Supporting old web standards is neat, and you make your goal with this clear in your article, but I can't help but wonder if just using a subset of the newer standards isn't a better idea in the long run.
HTML5 standardized a lot of the browser-specific features that plagued websites, and did away with a lot of ways to do the same thing with subtly different results. Supporting all these old methods and standards for compatibility purposes is part of the reason modern web browsers are so huge (the other part being overzealous standards), so I wonder if someone couldn't go and try to figure out a subset of the current standards that are simple to implement, so simpler browsers can be made for older machines, and people have an easier time making sites that can run on old machines without digging into arcane behavior of old browsers, and having to hackily support both.
How to build an absurdly backwards-compatible website
51–60 of 67 posts
Re: How to build an absurdly backwards-compatible website
#52Re: How to build an absurdly backwards-compatible website
#53> Let's face it: the internet is broken. This is where I disconnect. The internet is not broken. Maybe arguably the _web_ is broken, and specifically, web pages are broken (the HTTP protocol is still a wonderful thing). I wish technical authors would stop making the internet-is-broken meme when they really mean the web is broken. Sure, there's plenty broken with the internet in other ways (DNS, encryption, government…
The Internet is broken too, we've been slowly lulled into a scenario where there are first-class and second-class and even third class netizens, and the third class, I'd not even consider as having an Internet connection. First class netizens are publicly routable nodes with statically allocated IP addresses. These have real, honest Internet connections, they get to participate in the global community of humans and t…
I agree with your analysis (thanks for sharing), but just for nitpicking, i believe it's fine if an ISP blocks port 25 by default to help combat unintended spam, as long as you have the option to unblock it.
Re: How to build an absurdly backwards-compatible website
#54> Let's face it: the internet is broken. This is where I disconnect. The internet is not broken. Maybe arguably the _web_ is broken, and specifically, web pages are broken (the HTTP protocol is still a wonderful thing). I wish technical authors would stop making the internet-is-broken meme when they really mean the web is broken. Sure, there's plenty broken with the internet in other ways (DNS, encryption, government…
"The internet is broken" he says; a moment later he greets his wife he met on tinder, then he opens a 3blue1brown video, a YouTube channel that he himself admits is the first teacher in his life that made math truly click in his brain, in the room right after his son is playing Minecraft with his best friend, a little girl from Japan who he has never met but already knows a bit of japanese thanks to their long chats…
"The traffic infrastruture sucks", he lamented, stuck in traffic, but finally getting to the restaurant to meet his wife. Now, he is driving his kids every day to school, because low quality of infrastructure makes it dangerous to walk, but children are attending school, and even additional karate lessons. Then the children got their cars, and are now stuck in traffic, but they also get to their deatinations! And they also lament, that the infrastructure sucks.
Re: How to build an absurdly backwards-compatible website
#55> Let's face it: the internet is broken. This is where I disconnect. The internet is not broken. Maybe arguably the _web_ is broken, and specifically, web pages are broken (the HTTP protocol is still a wonderful thing). I wish technical authors would stop making the internet-is-broken meme when they really mean the web is broken. Sure, there's plenty broken with the internet in other ways (DNS, encryption, government…
The Internet is broken too, we've been slowly lulled into a scenario where there are first-class and second-class and even third class netizens, and the third class, I'd not even consider as having an Internet connection. First class netizens are publicly routable nodes with statically allocated IP addresses. These have real, honest Internet connections, they get to participate in the global community of humans and t…
> TCP port 25, meaning these people cannot send their own email
They cannot run a mail server, you mean. For sending mails, you have port 587 plus authentication, which also solves the reputation issue with dynamic pools.
The reputation issues with dynamic pools likely stem from malware-infected user machines sending spam.
Re: How to build an absurdly backwards-compatible website
#56I don't think that the advice to offer non-HTTPS is good: it exposes your users to downgrade (SSL stripping) attacks. Even extremely old browsers supported HTTPS: it was added to Netscape in 1994, and Internet Explorer in 1995 (IE2). You shouldn't have to give up security for users of modern browsers in pursuit of backwards compatibility. (It might be a bit tricky to find an HTTPS configuration that supports for both…
> Even extremely old browsers supported HTTPS: it was added to Netscape in 1994, and Internet Explorer in 1995 (IE2)
Last year I traveled to my parents house and booted up my old computer which I haven't used from 2014. It was using Ubuntu 12.04, I think.
I could barely browse any websites in Firefox, because of TLS issues.
Re: How to build an absurdly backwards-compatible website
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
It happens a lot: https://www.businessinsider.com/tinder-married-met-husband-o...
It happens so often that news articles are written when it happens.
The author of the article is a relatively light content writer, who covered topics such as "how to use an external hard drive", "how to videochat" and "how to use [feature] in [mainstream social networking website]".
Re: How to build an absurdly backwards-compatible website
#58Don't forget to use web-safe colors and key your gifs to the system palette. 1995-era graphics cards usually supported 256 colors.
Re: How to build an absurdly backwards-compatible website
#59Why not serve .txt and be done with it? Sometimes I wonder, who is the styling for - especially on personal sites/blogs. Repeat viewers/readers come for the text, if they do at all (otherwise it is their favorite reader).
If someone is using a screen reader, low-contrast/high-contrast setting, translator - plain txt simply works. For more intricate content like schematics, equations, offer a link to PDF.
I am not sure if the lack of mention of Lynx was an oversight.
Re: How to build an absurdly backwards-compatible website
#60Your site has broken CSS (on mobile)