Oh my goodness, thank you! I have been searching for a source of the small icons as an example to show the computing classes I lecture, and I finally found my rotating favorite one! https://cyber.dabamos.de/88x31/msntbciis.gif
Thank you so much - on the flip side, my students may dislike you because they're going to get a lecture on how the web used to be!
Yeah, I knew what they were but I'd never heard them described as "88x31 buttons," even back in the early 00s, so I had no idea what this article was going on about at first.
Did you not read "Some examples of sites sharing some thematic elements spanning over 25 years:" followed by links to different galleries? Is clicking a link all that hard? It lets the reader browse examples at their own pace. I thought this was HN, not TikTok.
Love how the top comment right now is from someone who didn't read the second paragraph in the article, where it links to a bunch of sites with 88x31 buttons.
I actually did click through the links to find those, and I was annoyed that I had to do that instead of having at least one rendered inline in the article.
It even has some examples of other size images inline, but none of the titular 88x31 buttons. I found it odd.
I clicked through a couple of those pages, didn't see any obvious buttons and even if I did, kind of ambiguous which ones are the right size without checking.
> "No Alteration Allowed - The Netscape Now button must not be altered in ANY way. Do not shrink it; take it apart; change its proportions, color, or font; or otherwise alter it from the Netscape-supplied version." did little to discourage people and probably outright encouraged them just for spite - y'know because the Internet.
Colbert had Lawrence Lessig on his show and (obv in-character) said something along the lines of
> I would be very angry, and possibly litigious, if anyone out there takes this interview right here and remixed it with some great dance beat.
> I would be very angry, and possibly litigious, if anyone out there takes this interview right here and remixed it with some great dance beat.
For some reason, this makes me think of Strong Bad. Probably because of the sbemail "sibbie", in which The Cheat does drop a phat beat under Strong Bad's reading of the email, much to the latter's consternation.
I think he is equating stern copyright notices to somebody making a strong statement about what annoys them. As if to say “so what”, and the boom in “unapproved” 88x31 pics demonstrates this
I love the 88x31 buttons to friends sites the most. From this blog post, I was able to follow ~10 links and end up on my own homepage. I think that’s beautiful.
I suspect the size hung around for a while for a couple of reasons.
The physical size (on screen) didn't vary by much. If I recall correctly, 72 to 120 dpi dominated until the introduction of Retina/HiDPI displays, and 120 dpi was pushing the limit since scaling wasn't really a thing. (When it was a thing, it tended to be handled by applications where it was important, such as desktop publishing/graphics design applications, and it only extended to the content area.)
Add that to the purpose of these buttons: they were intended to be unobtrusive messages about which browsers were supported, or which browser the site owner prefered. Going bigger would not have much of a point. (That said, they were as obtrusive as heck to those of us using unsupported browsers!)
This brings me back to my N64 Perfect Dark fansite webmaster-days. I wonder if there's a similar article detailing another cultural internet phenomenon; the tech-forum signatures.
For example; I remember the heyday of the MadOnion forums (the makers of 3D Mark, before they changed their name to Futuremark) and their users having these massive information-dense signature banners showcasing their PC-specs, 3D-mark scores, OC-info, etc.) with and without animations. Even at the time I remember thinking some of them were over the top and distracting, but people really put their hearts into making those things and it took some skill to make a really good one.
Readit News
Thank you so much - on the flip side, my students may dislike you because they're going to get a lecture on how the web used to be!
*saturates my Gigabit pipe*
My stock answer was, "Good point, the 88c31 seems overkill for a button. But... AI isn't great for detecting button pushes."
Then, I realized the page was just a rant about web buttons and didn't actually show example web buttons.
> Some examples of sites sharing some thematic elements spanning over 25 years:
> (…)
> They all feature 88x31 buttons in some capacity and those buttons reflect the website and it's designer in some way.
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That and how buttons from 30 years ago work with 4k monitors.
It even has some examples of other size images inline, but none of the titular 88x31 buttons. I found it odd.
Article really could have used an example or two.
Colbert had Lawrence Lessig on his show and (obv in-character) said something along the lines of
> I would be very angry, and possibly litigious, if anyone out there takes this interview right here and remixed it with some great dance beat.
yes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvvhDngERXo
with a followup remix of the episode where he discussed this remix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=125D2DTMyGg
For some reason, this makes me think of Strong Bad. Probably because of the sbemail "sibbie", in which The Cheat does drop a phat beat under Strong Bad's reading of the email, much to the latter's consternation.
https://homestarrunner.com/sbemails/76-sibbie
The physical size (on screen) didn't vary by much. If I recall correctly, 72 to 120 dpi dominated until the introduction of Retina/HiDPI displays, and 120 dpi was pushing the limit since scaling wasn't really a thing. (When it was a thing, it tended to be handled by applications where it was important, such as desktop publishing/graphics design applications, and it only extended to the content area.)
Add that to the purpose of these buttons: they were intended to be unobtrusive messages about which browsers were supported, or which browser the site owner prefered. Going bigger would not have much of a point. (That said, they were as obtrusive as heck to those of us using unsupported browsers!)
For example; I remember the heyday of the MadOnion forums (the makers of 3D Mark, before they changed their name to Futuremark) and their users having these massive information-dense signature banners showcasing their PC-specs, 3D-mark scores, OC-info, etc.) with and without animations. Even at the time I remember thinking some of them were over the top and distracting, but people really put their hearts into making those things and it took some skill to make a really good one.
Really good info in the article, enjoyed the read - but as others mentioned, some pictures would have been nice
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