Netscape vs. IE for aa.com
 

I spoke with a very helpful CS person at aa.com regarding a problem I was having with aa.com. I told her about the general discontent with the new version, and she acknowledged that they were working on a number of problems. She suggested that using Internet Explorer might be preferable to Netscape.

At the moment, 10am PDT, neither seems to work for me.

What are the opinions of FT regarding IE vs. Netscape?

That's true. I've complained to the aa.com customer support about having to switch to IE from Netscape in order to use multi-city itinerary (Netscape would freeze every time).

Normally I won't use IE, but as Netscape's market share dips I'm encountering more and more sites and jut fail to work with Netscape. It's sad.

Hopefully with AOL dropping IE for Netscape this trend will reverse.

birdstrike

It is a sad state of affairs when one company can take over an open standard that is supposed to work with *any* compatible browser. The web was designed to be accessible through any browser, not just the one from a particular company. Embrace, extend, and destroy in action once again.

Of course, the spineless web creators who "optimize" for the one browser are not blameless in this mess.

If you don't want to use IE, try Opera.

I work in the web world, and yes you are right... more and more sites do not support netscape. Essentially its not worth the cost to support about 5-10% of users who actually use netscape.

As a side note, why in the world are you using netscape anyway? I am not a promotor of MicroStop, but no version of netscape has the capability of handling all tags supported by IE (specifically some DHTML ones).

Ummm...seems to me that it is the web designers who are coding their pages to not support Netscape. I don't think this should be blamed on your average web-browsing citizen. It is not my intention to start some sort of political or economical debate here regarding the positives/negatives of IE/Microsoft dominance but I do believe there should be a choice in browsers that proclaim they adhere to "open standards." Therefore, it should follow that websites actually adhere to these "open standards" when they are coded.

That being said, I have found that using Mozilla (both Windows and Macintosh versions) works just fine with aa.com.

I've found that both work equally well with aa.com. However, IE works better with Expedia (why is this not a surprise?) but Netscape works better with FlyerTalk. So, when I'm surfing, I use Netscape; when I'm booking, I use IE.

I suspect that all these answers, mine and others', have a lot to do with one's platform and release level in any case.

Not in my experience. Netscape (I'm currently using version 6.2.3, on Win 98) has numerous problems specifically with FlyerTalk (the most annoying is freezing of the back button). IE 5 works fine and is much faster when on FlyerTalk. Go figure...

Just as I feared, the thread has started a Netscape/IE battle, without much input about which works better for aa.com (thanks, bassque, Efrem and Eugene). http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

And lest anyone make assumptions based on my location, I use Macs and prefer Netscape! (and fly Boeing jets on AA, even though they have deserted us!).

You may want to re-read the posts in this thread, as both Efrem and myself shared our personal experiences using both IE and Netscape on aa.com...

I use PC and IE at home, while I use Mac and Netscape at the office.
Apart from the speed issue (because of the modem at home) I don't see any noticeable differences.

Sorry not to be clear, Eugene. My intent was to thank you, Efrem and bassque for providing useful input.
I realize now that there are so many variables (browser type, version, PC vs. Mac, connection speed) that any comparison is probably not possible. Just need to wait until aa.com fixes their problems.