I'm going to try here to give you some very valuable information. We all have a tendency to want to blame someone else when something isn't right or way we think it should be. If you take nothing else from this article take this, before you blame webmaster of site you are viewing look at your system settings.Yes, there are some horrible web pages on internet and no matter what you do you'll never be able to view them properly. But, majority of webmasters designing websites make sure that they are optimized for viewing by majority of visitors, using browsers that are most common.
If you use your computer to travel vast expanse of internet it is a MUST, for you to have your computer optimized for best possible viewing experience. The job of designing websites is getting harder and harder. The variety of browsers and different versions of those browsers force designers to look closely at content they choose to place on their pages. One script that looks great on Microsoft IE 6.0 will totally scramble page when viewed in Netscape Navigator 6.2. There are also a number of scripts that will destroy a site when viewer is using AOL's browser.
What webmasters we communicate with try to do is design their sites to be viewed by majority. How do they know what majority is, you ask? Well, they can look at their domain files and see who, what, when, why and where.
I'll share with you an example: This is traffic breakdown from 1 of our sites over a 21 day period last summer.
Browsers -------- 1. MSIE 6.x 5,016 74.88% 2. Netscape 6.x 1102 17.91% 3. MSIE 5.x 144 4.28% 4. Netscape 3.x 35 1.04% 5. MSIE 3.x 27 0.80% 6. WebTV 23 0.68% 7. MSIE 0.x 10 0.29% 8. MSIE 2.x 3 0.08% Total 6,395 100.00%
Top 10 Screen Resolutions ------------------------- 1. 800 by 600 pixels 5,059 81.10% 2. 1024 by 768 pixels 875 11.88% 3. 640 by 480 pixels 167 5.29% 4. 800 by 580 pixels 20 0.63% 5. 800 by 553 pixels 10 0.31% 6. 1152 by 864 pixels 6 0.19% 7. 640 by 461 pixels 4 0.12% 8. 1280 by 1024 pixels 2 0.06% 9. 1152 by 870 pixels 2 0.06% 10. 767 by 553 pixels 1 0.03% Total 6,395
Operating Systems ----------------- 1. Windows 98 5,083 67.24% 2. Windows 95 1,216 29.92% 3. Windows NT 39 1.14% 4. WebTV 23 0.67% 5. Other 18 0.53% 6. Windows 3.x 9 0.26% 7. Macintosh 6 0.17% 8. Sun SunOS 1 0.02% Total 6,395