No more Netscape and Internet Explorer...

...eventually.
AOL announced the other day it's pulling the plug on Netscape Navigator. They've already stripped the offices.
Microsoft says it won't make new versions of Internet Explorer available for download. Buyers of new Windows distributions will get the latest greatest browser, but free standalones... nope.
What does this mean for us?
Well, not much ar first. People tend to stick with what they've used for years or what came as default on their computer. But after a while- maybe only a few months - cutting edge sites will start encouraging their users to download Opera, Mozilla or other browsers that are still evolving and reflecting new web standards and emerging technology.
So how does your site look on these browsers? Have you tested it? Download one and try it out. This is what a sizable minority of your visitors is seeing now. In the near future that minority will be a lot bigger.
Let's get tweaking!


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Hi Laurel:

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you need to check your site in Netscape...even though as you say it is almost history, there are still diehards like me using Netscape, and your site is not optimized for it.

Cornell

Oh dear, it's true... because I made the conscious decision not to do the 2-3 hours work needed to create a separate stylesheet for Netscape 4, a 5 year old browser which my stats show is used by less than 3% of my visitors - there are more people using Mozilla.

My site "only" works in MSIE, Opera, Netscape 7, Mozilla, Palm PDA's, other handheld devices and screen readers for the blind. But you can't win 'em all...:o)

But seriously, Cornell, your Internet experience would be so much better if you used one of these more modern browsers - not just for the undoubted joys of my own site, but practically every site created in the last 3 or 4 years is going to be much prettier and easier to read. May I suggest Opera? It's what I use myself and has lots of great features, plus it's FAST.


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Hi

While it's sad news to hear about the "demise" (i.e. "killing off") of Netscape Navigator, it's a bad long term strategy on Microsoft's part. One of the reasons Netscape Navigator became so popular was because it was FREE. Then Microsoft did the same and bundled it with the Operating System, and people gradually stopped using Netscape.

I suspect Microsoft are going to try charging for it again in the near future. If they do, someone else (like Opera) will simply step into the arena big time, offer their browser for FREE, and we'll have Browser Wars II on our hands!

In fact, all it takes is one Mark Joyner type to come up with a way of offering a browser for free, getting it promoted virally (like StartBlaze) and making money out of it at the same time - and Microsoft will once again have competition on their hands. And they're not quite used to that, are they? ;-)

In the meantime, you might want to look at Opera as an alternative. I'm not connected to the company, just a happy user. I have IE, Opera AND Netscape on my computer and I can genuinely say that Opera is the quickest.
http://www.opera.com

Best,

Paul Hancox
http://www.salespagemasterpro.com

P.S: If you want to email me, remove the "-buttocks" from my email address ;-) It's an anti-spam thing...


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Hi Laurel:

Yes I have them all...I use them for verifying my web designs and displays, but fact of the matter is I prefer to use Netscape 4.7 but if necessary will switch to another browser if need be to see a site....a point of aggravation and only will do so if I relly want to see what the site has to offer...most of the time I just move on to another site offering similar info.

Bearing that in mind, plus the the fact that the 3% of visitors your stats show probably don't have other browsers other than IE and probably do the same as I do, then if there were 10,000 visitors a month (have no idea of your count) one would be possibly losing 300 visitors...

....if the conversion rate was 1 of 3 then 100 sales would be lost...I guess that is small peanuts each month unless of course one is selling digital products with a SP of say $47 and then it would only be a loss of $4700.

This is just my take on it and the reason for bringing it to your attention...was just trying to be helpful.

Cornell

I didn't mean to sound snippy! I too have NN4 for testing, but using it day-to-day... yeesh.
I take your point about the potential loss of revenue, but since on my site it would probably see me leaving 10 cents or so on the table, I'm not going to sweat it. I'm fed up with tweaking for NN4. So call me a standards nazi ;o)


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Hi

> While it's sad news to hear about the
> "demise" (i.e. "killing
> off") of Netscape Navigator, it's a bad
> long term strategy on Microsoft's part. One
> of the reasons Netscape Navigator became so
> popular was because it was FREE.

Paul not to be rude or anything but Microsoft's browser is Internet Explorer not Netscape.

Laurel you must remember that 3% of say 100,000,000 internet users is 3,000,000 people and I think there are a lot more than 100,000,000 people on the net.

Plus even though Netscape 4.7 is years old most of the people who use it are old time surfers and if they can't load a site they never come back to it. Do you really want to have 3,000,000 or more people not being able to access your site?

Better get used to it Netscape will be around for a long time.

Paul


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Hi Paul

> Paul not to be rude or anything but
> Microsoft's browser is Internet Explorer not
> Netscape.

You're absolutely right. Sorry, my post wasn't very clear. I was referring to the second news item, "Microsoft says it won't make new versions of Internet Explorer available for download" when I said it was a bad marketing strategy. I was referring to the two news reports but it came across as if Microsoft's browser was Netscape.

Oops!