NOTscape Sites

"But beware of the dark side... If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will..."

"...Is the dark side stronger?"

"No...no...no. Quicker, easier, more seductive."

Yoda and Luke Skywalker, The Empire Strikes Back
Spoken about the Force, but just as appropriate in reference to HTML.

NOTscape sites are web pages which, by conscious decision of the author, contain none of the extensions to HTML that are supported by the popular Netscape web browser. This is done because, by introducing these extensions, Netscape has begun to fragment the Web into various incompatible niches. Those pages that use the extensions look very different to people not using Netscape, sometimes to the point of complete unreadability. For an example of this, see Raphaël Quinet's Surrender to Netscape! page.

Netscape's version of HTML (aka NHTML) is not HTML 3.0. In fact, HTML 3.0 ceased to exist as a unified entity for a while and was split into a set of separate, smaller drafts proposed by the World Wide Web Consortium. Now, however, a unified HTML specification has resurfaced again in the W3C's HTML 3.2, aka Wilbur. This new draft includes some of the Netscape extensions, such as tables and horizontal alignment tags for images. Still, many of Netscape's other extensions continue to fly in the face of these proposed standards and will lead to even greater incompatibilities in the future.

Unfortunately, the fragmentation of the Web is only getting worse and not better. With Microsoft's new Explorer browser joining the fray, a whole new set of incompatible tags have been thrown into the mix. Even though it's not explicitly indicated by the icon, NOTscape supporters also refuse to incorporate these tags into their pages for the same reasons outlined above.

More and more people are getting behind this movement. Many examples of both the problems with Netscape and the backlash against it can be found on Matt Bandy's AntiNetscape Page. If you too are interested in making sure your pages are NOTscape certified and that they comply with the officially established standards, one of the best ways is to use the WebTechs HTML Validation Service.

The NOTscape logo is a way for individuals to take a stand against all nonstandard HTML constructs. Unfortunately, nobody seems to know who originally created it. But the need for a standard HTML is becoming increasingly clear throughout the Web community and is being supported by more and more page designers...

Including myself.

English (original)		Joe Reiss <jreiss@vt.edu>
English (mirror)		D. Joseph Creighton <Joe_Creighton@UManitoba.CA>
Nihongo		Amakawa Shuhei <amakawa@ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
Dansk		Mads Gildberg <gildberg@image.dk>
Español		Luis G. Muñiz Rodríguez <kreator@gsyc.inf.uc3m.es>
Français		Philippe Duchenne <Philippe.Duchenne@ping.be>
Italiano		Marco Bodrato <Bodrato@genio.sns.it>
Deutsch		Rainer Nowak <cali4nia@sdr.de>

Interested in creating a language translation of this page? Just ask!

Last modified: Thu Sep 26 13:17:12 1996