Notes
- The site has been tested on Windows 95/98 and NT using IE5.5, Netscape 4.6 and Netscape 6.1/6.2 and Opera 5. It has also been tested on Linux using Opera 5, Netscape 4.7 and Mozilla. If your browser doesn't work then let me know.
- Some of the special pages (not yet available) will not be designed to be backwards compatible and may require a minimum of IE5.5, Netscape 6 or Opera 5. I will try and provide alternatives if necessary.
- Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are used widely throughout the site and should have no affect on browsers that don't use style sheets but may have adverse affects on Internet Explorer 3 and Netscape 4.xx whose style sheets implementations are broken. The usual advice is to disable style sheets on these browsers - of course the site will not look the same.
- Internet Explorer 5.5 - Probably the best browser on the Windows platform in terms of development and reliability. I haven't had a chance to test IE6 yet but I'm told it is very similar.
- Opera 5 - a current favourite browser and yes you do have to pay $39 to get rid of the advertisements but it is available to use on many platforms including Linux, EPOC and Macintosh. It has some minor failings but is very quick.
- Netscape 6.2 looks good (it probably renders the site better than any of the others) and is very standards compliant but the interface can be unreliable and I have heard reports of problems with installation.
- Linux browsers are a different matter. The best browser at the moment, IMHO, is Opera 5 although Konqueror 2.2 (The KDE file manager) runs it a close second. Mozilla renders the site extremely well (but since it has the same engine as Netscape 6 that is to be expected) and is getting better but is still fairly buggy although I haven't tried the most recent version. Netscape 4.7 is OK but does not work well with style sheets (this is also the same under Windows). It is also occasionally unstable. Other Unix based browsers tested against the site include Amaya and Lynx. Lynx is a wholly text based Unix browser but the most important parts of the site (i.e. the stories and archive lists) are quite usable.