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Navigator 4, Explorer 4, is it worth losing these viewers?

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egims

egims

Technical User
Jun 5, 2001
96
US
I am constructing a site that will both look beautiful and work fine under Explorer 5+ or Navigator 6+

The problem is that the CSS techniques I am using will not work in Navigator 4 (for the greater part), and I am not able to test in Explorer 4.

Does anyone have any idea of how many people are still using these older versions? I guess the real question is are there enough people still using these old versions that it is not worth using many of the available CSS techniques and losing them?

I welcome as many opinions as possible.

Thanks.
 
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I refuse to support NS4 (it is stipulated in my contract). I only support IE4+ and NS6/Mozilla.

Is it worth loosing NS4 users. The answer is up to you. Stats all over the web aren't very accurate but they all show that NS4 is a small minority that is regressing daily.

Dropping NS4 was a business decision for my company and it made us save about 50% coding time. We decided to support standards instead of NS4 so people that liked Netscape could upgrade to NS6 and have our service and anyone with a standard compliant browser could as well.

We found it very easy to support IE4+ as well as NS6/Mozilla.

I hope this helps. Gary Haran
 
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Hello,

Last year, I made a web site for a VERY big company,
(the kind of contract you COULDN'T refuse), and the
fun part is 90% of the people in this company
were using Netscape 3.x!
Sometimes, that's such a hassle for such big
companies to upgrade their browsers.

So, I made it compatible for Netscape 3.x too. Lots of
work, but it had to be done.

Bye. My Work...
...and More...
 
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yeah that happens a lot. Big companies are slow to upgrade. One big company here in France is using Netscape 2. No matter how much effort you put NS2 will not support DHTML. ;) So since they were running it on OS/2 we decided to open to Mozilla and Netscape 6 wich is easy to code in and very powerful. Moz/NS6 runs well even on old OS/2 machines as well as Linux, UNIX, etc...

Still Sleida. Poor you for having to deal with that. LOL I hope you made enough money for it. ;) Gary Haran
 
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Why don't you create a javascript that first checks the platform, then checks
the browser type. Dependent on which browser/platform is being use, the script
assigns a .css script. Within each .css script pre-define the font, a, big, small, tags with the fonts/colors/sizes you wish to use. Also remember the font pt difference between these browsers/platforms. Usually 3 pt difference.

This will solve all your problems without having to design for each.
Works for me!
 
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Why don't you create a javascript that first checks the platform, then checks
the browser type. Dependent on which browser/platform is being use, the script
assigns a .css script. Within each .css script pre-define the font, a, big, small, tags with the fonts/colors/sizes you wish to use. Also remember the font pt difference between these browsers/platforms. Usually 3 pt difference.

This will solve all your problems without having to design for each.
Works for me!

N-

 
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it's not so simple if your using dhtml. personaly i recomend forgetting the browser. set up a warning meassage or something for anyone who somes to the site without a standers compliant browser. it seems to me the only way we will get people to stop using grabage browsers is if we stop suporting them. soon they will see the web in blak and white, then they will be forced to change.
 
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In the real world, clients decide, you obey.
It's that simple.
If you can't offer them what they want, they will
look for someone else.
All is about money. You will accept the job because you
need money. And they don't upgrade to a more recent
browser because it costs money.

But of course what you said is feasible under the condition
you have "small" clients who don't have any clue about
the internet. My Work...
...and More...
 
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ah, well. my clients are "small," and don't know about browser isues beside what i tell them.
 
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Theocraticmind,

quoting you : "don't know about browser isues beside what i tell them".

makes it sound like you can be machiavellian in making your clients believe something that isn't just to suit your need. So here is where I come and take your defense. :)

NS4 was a failure for techical reasons and because it is not suited for web application developement it should be dropped by companies all over in favor of a free browser that has more features.

Just a few examples of the CSS not supported by NS4 display:none; and overflow:auto;. Just these two things alone are worth the upgrade! :)

Think also of the mouseover not working on TR. Think also of className not working either.

Still want to support NS4? :) Dropt it now!! :) Gary Haran
 
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thanks for the suport (-:

i honestly didn't mean that like it came out. what i meant to mean, is that they don't know about browser isues, but i tell them that i will not be suporting NS4 because of the reasons above, and i don't just not suport the browser and not tell them.
 
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You're all pretty much correct, or at least I agree with you all. If the client decides that, for whatever reason, you just have to support NS4, then you bite the bullet and do it, no matter how frustrating it may be (I know, I've been there). If you have the luxury of dictating to the client which browsers they should use, or of deciding which browsers you will support, then I say "to hades with NS4". There just aren't enough users of that version left to make it worth the bother and effort to support them. My philosophy is that anyone who is still using that version or an older one is probably not someone I want to deal with anyway. Tracy Dryden
tracy@bydisn.com

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard. [dragon]
 
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