RE: media:Fw: Will the New AOL Break Your Site?

These responses are not directed at David, but rather the person that put
the original marketing piece together.  First off, this should have been
titled "Will your poor markup and coding break in the new AOL?"

>Will The New AOL Break Your Site?

No, not if you've coded your site to the W3C standards.

>Instead of using Microsoft's Internet Explorer, AOL 8 will use
>Netscape Navigator Version 6.

I don't think that AOL has actually announced this as of yet.  In fact, my
understanding was that AOL 8 would ship with Netscape 7, which would be the
final version of Mozilla.

>Does your Web site work under Netscape 6? Many Web sites don't.

That's because people aren't paying attention to the WASP initiative and the
W3C.  Webmasters have stopped learning, and are still writing markup like
it's 1995.

>In the past Webmasters have often overlooked Netscape 6 because of
>its small market share.

>*** 33 Million New Netscape Users ***

>AOL's switch means you can't ignore Netscape 6 anymore.

If you've coded to the standards, then you shouldn't have to worry anyway.
Besides, any designer/developer worth his or her weight tests in Netscape,
Opera, IE and a text browser.

>With 33,000,000 subscribers, AOL is by far the world's largest
>Internet Service Provider.

This is a victory for those of us who are fighting for standards.

>*** Major Changes, Major Problems ***
>NN6 is a complete re-write of the old Netscape browser and won't
>tolerate many common HTML errors.

Common errors means invalid markup.

>If you use JavaScript to create drop-down menus or scrolling text on
>your site, your site is especially vulnerable.  

If you use any Javascript your site is "vulnerable."

>Don't lose visitors because of broken pages? Visitors blame the Web
>site, not the browser.

Broken pages are the result of bad browsers, bad code and bad markup
practices.  Let's place the blame appropriately.

>Browser Photo is the best way to make sure your site displays
>correctly for everyone browsing the Web.

What does "displays correctly" mean?  This is an impossibility due to user
configuration.  Here we go again with the mentality that the page must
display pixel-perfect in every browser.

>Testing with Netscape 4 doesn't mean your site will work under the
>new Netscape 6.

This is true.  But the site should be built so that it works properly under
4.x and 6.  Notice I said "works," not displays.  The key is to ensure that
the user has access to the information.

>NN6 is a complete re-write of the old Netscape browser, pages that
>work well under the old browser may be broken under NN6.

I don't know of anyone who has been writing their pages exclusively for NN
4.x. 

Randal

Received on Wednesday, 22 May 2002 07:46:26 UTC