> My question is: Why does people use Mosaic when Netscape is better and
> can be obtained free all over the net?
I still use Mosaic because I find it far less
eyestrain-inducing than Netscape. The main reason
for this is that Mosaic is more configurable, and I've
set it up to use fonts and background colors that I like.
(It's still far from perfect -- Arena's layout is
infinitely better -- but at least I'm not stuck with
Netscape's black-on-dark-grey all-Times-Roman text
with way too much vertical whitespace.) So even though
Netscape is better for casual surfing, if I'm going to
spend any time actually reading and not just browsing,
I usually stick with Mosaic.
Another advantage is that Mosaic *doesn't* support
certain extensions -- primarily background images,
inline font-size changes, and gratuitous centering --
that are badly overused by the half-competent wanna-be
graphic designers who are beginning to overrun the Web.
(Not that these features are bad in and of themselves,
just that they are more often than not badly used.
Some pages are so overdone that they are unreadable
under anything but Lynx, and then you have to deal with
the [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] effect.)
> Do you think that I should limit my layout so that mosaic-users can enjoy
> my pages as well?
That's totally up to you.
I used to believe that layout should be the browsers'
job and that authors should concentrate on content
and organization. The Web seems to be evolving in
a much different direction, though.
--Joe English
jenglish@crl.com