on my laptop... Nothing explains it, and it sours my current experience even further than my past experience with it on the main computer where it kept on crashing.

I suppose that I'm one of the minority that has worse experience with Firefox than with IE.

I probably shouldn't be throwing fuel into fire, but about IE security flaws:
Sure, IE has security flaws, but are you saying that you won't be using anti-virus programs at all with Firefox? No firewall or routers? That's just like inviting hackers and viruses to come over.
I'm not excusing IE for its flaws, but I don't understand the insistence on picking away at it because of it, when security issues are universal for most cases and could be solved partially by other means than just through browsers.

[Elessa]

I'm not excusing IE for its flaws, but I don't understand the insistence on picking away at it because of it, when security issues are universal for most cases and could be solved partially by other means than just through browsers.

i do not use windows as an operating system. having an OS that is used by less then 2% of the population doesn't encourage malicious code to be written for it. therefore, anything potentially encountered by firefox will not be detrimental as it wouldn't be written in code that my computer would recognize or be affected by.

[Vode Andreas]

What OS are you running Elessa? Linux of some way, shape or form?

[Furion]

This might just be me, but it seems to me that she has gone out of her way not to say which one.....

Anyway, we'll see. If she doesn't tell us, it's a privacy/security thing, which is the evolved topic of this thread, anyway.

[Skaak]

Not sure why Elessa is being so circumspect about which OS she uses; she's completely given it away twice in this thread. But maybe that's just me.

Anyway, for anyone using Mac OS X, it's worth noting that the Safari browser (under 10.3) has some weird issue with LotGD where it claims that the page you're linking to doesn't contain any information. Far as I can tell this is totally random (doesn't happen every link), and the link always works the second time you click it. It finally got frustrating enough for me that I started using Firefox to get my LotGD fix. I've never had a problem with Firefox, so I assume it's Safari's problem.

And don't even get me started on how hellish it is to try to code a page that follows HTML standards and also works on IE. Microsoft has been trying as hard as they can to break internet standards since Netscape was a competitor, and it really makes me sad that people still swear by IE.

[Pwyll]

it really makes me sad that people still swear by IE.

Actually, most Web developers swear at IE. :wink:

[Waugh]

Yup. But the audience is IE, no two ways about it. You have to meet the demand. And that means coding for an IE audience.

[Elessa]

Yup. But the audience is IE, no two ways about it. You have to meet the demand. And that means coding for an IE audience.


which means coding hacks and incorrect/inefficient code...

[Skaak]

Yup. But the audience is IE, no two ways about it. You have to meet the demand. And that means coding for an IE audience.

Actually, there are two ways around it:

1) Everyone using IE could see the light and start to use a modern browser which doesn't ignore web standards and isn't as riddled with holes as a piece of swiss cheese. Firefox is a viable replacement in this scenario.

2) People coding websites could stop pandying to a company that thinks that having the largest market share means it has the right to write user-unfriendly and standard-breaking software. Then users of such websites would have the choice to use a standards-compliant browser or view a lot of ugly, broken pages.

Coding for IE and standards compliant browsers means hacks, bad code, and usually hours of effort, frustration, and testing.

Downloading Firefox takes maybe 20 minutes on dial-up.

I really can't understand why people so easily dismiss web standards, but maybe it's just because I develop web pages.

[Pwyll]

2) People coding websites could stop pandying to a company that thinks that having the largest market share means it has the right to write user-unfriendly and standard-breaking software. Then users of such websites would have the choice to use a standards-compliant browser or view a lot of ugly, broken pages.

Yup. And then all of us who code Web pages would get fired by the companies we work for, who are only interested in whether people see their sites and spend money buying their goods and services and would freak out if their sites were appearing broken to the millions of IE users.

Unfortunately, market share does give MS the ability to do pretty much whatever they want - for the moment, anyway.

[Acemaster]

Okay, I love Firefox and do not like IE. However, could someone give me an example of how IE flaunts coding standards? I'm not in the business, so I am sure I have no clue how to spot this anyways... I just would like to see an example. :)

[SaucyWench]

The vast majority of hover text on images. View virtually ANY page in IE that has images and hover the mouse over an image. If text appears, I'll put money that it's in an alt= value in the tag.

http://url.com/image.name

According to the standard, that text there should ONLY appear if the image does NOT (because the link is broken or because the user has images turned off). But have a look at it in IE - the text pops up on cue. The CORRECT attribute to use if you want text to appear as you hover over an image is title= not alt=.

Unfortunately, so many designers use this incorrectly that Firefox users start reporting, "Nothing comes up when I hover!!!!" That's right, because the designer either did it wrong by mistake, or it was INTENTIONAL and not SUPPOSED to, and IE just babied you into thinking it should.

[Skaak]

It's not technically a coding standard, but here's a web standard that IE flaunts that drives me up the wall:

It doesn't support transparency in PNG (http://www.w3.org/Graphics/PNG/) images. GIF's, the only other widespread image format with transparency, are proprietary, lower quality, and are much harder to work with. PNG's have been a web standard for years, and yet for some unknown reason IE still does not support them. ARGH!

Additionally annoying, IE's sporadic support for organizational things like div tags means that tables are one of the few ways to get things to work cross-browser. This is a shame, as tables are not very friendly for full accessibility (i.e. non-visual mediums) and they also lock content into place, thus invalidating much of the usefulness of cascading style sheets (CSS) which could otherwise very easily completely change the layout of a page without changing the page's code.

If you want the complete, boring, technical list of IE's compatibility with web standards here it is (http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/implementation/eval_win_ie6.html).

Yup. And then all of us who code Web pages would get fired by the companies we work for, who are only interested in whether people see their sites and spend money buying their goods and services and would freak out if their sites were appearing broken to the millions of IE users.

Unfortunately, market share does give MS the ability to do pretty much whatever they want - for the moment, anyway.

Hey! No realism allowed in the idealistic dream world!

[Ohtaren]

IE seems to be getting a bashing here, so I'll at least provide more information.

Saucy, there is nothing in the HTML specs (http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/)that say 'alt' text cannot be displayed when you put your mouse over an image. There is also nothing saying that the 'title' text must be displayed when you hover. These are choices left up to the makers of the browsers, which means IE did not break any standards with its implementation. More importantly, however, if both attributes exist on an image, IE 'correctly' only shows the 'title' text when you hover over the image. So if you use both the required 'alt' tag and the 'title' tag, the text will display as expected in IE.

Skaak, I don't know where you got the link to that list, but it certainly isn't talking about web standards like HTML and CSS. Rather, it refers to accessiblity by those with disabilities. For an actual web standards compatibility overview, I haven't found anything better than this site (http://nanobox.chipx86.com/browser_support.php). It has a table breaking down compatibility to the tag level and includes links to further resources. You can see that IE is behind the other browsers in many areas, but none of them are perfect and IE is better at some things.

You might also be happy to know that Microsoft has announced that they will include transparent PNG support in IE7, which will beta this summer. It will also apparently include tabbed browsing along with the expected security fixes. If you want information on IE, the IE blog at Microsoft (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/) is a more reliable source of information than the rumor mill.

[Pwyll]

If you want to know what the standards for HTML - the main language in which web pages are written - are, this is the authoritative site: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/.

[Booger]

it doesn't tell you not to use 'alt' as tooltips since the specs tell you what the intended use is, not what it shouldn't be used as. the specs clearly say it is supposed to give information about the element when it can't be rendered normally, which is not the case if a picture is loaded and displayed.

'title' on the other hand is intended to provide advisory information about the element and it is left up to the browser how the information is rendered. interestingly the intended use fits pretty well what tooltips are for.

lastly if you really think microsoft is the place to go for reliable and unbiased information about their products (not just IE) I feel truly sorry for you.

[SaucyWench]

From the W3 specs (thank you):
alt = text [CS]
For user agents that cannot display images, forms, or applets, this attribute specifies alternate text... let authors specify alternate text to serve as content when the element cannot be rendered normally

Alt, as in *alternate* text. As an *alternate* to the image. When it can't be rendered normally. Not "in addition". I can understand the argument that a browser can choose to do what it likes with an attribute... excuse me while I go and make <h2> display a flashing neon marquee. :wink:

[Ohtaren]

Pwyll, you do realize that the link you provided was identical to the one I provided?

Booger, if you noticed in my post, I said "more reliable..than the rumor mill." I also deliberately removed the word 'unbiased' from anywhere in my post when I added the link to the IE blog. I did get more detailed information about IE7 from the blog than I have from any other source.

I didn't want to make a long post earlier and wanted to see how the post was received. Alright, the alt attribute is older than the title attribute. My theory is that at some point it seemed like a nice feature to be able to view the alternate text without having to view the source of the entire document. So the IE team decided that they would display the alternate text if a specific user action was performed--hovering the mouse over the image. It was most likely a nifty feature that eventually led to the current use of the title tag, and has been included ever since for compatibility. You may note that the HTML specs have very clear terms such as "MUST NOT" to specifically disallow something or "SHOULD NOT" to recommend against it in general. And after all, originally HTML did not have support for images, so the first browser to implement support broke the standard.

[SaucyWench]

*laughs* it was probably Netscape.

*shakes her fist at Netscape!*

[Moonchilde]

From the W3 specs (thank you):
Alt, as in *alternate* text. As an *alternate* to the image. When it can't be rendered normally. Not "in addition". I can understand the argument that a browser can choose to do what it likes with an attribute... excuse me while I go and make <h2> display a flashing neon marquee. :wink:

Ahhh.. the joys of CSS.. You could do tht you know?? And IE would probably not display it correctly (it's CSS support is (or at least has always been) the worst of the lot). But then Firefox doesn't pass the ACID2 test either :/

[Skaak]

Skaak, I don't know where you got the link to that list, but it certainly isn't talking about web standards like HTML and CSS. Rather, it refers to accessiblity by those with disabilities. For an actual web standards compatibility overview, I haven't found anything better than this site (http://nanobox.chipx86.com/browser_support.php). It has a table breaking down compatibility to the tag level and includes links to further resources. You can see that IE is behind the other browsers in many areas, but none of them are perfect and IE is better at some things.

Heh, did a search. Evidentally I didn't read the page close enough. That page you provided is way cool. Thanks!

You might also be happy to know that Microsoft has announced that they will include transparent PNG support in IE7, which will beta this summer. It will also apparently include tabbed browsing along with the expected security fixes.

I actually couldn't care less about this. By now I've lost all respect for Microsoft (which, as a Mac user, is my holy prerogative :D), and they are so far behind on PNGs and tabbed browsing that implementing them is basically a "why didn't you do that years ago?" thing in my book. It will be kind of nice to be able to use transparent PNGs without major frustration, of course, but for most of my sites I've just screwed looking cool and gone with some clean XHTML transitional and CSS.

If Microsoft implemented proper CSS support, now...that would be pretty sweet.

[Acemaster]

My dad just read an article about Mozilla, and he says that Firefox is based off of the old Netscape browser. Is that true?

[Ohtaren]

Yes, very true. I studied the history of the web in one of my classes. Basically, after the web was first created by Tim Berners-Lee the first browser to get a lot of attention and use was Mosaic (the first one with image support as far as I know). It was developed by a group of computer science students from the University of Illinois. However, their university claimed rights to the program, so an independent businessman stepped in and hired all of the students. They formed Netscape and operated by making their Mozilla browser free for home users and licensed for businesses. Then Microsoft took notice and introduced Internet Exporer, which undercut Netscape because it was free for everyone. The Netscape business model crumbled, and the Netscape team made a last-ditch effort to save their company by making their browser source public (not sure how this worked, but they were soon bought out by AOL for enough money to save face). Both the open source Mozilla and Firefox browsers have been based off that source code. For that matter, the user agent string for Internet Explorer starts with "Mozilla/4.0" I'm not too sure how closely all of the browsers are related at the lowest levels, but you can see that Mozilla has established itself fairly well.

[Catscradler]

And an interesting turnabout:
Version 8.0.2 - based on Firefox
as seen here (http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/support/relnotes.jsp).

[Ohtaren]

Actually, if you look at Netscape 8 carefully, you will see that it no longer has independent rendering capabilities. It is actually just a shell that interfaces with either Firefox or Internet Explorer and uses them to render web pages. The default renderer is Firefox, because of its security. Trusted sites are rendered with IE because of its increased compatability for common Microsoft code such as Office XML and ActiveX. You can see what I'm talking about here (http://www.brustblog.com/PermaLink,guid,14fdb863-4733-4a0d-a690-4604437c380b.aspx).

[Crowley]

Wow. That's actually pretty smart.