>My question is: Why does people use Mosaic when Netscape is better and
>can be obtained free all over the net?
Netscape employs a number of non-standard markup tags. They are not html,
they just look like html. Netscape on my 486DX33 with 8Mb Ram has, at the
very best, a 66% hit rate. That is to say that 1 out of every three (this
is a minimum) pages that I ask for returns a server error - mostly that the
server does not understand my browser's request. This hit rate deteriorates
as the cache fills up, which appears to happen pretty quickly.
Netscape is flaky. I know this because I also use lynx. Every failed
request in Netscape is cut and pasted (for speed but it means I don't
mistype) into lynx which returns a 100% hit rate except for those requests
where the server itself is down.
I hope one day to see a graphical browser as fast and efficient as lynx but
I begin to despair. Perhaps graphical surfing will always be a hit and
miss affair. I have used Netscape on a PowerPC and another, slightly
higher spec PC than my own. It is better on the Mac (PowerPC) but it is
still not very good.
>Do you think that I should limit my layout so that mosaic-users can enjoy
>my pages as well? This would be a major setback for me because I really
>enjoy the new features in recent versions of HTML.
I think you should go to the w3o or ncsa and get a copy of the latest html
specification (2 - which includes forms support) and stick to it. Most
browsers will ignore markup they do not understand but groups like Netscape
will eventually produce something that lynx (for example) has a big problem
with.
If you think your pages look different in Mosaic then fasten your seat belt
and have a look via lynx - fast, efficient, reliable but *no* pretty
pictures, fonts, buttons ...
Alastair.