The ongoing Netscape Dilemma

I was working on a web site a couple of months ago. It was a pretty standard sports site for an up and coming service on the web. I was leading a project team to completely redesign yet another messed up post Pabulum project. Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against the Pabulum group, but their code is impossible to work with. The purpose of this assignment was to get the code ready for dynamic generation. We had to make it simpler, without losing the effect. It was also my first project that took advantage of JSP code. Needless to say, I was excited.<p>
As the project went on however, we noticed dozens of layout issues with Netscape 4.76, which was the latest Netscape Browser at the time. Tables would appear at the wrong side of the screen, if they even appeared at all. Font colors would be wrong. Pictures would be distorted. In a fit of javascripting, I even wrote two sets of code to compensate for the vast difference in the browsers.<p>
After a long night of pizza eating and frenzied coding, the site went live. We watched the hits come in over the soda can covered desk of the head of engineering. It was a remarkable experience. One detail that struck me though. Over the first three hours we received 90 hits. I know it's wrong to call sessions hits, but I just can't help myself. 90 hits doesn't sound like much, but that's really not all that bad for your first three hours. <p>
86 users on IE. 3 users on Netscape, and one besheveled Lynx user. Back in the days, before GIFs and JPEGs there was one browser, and it only read text. Usually, on one-color screens, this browser provided it's users with the latest in news, and um, all five other web sites that were online at the time. It had no capability for JavaScript. Heck, JavaScript didn't even exist yet. No graphics, nothing. It did one thing and did it well. Text.<p>
Over the years, graphical browsers like Mosaic and Netscape1 took its place. And then a funny thing happened. Microsoft.<p>
As a large Evil Corporate Entity based on world domination, they saw the potential that the Internet provided. Thus, Microsoft Internet Explorer was born. Now, the first few versions of IE were terrible. Netscape had them out moded in every way. And so the browser war began. Users took sides quickly. Although, IE became a part of the Windows 95 Operating system, Netscape had something IE never could. Sympathy. Being an IE user in a Netscape office became as bad as being a Republican in California. Web sites started screening out any browser that didn't have Mozilla in the tag line, and virtual blood was shed from Redmond to Haifa. It was became a religious argument. To a Netscape user, you were less of a human being if you preferred IE. It was like you were in league with the Devil himself, Bill Gates. Eventually, Microsoft won, nearly driving Netscape out of Business. Microsoft didn&#8217;t buy Netscape, but in the eyes of most Netscape users at the time, AOL wasn't much better. As browsers became more advanced, we saw the beginnings of streaming content, new Languages like Java, ASP, and others were buzzing around the IT community. IE became the staple at most Internet startups, and as someone who really didn't care what browser I was using, that was fine by me. Months later, I was using IE 4.76. After complaints from a client that the page wasn't viewing properly in Netscape 4.1, I downloaded it. To my shock and utter horror, I watched as Netscape ttore and mangled my beautiful pages. <p>So I rewrote them. When I was done, they looked great in Netscape. My client was very pleased. Unfortunately, IE didn't have the slightest clue as to where to even start reading them. Eventually, I settled for an inferior product, just because it read the same way in both browsers.<p>
But that was almost two years ago.
By the time I had started at the happy little sports site, I was using IE 5.5 and according to the server logs, almost no one was still using Netscape 4.76
Honestly, I couldn't blame them. But viewing the first 90 hits, and noticing that Netscape users literally out numbered Lynx users two to one. I wondered if I had wasted three weeks of my clients&#8217; time on nothing? Could there be a sudden surge of Netscape users that would make the whole thing worthwhile?<p>
The users never came.<p>
The next project I started was for a furniture company. By this time, Netscape 6.1 had been released, and I was jumping for joy. Finally, I can get away with screening out 4.76 users. So that was exactly what I did. When that site went live we had a larger percentage of Netscape users. Six Percent. Sometimes, it even went up to 15. Never higher. 4.x users were sent to a page telling them to upgrade. It felt good.<p>
But even with Netscape 6.1, IE is still a better browser. It's faster, and smarter. Although Netscape 6.1 has some cool new features that IE doesn't have, like skins, the fact is that a browsers job is still too read web pages. That's all. It doesn't need too be an amazing program as long as it reads web pages fast, well, and accurately. At all of these, IE just does a better job. As a developer, I need to be impartial. But ask yourself this question: <p>Are you using your browser because you honestly believe it's a better browser? Or are you using it because you hate Microsoft?