rcjordan - 2:19 pm on Jun 14, 2000 (gmt 0)

re: With the advent of bigoted sites doing browser sniffing

I'm the worst offender when it comes to browser sniffing and burdening the site with js/dhtml --particularly for site navigation. I do not, however, use CSS stylesheets or Java. Basically, I'm willing to throw away 5 to 8 percent of the traffic to gain control. I would not be so cavalier if I had smaller sites, but because I have sites that run into thousands of pages, I really don't have other options. I have several criteria (banner revenue is weighted at approximately 25%) that make up my internal composite score of how my sites are doing --let's just call that "Sales." Since instituting browser sniffing and dhtml-driven site navigation, my sales have risen by 50 percent.

I've already made a decision to get worse, even more bigoted. This is to lighten the total K of js overhead and speed initial page loading. Rather than sniffing for browser version numbers, I'm basically going to shorten the code to "if MSIE, go to A. if NS, go to B." If Opera (gotcha), WebTV, or Macs can't follow, I'm sorry.

Do I get protests from users? Yes, two or three times a month a year ago, but I can't remember how many months its been since the last one. Mac users, particularly AOL Mac users, used to be hard hit. But, that also seems to have diminished to zero. There is even an occassional phone call from sponsors and advertisers concerned that their customer couldn't get on the sites. Again, sorry, but I can't do what I do and make it work for everyone.

Here's my post from that other forum
Re compatability with older browsers, it's not really a concern. Here's a current shot from my logs [uniques in brackets]. Even if you consider only Ver 4+, you're covering 95%.
MSIE 5 [28359] 51.00%
Netscape 4 [11816] 21.25%
MSIE 4 [9993] 17.97%
AOL 4 [2740] 4.92%
Netscape 3 [1202] 2.16%
WebTV 1 [556] 0.99%
MSIE 3 [481] 0.86%
AOL 3 [319] 0.57%
Netscape 2 [63] 0.11%
Other [41] 0.08%
MSIE 2 [12] 0.02%
Netscape 5 [7] 0.01%