Netscape Horror

If you have developed any HTML pages you will agree that whatever amazing design you have come up with, Netscape will find a way to break it and display it incorrectly. Recently I was working on a simple HTML site and noticed that Netscape 6 was adding a horizontal and vertical space in between my tables. I went as far as installing the new version 7, and still the same problem.

After hours of research and expressing out loud my honest feelings to the Netscape browser on my screen, I found out the following: I had as the very first line of my HTML page:

I had taken my document type declaration straight from the HTML 4.01 recommendation itself…

Nonetheless, Netscape treated this fully valid declaration just as if it were a figment of my imagination. Further tinkering finally brought the solution: Netscape apparently only recognizes a single, particular URI within the transitional document type declaration:

Although the content of these DTDs is identical, using the URI of the first document type declaration will break the page in Netscape 6 and 7 whereas using the URI of the second will prove successful. Let me know if any questions.