Client Side Programming Technologies

   Broswer Reliability
 HTML/GIF/JPG Great. All modern browsers support these file formats.
 Java Applets OK. MS browsers do not (and probably will not) support any version past Java 1.1. What's worse, IE 5 defaults to no-java-applet-support. Sun provides a Java plug-in which allows IE to support current versions of Java.
 Java Script OK. All vendors support JavaScript but each browser (make and version) has subtle differences which make it difficult to create non-trivial JavaScript's that run bug-free on all browsers.
 VB Script Poor. Only MS browsers support VB Script.
 Active X Poor. Only MS browsers support ActiveX. There is a plug-in which allows Netscape to support ActiveX.
 Flash Good. Assuming the user has the required plug-in.
 Adobe Acrobat (pdf) Good. Assuming the user has the required plug-in.