browsers and platforms

[Behemoth]

I'm curious as to the percentages of internet users, and their preferred browsers and platforms. I think it would be a valuable resource for any web developers. I found some old stats (about 3years old I think), which state that about 70-80% of users browse with Internet Explorer, but I know nothing more specific.

If anyone can help I would be particularly grateful.

[Jerry Grant]

As I can only vote once, I couldnt specify two!
I am doing some development with a site which must also be viewed in WebTV. This is not on your list, and I cannot add it as I have voted already!
WebTV browsers account for about 2% of users on the internet.
So with this useless statistic, we may as well ignore WebTV!

Has anyone else out there developed for WebTV?

no one else gonna help me with this one?

[JoshT]

In late 1996 when I first starting keeping stats on my site it was about 75% Netscape, 25% other browsers. Now it's about 75% IE, 25% other browsers.

Josh

[Clunietp]

Jerry

A guy I work with has to develop for WebTV -- he says that they can't view frames or have any Javascript -- is this true? EEK

I still need these results - anyone else able to help. Its unfortunate that you cant post more than once. Im in development and test on all 4 of the options. My platform/browser of choise is PCIE tho.

[Cander]

I always use a PC with that latest IE. As web developer I keep up with all the latest web technologies and standards from W3. And Microsoft has done a good job keeping up with it. IE's support for HTML/XML/XSL is far superior, assumng Netscape is even suporting XML yet..it took them forever just to support html 4.

I know I've struggled tremendously trying to get any sort of CSS functionality from Netscape browsers.

[Piz Bruin]

As an ASP developer I try to keep track of browsers that visit my sites. My findings are similar to JoshT's. A few years ago it was 75% NN and 25% IE. My latest stats are 88% IE, 12% NN.

I often wondered why the market share changed so drastically until I began coding cross browser ASP. Netscape is so far behind IE in its functionality and actual W3C compliance it is disgusting. They consistently bend the truth on what their browser supports. IFRAMES and CSS for example.

I know for a fact that NN users do not see many of the features that are out there on the web. Developers like me are sick of having to downgrade their applications to be NN compatible, and just choose not to. NN users usually see browser specific pages that are slimmed down.

You have to consider too that AOL owns Netscape, and we all know what a big piece of crap AOL is.

~Piz

[Jerry Grant]

WebTV does support frames (well sort of anyway!)
What it does, is to convert the frames into a table.
Say you have a page with two frames: a navigation pane on the left and a main frame on the right. These are reproduced, but scroll together, as if in a table.

JScript is available, but not those cool DHTML lists and animated effects. If you want client side validation etc, its OK, but there are no alerts available!. Go and take a look at the FAQ at developer.webtv.net to get the low down on what you can and what you can't do!

Glad to hear there are others out there using technologies on the fringe!

[Cander]

I wonder when MS will start implementing SVG into IE? The adobe plugin is too slow.
Knowing MS, they are working on it, and knowing Netscape, there will be no implementation for it for about 4 years, then it will be at only 50%!!!