Are PNG's engoying ubiquitous support yet, at least on a basic level?

[Tygur]

I want to use PNG's on my website, but I'm not 100% sure that every browser that makes it to my site will show them. So, is it safe to assume that practically every browser out there will show PNG's yet? I don't need transparency. I just need the images to show.

The top-tier browers should work fine: IE, Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, etc.

I actually use PNG quite often for articles here at TechIMO, with no complaints to date. You should be fine.

Robert Richmond

[OuTpaTienT]

As long as you don't need the transparency, it'll be fine. I'm pretty sure IE still has a problem with PNGs that have tranparency. Of course this problem could be easily fixed, if people would just stop using IE!!!

Using non-transparent PNGs on a web site should be fine, just pay attention to your file sizes. PNG is superior to JPG in every conceivable way, often even making smaller file sizes than a JPG. But the times when PNG file sizes come out larger than an equivalent JPG file (which is most of the time) they often are way larger and not suitable for web use. But you probably know that.

[omalleytrading]

PNG needs full support from every browser. It's far better than GIF, but alas there are still some issues with using it.

For a list of browsers that support PNG, check here.

Another good one is To PNG or not to PNG

Finally, you can make PNG transparencies work under IE, but you need to jump a few hoops. See this...

Alas, Microsoft has such dominance with IE now, that they haven't released an upgrade for it in years -- and they may not. Until they do, however, PNG support will be sketchy at best.

[OuTpaTienT]

Great links! Thanks omalley.

[Nighthawk]

I noticed that Microsoft PictureIt! uses PNG as its native data format, but I think that's funny because IE 6 doesn't fully support it..

I think if you just want the pictures to show, you should be fine with PNGs. One webcomic I read, Diesel Sweeties (http://www.dieselsweeties.com/) has its main pictures as PNGs but offers a link to the GIF of it.. you could try emailing the webmaster and seeing how many people are clicking on that link.

[omalleytrading]

You're Welcome, Out.

Nighthawk - the site you mentioned does use PNG, but they don't seem to be making anything transparent -- that's the IE issue. It will show PNG images, it just farkes up the alpha channels.

I did a bit of searching on the net, and it seems that Microsoft has "unofficially" stated that there will be no Internet Explorer 7. IE 6 is the end of the line for the stand alone browser. To get a newer version of IE, you'll need to keep upgrading to the latest Microsoft OS. That means IE 6 will likely NEVER support PNG transparancies propery.