@import hack still needed?

Some years ago I implemented the well-known @import trick to not confuse
netscape 4 users. Is this still necessary?

The relevant style sheets are
http://www.TheBicyclingGuitarist.net...dex_filter.css and
http://www.TheBicyclingGuitarist.net...yle_filter.css

As always, I am open to suggestions for improving my site and its code.
Thanks

The Bicycling Guitarist wrote:

Some years ago I implemented the well-known @import trick to not confuse
netscape 4 users. Is this still necessary?

Well, All Netscape browsers will be out of support from the 1st
February, so there's no future in it.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

The Bicycling Guitarist wrote:

Some years ago I implemented the well-known @import trick to not confuse
netscape 4 users. Is this still necessary?

Only if you care about protecting Netscape 4.x users (and there aren't very
many of those visiting most websites, and they should be used to their
browser failing to cope with the web of 2008).

--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 05:49:36 +0000 from Steve Swift
<Steve.J.Swift (AT) gmail (DOT) com>:

The Bicycling Guitarist wrote:
Some years ago I implemented the well-known @import trick to not confuse
netscape 4 users. Is this still necessary?

Well, All Netscape browsers will be out of support from the 1st
February, so there's no future in it.

I don't think that's relevant. First, very little software is
actually "supported" in any meaningful way these days. Second, just
because software is *officially* unsupported doesn't mean it stops
working. Word 97 has been "unsupported" for some time, but many
people are still happily using it. Heck, I still use a dBASE IV
database I wrote in the 1980s.

I think BG's question comes down to one of fact and one of opinion.

The factual question is what percentage or how many people use
Netscape 4. That's impossible to answer exactly, but there are
estimates.

The opinion question is whether it matters if one's pages display
oddly in that browser. That, people must decide for themselves.
FWIW, I decided a couple of years ago that Netscape 4 and IE 5 were
just not something I wanted to worry about, and I haven't had a
single complaint on that score from any site visitors.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/200..._wont_help_you

David Dorward wrote:

The Bicycling Guitarist wrote:

Some years ago I implemented the well-known @import trick to not confuse
netscape 4 users. Is this still necessary?

Only if you care about protecting Netscape 4.x users (and there aren't very
many of those visiting most websites, and they should be used to their
browser failing to cope with the web of 2008).

A sample statistic: on a website with nearly 800,000 visits so far in
January, 431 were recorded with a 4.x version of Netscape. That's 0.054%.

"Stan Brown" <the_stan_brown (AT) fastmail (DOT) fm> wrote

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 05:49:36 +0000 from Steve Swift
Steve.J.Swift (AT) gmail (DOT) com>:
The Bicycling Guitarist wrote:
Some years ago I implemented the well-known @import trick to not
confuse
netscape 4 users. Is this still necessary?

The Bicycling Guitarist ceased support for Netscape 4 on January 25, 2008.

Please advise as to any further improvements I can make to my web site.
Thanks.