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Notice for Visitors using Internet Explorer 6 and Earlier

Internet Explorer has been the bane of the World Wide Web for years. After Microsoft's perceived rival Netscape was crushed in the late 1990's, Microsoft declared an arbitrary victory and looked for some other rival to pick on next. They summarily ignored any real development of Internet Explorer after 2000. As a result, all sorts of new technologies that were developed for the web, including CSS2, XHTML, RSS, and PNG images, have limited or no support in Internet Explorer 5 and 6. Microsoft even completely disbanded their development group for Explorer after the release of Windows XP in 2001.

I have designed Star Trek Minutiae using a number of "advanced" web design techniques. These techniques are hardly cutting edge, and are supported by every other web browser out there, except Internet Explorer. Many of the PNG images use alpha compositing to create partial or full transparency. Internet Explorer did not support this feature until the release of version 7. Instead of creating a transparent effect, earlier versions of Explorer simply render an ugly white background around all parts of the image, as shown in the example below.

image image

Left: The STM home page in MSIE 6, with botched transparency.
Right: The same page in MSIE 7, with proper transparency.

Internet Explorer 6 has been obsolete for years already, but it was finally replaced in 2006 with the release of version 7 for Windows XP. If you are still using Explorer 6, I strongly recommend that you consider upgrading or changing your web browser.

Recommendations

Updated June 17, 2008

Internet Explorer 7
Microsoft finally heard the wake-up call in 2005 and re-started development of Internet Explorer. The new release certainly addresses many of the flaws of previous versions, plus attempts to close the many awful security holes that made it such a nightmare for computer owners. Upgrading to Internet Explorer 7 is not a bad choice, because of the more advanced features that have been added. However, it's still plagued by security flaws, and does not support the full range of Web technologies that other browsers do.
Firefox
Firefox is the third-generation successor of the venerable Netscape. It has an incredible range of features and customization options, is easy to install, and is much more secure than Internet Explorer. For Windows users, I find that Firefox is the easiest, most obvious option to recommend.
Safari
Safari was originally developed by Apple as the built-in browser for Mac OS X. Designed to be simple, fast, and stable, it's very easy to set up and use. Though not as extensible as Firefox, Safari has a number of highly useful features, including SnapBack, AutoFill for forms, private browsing, and a very easy-to-use bookmarks manager. For people who just want to browse the web and don't need every feature including the kitchen sink, Safari is undoubtedly the best option available.
Opera
Opera is the "dark horse" candidate of Web browsers. It also has a wide range of features, and arguably the most standards-compliant rendering engine of any web browser. Although I'm personally not fond of their version for the Mac, it's got a powerful feature set and a very fast engine. For a Windows PC, it's still a good choice.

This page was last modified on Tuesday June 17, 2008.