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I mean, sheesh! the browser isn't even supported by Netscape itself [home.netscape.com] anymore, and hasn't been for months!
Let's push that old stinker off the cliff. Life would be so much easier if we didn't have that ancient junk pile around any longer. :)
Congrats on showing your client the light ;)
One of these markets is in a traditionally Macintosh field, and it looks to me like it's NN4 with Macintosh is where a big chunk of the holdouts are. Both these clients would like to drop NN4, but we just can't.
It bothers me that I'm really just turning users away, but in my case it's worth it.
Example: your form might not have coloured backgrounds and use Verdana 10px fonts, but it will still be a form.
Who needs the aggravation of having to sneak onto a graphic design school campus or a boutique internet cafe to use their Macs to check if our web site is blowing up?
Exactly. Same thing with those Mac users. ;) Fortunately, valid code seems to work okay with most versions of Mac browsers.
However, If valid code isn't rendered properly I am past caring about users that insist on using browsers that can't render valid code. I've seen people take valid code and render it invalid so they can serve up a styled page to a few users using broken browsers. Makes no sense to me.
div.the-bird:hover {
background: url{flippin-off-ie.png);
}
<div class="the-bird" title="NN4 is DEAD! Salute the new King of Obsolesecnce!">2010 is how many years away?</div>
;)
I like to think I did my own little part in accelerating NN4's demise... One down, one to go...
[webmasterworld.com...]
I'm still bruised from the experience.
(running away VERY quickly)
Can you imagine the gall of these professional people - doctors, lawyers and some of them even engineers - who would rather spend their time doing their work instead of keeping their browser updated! In fact, many of them never give a browser update a single thought.
Isn't NN4 a security risk? Geez, every other day there's a patch for IE, isn't NN4 vulnerable to some god-awful thing or another? With no patches available because it's unsupported?
Say it: NN4 is a security risk. NN4 is a security risk. NN4 is a security risk.
It works!
I agree with the main thrust of the thread, however. Thankfully, our main clientele of government and non-profit groups is indeed moving away from Netscape 4-- slowly. In 1999 over 50% of our visitors were still using NN4, by 2001 it had dropped to under 10%, and by the end of this year we hope it will be under 1% and we will drop even the pretense of NN4 support. We had to maintain Netscape 3 support until 2001, if that is any guide to how slowly things move in this sector. Office technology is simply not a priority for these organizations, a few of whom still dialup from the office on their Pentium 150s.
So until the IT department gives the go ahead to change, the staff are stuck with NS4. Besides, unless you know what to look for, people probably don't realise they're missing anything by using it.
Alas what is now happening is that IT departments are bringing in a new spec that is almost as bad. One place I won't reveal has very recently upgraded 400 machines to... Netscape 6.2! Despite 7 being out for ages.
My breakdown is 5% Netscape 4, 6% Gecko, and 89% MSIE. Plus a smattering of Safari, Opera, and Konqueror.
I stopped testing my site in Netscape 4 about a year ago and have yet to receive a single complaint from any staff member or manager (some may use Netscape 4 at home), customer, or other website user. I'd like to see my Netscape 4 hits shrink to oblivion, but in the meantime at least it's causing me no pain.
We have just made the same decision.
The only bit of bandwidth that we will waste on NN is a browser detect pop-up -- informing benefits of using Opera or IE. With directs to the appropriate download.
Rich
Sadly I still see MSIE 3 and 4 being used. If a machine has them on, and the user comes along without checking the version number, then that browser will be used. (Imagine a PC in a print room for instance, not used by anyone specifically. Who will bother to upgrade that?)
Then there are the constant upgrades. I get new ones literally every week for Windows XP! They all seem to be 'essential' security ones too. Hmmmm. I bet a large number of users don't even have the upgrade notification program switched on.
So when IE7 comes out, for many years, we will still be seeing IE5 and IE6 in our logs!
IE3? That must be fun, using IE3; can you say "script error"?
Haven't seen IE3 hits in any measurable # in awhile
(but then mine is a sheltered life)
I used ns4 for mail client up until recently, its
amazing how many sites quit supporting it.
It's always fun to go to a client whom you weren't able to
sell to and point out that the company site his
secretary made with publisher and frontpage comes up as
a blank page on netscape 4.
I say let it live awhile longer at least til IE 4 dies anyway..........
The Water Mammal
[edited by: MrDolphin at 10:02 pm (utc) on May 14, 2003]
I think it's a pretty reasonable guess that the tick marks on the left hand side represent 10%, putting NN$ at about 4%.
Running happily on Netscape 4.7 for many purposes, and wouldn't consider doing anything that would cause it problems.
However, I admit that it took about a day of analysis (i.e. on the first day that I looked at supporting IE 3) to determine that it simply COULDN'T be supported. It didn't know what HTML was, and it didn't know what Javascript was, but it was deep into system-crashing. I never saw anything about IE 4 to change that.
IE 6, well, in heavy internet use I have run it as much as two hours without crashing ... rarely ... but never three.
If IE 6 and NN4 were the only choices, I'd switch from IE 6 to NN4 any time, as many times as it took. And I'd pay for the privilege. And I'd be grateful.
Hey, while we're at it, lets lock out those Apple users. They only comprise a meager 1-3% of our audience.
Yeah, who do those people think they are? Choosing a rare and expensive boutique brand of computer instead of the popular cheap commodity brands! I don't want those people on my website.
Netscape 4 (all versions)= 0.3%
This means that I am happily dropping any kind of support for it. Actually, what really makes me think is that I just discovered 17 pages visited by... Msie 1.1! I would really like to know how those pages were looking...
I don't bother with Netscape 4 support or testing. The web will only move forward when we, the people who create the web, move it along forcibly. I have been considering implementing a javascript alert to say something like "The Browser you are using is old and does not comply with modern standards. We are now redirecting you to the Netscape site so you can be dragged, kicking and screaming into the 21st century"
My bank has a message like this on its e-banking page. Only problem is that it recomends Netscape 4 as an up-to-date browser! No one seems to have updated the page for several years.
I'm now changing my bank. For my own sites, I don't think it's my job to tell people which browser to use. I just give NN4 users unformatted text (or am moving to this). I regard anyone who can use a search engine or click on a link as a rational creature able to make up their own mind what sort of formatting they like. I have information that I wish to impart, and I'm not going to prevent anyone reading it because I don't like their browser.
