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Hello! Unless you specifically chose to view this page, you've probably been automatically redirected here because the web browser you're using doesn't properly support current W3C specifications for XHTML 1.0 Strict or HTML 4.01 Transitional and, more importantly, CSS 2 that the CyberScotia sites are written in. But don't worry - if you have a few moments, just read this page and you might discover some useful stuff which will not only allow you to access CyberScotia fully, but also enhance your browsing experience of the web as a whole!

However, if you're using a browser other than Explorer, Netscape, Opera or compatible, it's possible that you were redirected here by mistake, in which case, please accept our apologies and consider taking a moment to inform the webmaster that this happened, mentioning the name and version of your browser.

if you don't want to read the blurb
just click here for the browser update links

Not that long ago, the W3C standards for XHTML 1.0, HTML 4 and CSS 2 were either barely supported or not supported at all by the three major browsers (Explorer, Netscape and Opera). However, since 2001, the latest versions of the major browsers do finally give excellent support to these standards.

Prior to 2001, web designers had to construct their sites to accommodate several different (and sometimes conflicting) standards, not only conforming to the basic concepts of HTML, but also finding inventive ways to make their sites look and function more-or-less the same in browsers which interpreted HTML in irritatingly different ways. This was particularly annoying for web designers, given that HTML 4 was introduced in 1999, XHTML 1 in 2000, and CSS 2 had been around since 1998!

However, now that the three major browsers are converging on a single "official" standard (W3C), it's finally becoming possible to genuinely implement clean, efficient and cross-browser web design which is interpreted in (roughly!) the same way by most browsers.

So, the sites at CyberScotia are now being upgraded to conform to the current W3C standards. Unfortunately for those users still running older browsers, this means that they won't be able to view some CyberScotia sites until they upgrade their browsers to newer versions which give adequate support to those standards. Effectively, it means that CyberScotia now only supports major browsers in their recent releases (v.5.5+ for Explorer, v.6+ for Netscape and Opera, although alternative W3C-compliant browsers like Mozilla 1 or Phoenix are also supported).

Many professionally-designed websites will, of course, continue to provide support for older browsers for some time to come and be offered in alternative forms of HTML without using CSS, or only using it in very basic ways. However, CyberScotia is not a charity or a commercial site: it's free to the user, is entirely non-profit, and there isn't enough time in the day to provide support for older browsers as well as make it a well-designed and up-to-date site. So if you insist on using an older browser, then tough - CyberScotia will be off-limits to you! This policy would, of course, be suicidal for a commercial site, but CyberScotia isn't a commercial site, it's a personal one, so there!

If this policy sounds excessive, consider the following advice to web designers from the horse's mouth itself (Netscape):

In the past, users did not have the choice of picking a browser which implemented the standards however today they do have a choice. There is no compelling reason for anyone in the world to continue to use a browser which does not support the standards. However, as long as web developers continue to code work arounds for these older browsers, users will not have a compelling reason to upgrade. By ceasing to support older browsers, you can provide a reason for users to upgrade. This will benefit not only them, but yourself as well. Supporting only standards based browsers can reduce development and maintanance costs as well as increase the dynamic and compelling content which will attract visitors and increase your revenue. The choice is yours... Decide to support the standards today!
- Bob Clary, "Browser Detection and Cross Browser Support", Netscape DevEdge, 17/07/2002

Equally, it will increasingly become the case that a lot of amateur websites written in WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver (or even Frontpage and Composer) will rely on CSS without supporting pre-CSS browsers. So if your browser can't handle CSS properly, you're only storing up more grief for yourself in the future. It is important that you keep up-to-date with the current version of your browser of choice - it won't be long before trying to surf the web with a browser that doesn't support CSS 2 will be as pointless as trying to surf the web with a version 1 browser that doesn't understand JavaScript!

But don't freak out - both Explorer and Netscape are 100% free, and Opera also comes in an excellent and fully-functional freeware version. Furthermore, there are also numerous other browsers which are compliant with the main three, and which are also freeware.

But if you're still sceptical, kindly indulge us in a little practical demonstration. The following is a screenshot of how the CyberScotia frontpage should look:

The CyberScotia frontpage in a recent browser

The page shown above is written in XHTML 1.0, and uses CSS 2, and if you view it in a recent browser, it's rendered correctly. Now, bear in mind that XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2 were introduced in 2000 and 1998 respectively. But here's how the page is rendered by Netscape 4.78, which was introduced in 2001...

The CyberScotia frontpage in Netscape 4.78

QED!!! The reason why Netscape 4.78 makes such an idiotic mess of this page is simple, but also highly important: it doesn't properly understand CSS 2, despite the fact that this language was introduced as a standard no less than three years before the browser was!

Now, increasingly, web designers rely on CSS as a technology which radically simplifies web design, but also allows for more efficient cross-browser rendering, and also cuts down on download times for you, the user. All round, it's of great benefit to both designers and users. And it won't be that long before the web will just all look awful unless you have a browser that understands it!

Given all of this, it's well worth your while to update your browser to the current versions which do understand W3C standards! And this page is here to help you.

So, finally, your browser. You probably only found yourself on this page because your browser is an older version of Explorer, Netscape or Opera. If so, updating to a current version won't cost you any money, but will enhance your experience of the web significantly. The only real limitations are what the memory capacity of your system is, and whether you choose to download large installation files from the web, or buy (for a small fee, really) a typical monthly computer magazine with a cover disk containing the installation files of the major browsers (in the UK, a good magazine for such things is .net magazine). Really, the most important thing is checking that your computer has a big enough system memory and hard drive to run any given browser (or any other application, for that matter) - Netscape 7, for example, requires a minimum system memory of 64MB in order to run smoothly (and remember that system memory is not the size of your hard drive).

Here's where you can download the latest versions of some of the most standards-compliant freeware browsers. The following links take you direct to the browser's own websites (and remember to check out the system requirements before installing!):

Linux & Mac Users Note:
At the time of writing, Explorer is not available for Linux, and is only available for certain versions of the Mac platform, in lower versions than are available for Windows.
However, other companies tend to make recent, if not current versions of their browsers available for the Linux and Mac platforms.
Further information on Linux-compatible internet software is available directly from Linux.
Mac users can find further information at Apple.

There are many other browsers available, of course, and many of them are also freeware. The choice is up to you, but at least these days, the latest versions of the main browsers finally conform to basic W3C standards and are no longer trying to force their own (mis-)understandings of HTML onto the whole world. In many ways, this allows the user to make choices based on factors which really matter, rather than on which browser has overall market dominance, or which manufacturer has the biggest clout within the world of corporate capitalism! The web is moving on from the old days of the "Browser Wars", and we're finally getting to a stage of standardisation which will, ultimately, benefit us all.

Finally, our own recommendation! If you want to use an independent browser which didn't come as a pre-installed component of your operating system, you can do far worse than give Mozilla a spin! These days, it comes in various flavours, but the original Mozilla browser per se still gets our vote every time. Mozilla is also available for all major operating systems and is not only freeware, but open-source.

ROUGH HISTORICAL GUIDE FOR THE CLINICALLY-GEEKY & NERDY:

Mozilla is directly-descended from one of the first ever real web-browsers, Mosaic, designed by Chris Wilson & Jon Mittelhauser (NCSA, University of Illinois) in 1993 when the web was still barely more than a crazed vision in Tim Berners-Lee's mind,and all we could find online was a handful of somewhat antediluvian text files.* The early history of Mosaic can be found here - its first public release was version 0.61b on 28-09-1993 and rather remarkably, the Windows version still runs reasonably well even on XP, although don't expect it to display modern web-pages at all well, given its prehistoric provenance!

Soon, though, the Mosaic project devolved itself away from NCSA to become the early Mozilla project, at which point, the idea of a thing called a "web-browser" caught on with the major commerical software corporations. Netscape and Microsoft promptly nicked the open-source Mozilla code, building their own rival browsers (Navigator and Explorer, respectively) on its foundations, and the Middle Ages of the web were born in the "Browser Wars" of the 90s!

Even today, as you can see from the browser information panel above (assuming you've enabled JavaScript on your own browser!), a quick look under the hood of even the modern versions of most browsers reveals that one of their core engines is still a pile components nicked from Mozilla, which of course, is really just another name for Mosaic, the true ancestor of all we've come to depend on in the C21st!

* NB.: the actual first ever browser was WorldWideWeb, later called Nexus, by Tim Berners-Lee in 1990.

Thanks for taking the time to read this page, and we hope you have an enjoyable and productive time online in the future!

If you have any queries or would like to pass comment on this page, you can e-mail Steve, the webmaster.

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(But, diplomatically, this page doesn't use XHTML or CSS!)