A Web page may not look the same in one Browser as it does in another. Browsers interpret the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript standards in different ways. The good news is that, for Browser versions produced since the year 2000, differences are growing fewer.

Almost all post-2000 Browsers comply (more or less) with a new set of standards: the Document Object Model, or DOM. Read full details at the World Wide Web Consortium

The bad news is that Browsers do still vary. It doesn't matter for simple HTML, but it often does for pages that use advanced features. For this experimental Website, the precise syntax needed for our interactive techniques differs between Browser families. Our pages handle this by automatically supplying pages tailored to your Browser.

 Note  For a Quick Look at our techniques, see our Home page.

 
We design for Internet Explorer versions 5 and higher. We use a workaround for the version 5.5 offline access bug (a Microsoft Knowledge Base known issue). Versions before 5 have very few users (plus many bugs and vulnerabilities). We screen them out.

Mostly for the challenge, we designed the Batch File Course to handle Netscape 4 versions 4.6 and higher (despite there being very few users of this Browser now). We have no future plans for Netscape 4. It's not DOM-compliant, and Netscape abandoned it and started again when they developed their next version.

The Netscape 6 (and higher) Browser is quite different from the Netscape 4 Browser (despite name and provenance). It's based on the Gecko rendering engine. We design for all versions.

Mozilla uses the same rendering engine (Gecko) as Netscape 6. We design for all versions. Read more about the Mozilla Browser.

Phoenix was a compact Gecko-based spin-off from Mozilla. Phoenix has now been replaced by (or transformed into) Firefox (see below).

Firefox is another compact Gecko-based spinoff from Mozilla. We design for all versions. Read about the Firefox Browser.

We don't recommend or use Opera for our interactive Web Courses. Unlike the other Browsers, Opera partially blocks our standard tutorial screen layout, which means that Students can't position their transient CueWindows efficiently while doing Exercises.

 Note  CueWindows are like dynamic Post-It® reminder notes that Students activate briefly to read from while they do interactive Course Exercises.

For Other Browsers, if we recognise them as Gecko-based we treat them as Mozilla.