For a long time, I've noticed that some people put banners on
their sites saying something like "Best viewed in Internet
Explorer" or "Best viewed in Netscape." I have also come across
sites that just refuse to work in one or the other browser, some
that refuse to load properly in either browser, and a couple that
refuse to load on a Mac at all.
The first impression that I get from the "best viewed in" sites
is that they are too lazy to check and make sure that their site
loads in other browsers (it takes somewhere around 5 minutes to
install Netscape and about 30 seconds to install Internet Explorer,
unless you're on OS X, in which case IE is already there).
Then I figure, if they're too lazy to do that, are they too lazy to
make sure their information is accurate and up-to-date? Are they
too lazy to update their site at all?
Sorry, Wrong Browser
Then there are the sites that don't work on one or the other
browser. These are a pain, because if you want to use the site, you
have to have a different browser installed. In order to view the
sites I like to look at every morning, I need two browsers in
OS 9, and one of the sites looks horrible in OS X (even
though it does work) in OmniWeb. So it
means having two browsers open, each with a different set of
bookmarks. It makes life more complicated than it should be.
The worst sites are those that just look awful no matter what
browser you use. Often this is the site designer's fault - sites
should have an easy way to navigate, an easy way to view past
content, and a font big enough so that you can read it easily. It
is surprising how many sites fail to meet these requirements.
Not on a Mac
What about sites that don't work on the Mac no matter what
browser you use? There aren't very many of them (I only remember
coming across two, one of which I can't remember the address, the
other of which seems to be down at the moment), but when you do
find one, it is very annoying. What it relies on in Windows, I
don't know, but they load perfectly there - but try it on a Mac,
and the page either doesn't load at all or is completely
unreadable.
I really do expect a webmaster to test his or her site on both
Mac and PC-- and in both major browsers (Netscape and IE) - to make
sure that it works fine and looks good in each. If a Mac or a PC
isn't available for testing, then the webmaster should ask friends
if they can test it for them. As a last resort, a link should be
placed on the site that instructs anyone having problems with the
site to contact the webmaster.
It seems essential these days that you have more than one
browser installed on your computer. The reason for this is sites
where the webmasters don't want to spend the time making sure their
site works in all browsers. It shouldn't be like that. If they
spend the extra time, they would probably get more hits from people
using alternative browsers, and the Web would be much easier to
navigate. 
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