Or the Internet WEB experience as it stands today.
Being a staunch advocate of free software tools (also known as FOSS) as I am I find it increasingly furstrating to see web pages the exclaim only Mircosoft 5.5 and above browsers can use this page and other such messages designed/created to help the user. Of course, that kind of help is no help and is simply caused because whoever created the web site was too lazy to design it properly using well established standards so that the web site works across all known browsers.
Then, of course, there are those designers that use closed source tools to design the web site with the associated lock-in those closed source tools have.
Too many companies hire Web developers who have never used any non-MS tools. These people view W3C-compliant code as "nonstandard", and adamantly insist that Microsoft Malware Magnet is the One True Browser. That's the charitable interpretation. I'm sure Microsoft never slips companies money or heavily-discounted software under the table in exchange for Web pages designed to look like crap on any browser that doesn't emulate MSIE's bugs, right?
Of course, what "Best viewed with MSIE 5.5 or higher" really means in
most cases is "I'm too lazy to test with any other browser."
Plus there are those designers that still use ActiveX controls within their web designs. ActiveX has been proven time and time again to be the single biggest hole in any browser ever but designers don't care about your security as long as they get paid for their creations.
I don't know how many web sites are left using such lock-in designs as it is would be almost impossible for me to seek each and every one out but I see enough of them during my daily web travels to know that some are old enough to have been created before Firefox and friends in the open source world came to be but there are some still being designed and it is those new ones that really have no excuse.
I lay the blame for all of these poorly designed web sites squarely on Microsoft.
Designing web site like this is a sure fire way to lose custom.
Being a staunch advocate of free software tools (also known as FOSS) as I am I find it increasingly furstrating to see web pages the exclaim only Mircosoft 5.5 and above browsers can use this page and other such messages designed/created to help the user. Of course, that kind of help is no help and is simply caused because whoever created the web site was too lazy to design it properly using well established standards so that the web site works across all known browsers.
Then, of course, there are those designers that use closed source tools to design the web site with the associated lock-in those closed source tools have.
Too many companies hire Web developers who have never used any non-MS tools. These people view W3C-compliant code as "nonstandard", and adamantly insist that Microsoft Malware Magnet is the One True Browser. That's the charitable interpretation. I'm sure Microsoft never slips companies money or heavily-discounted software under the table in exchange for Web pages designed to look like crap on any browser that doesn't emulate MSIE's bugs, right?
Of course, what "Best viewed with MSIE 5.5 or higher" really means in
most cases is "I'm too lazy to test with any other browser."
Plus there are those designers that still use ActiveX controls within their web designs. ActiveX has been proven time and time again to be the single biggest hole in any browser ever but designers don't care about your security as long as they get paid for their creations.
I don't know how many web sites are left using such lock-in designs as it is would be almost impossible for me to seek each and every one out but I see enough of them during my daily web travels to know that some are old enough to have been created before Firefox and friends in the open source world came to be but there are some still being designed and it is those new ones that really have no excuse.
I lay the blame for all of these poorly designed web sites squarely on Microsoft.
Designing web site like this is a sure fire way to lose custom.
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