HTML was designed to convey information about content and not formatting. The browser program (or other HTML engine) was to add formatting. Certain major companies are adding formatting extensions to HTML, and are doing it in non-compatible ways. In addition, many of these extensions convey no useful information but just add to the bandwidth clog.

While Netscape (with Navigator) has been notorious for initiating ad-hoc extensions to garner its huge market share, now Microsoft (with Web Explorer) has joined the battle. If I had to choose beteen the two, I'd go with Netscape -- it formats standard HTML in a more pleasing fashion than does Microsoft. For instance, the author's information at the bottom of these pages stands out nicely with Netscape (and also with IBM's WebExplorer and even the non-graphical browser LYNX), however it looks just like plain text with Microsoft's browser.

NOTE: if the top of this frame has the text "Warning This page contains obsolete floating frame syntax." then you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3. There is nothing wrong with the frame syntax, your browser is just taking IBM Web Explorer's animation HTML extension and misinterpreting it. Netscape Navigator works fine. Coincidence or Conspiracy? You decide!

Here are a few interesting references to quality pages. Try Production Notes for good design practice or Composing Good HTML.

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