• rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    But there was a point in the late 90s early 2000s where Netscape was a super buggy mess and Internet Explorer was the best browser on the market.

    Lemme guess, one was super buggy and the other the best browser on websites using non-standard functionality of the latter.

    • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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      1 month ago

      non-standard functionality of the latter.

      My guy. In the 90’s ALL browsers were non-standard. Even at the protocol level.
      http/0.9 - 1991
      http/1.0 - 1996
      http/1.1 - 1997

      html/1.0 - 1991
      html/2.0 - 1995 revised in 1996, and 97.
      html/3.0 - 1997
      html/4.0 - 1997 revised in 1998, 99, and 2000.

      Then comes all the add-ons like flash, shockwave, etc… Nothing was standard at this time-frame. We threw everything possible into browsers. Toolbars for literally everything (I remember even having winamp controls in my browser).

      https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Evolution_of_HTTP

      Between 1991-1995, these were introduced with a try-and-see approach. A server and a browser would add a feature and see if it got traction.

      Literally sites and browsers would just implement stuff just to implement and see if it became used.

      A lot of recent times (2010’s mostly) has been back peddling the mad rush of just shoving EVERYTHING into browsers. Now I actually fear we’re going to far though… With google removing useful backend stuff for plugins and such. I just hope Firefox never follows suit.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Hokay.

        About try and see - I actually liked the way it was with HTML 4.0 , Macromedia Flash, no JS and no CSS.

        ADD:

        I remember a Shaman King fansite where I would watch all its episodes in Flash in atrocious quality.

        Would like to see something like Gemini, but with tables and other formatting being more customizable in the page, like it was back then. And a choice between a link that is just a link and a link that should be displayed inline if possible.