Browser default fonts ?

[keyplyr]

What are the default font faces for these browsers?

IE/6

IE/5

IE/4

NN/6

NN/4

Opera/6

0pera/5

Mozilla/1

[rewboss]

Depends on the platform and the user settings.

As far as I know, most browsers use the following defaults:

Windows:
Serif: Times New Roman
Sans-serif: Arial
Monospace: Courier New

Mac:
Serif: Times
Sans-serif: Helvetica
Monospace: Courier

However, users may select their own defaults. In addition, they may also use their own specified stylesheet which may override their defaults, and in some cases even override your own stylesheet. Most users won't bother to do that, of course, but you can't rely on browser defaults entirely.

[keyplyr]

> ...you can't rely on browser defaults entirely.

Thanks, yeah I just want to know what average, outa-the-box, Joe user sees when font-family isn't specified, or if the stylesheet isn't found/served. Sometimes I don't name font-family/size intentionally to allow custom handicap settings (since I won't use 'em') for specific content.

I do try to include alternate fonts to backward support pretty old browsers, but I never know. There's nothing in my code that should ever confuse any browser, however I occasionally see errors in the logs naming some file that couldn't be found for some reason - go figure.

[rewboss]

There are all sorts of reasons why you might be getting requests for non-existent files, ranging from DNS issues (I once had a site the host managed to misconfigure in such a way that it was also available through a domain that should have been deleted -- when we looked at our logs we thought someone had tried to hack into our site) to robots looking for a non-existent robots.txt, or MSIE looking for a non-existent favicon.ico. It's highly unlikely to be a font, though, unless you've tried to use font embedding (or used it by accident).

Actually, the fonts I've named are installed on all PCs or Macs, which is probably why they are the browser defaults in the first place. They're virtually system fonts, which means if you uninstall them, you run the risk of not actually being able to use your machine at all.