Web Browser Information and Sportswire.com

The Sportswire.com web site is optimized for use with Netscape 2.0 or later, and Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0 and greater. This means that our site uses certain aspects of World Wide Web (HTML) code that are not accessible to other web browsers, such as the older  America Online Web Browser and older versions of Mosaic browsers.

Here is a summary of Browser Compatibility with Sportswire.com

Microsoft Internet Explorer - Sportswire.com is optimized for Microsoft's family of web browsers.  If you do not have the latest and greatest, we suggest that you download it from the Microsoft Internet Explorer web site.  Sportswire uses many features of Internet Explorer including tables and table shading, background sounds, and Active/X controls where appropriate.

Netscape Navigator (and Communicator) - Sportswire.com is optimized for Netscape browsers including the original Navigator and the newer Communicator versions.    If you do not have the latest and greatest, we suggest that you download it from the Netscape web site.  Sportswire uses many features of Internet Explorer including tables and table shading, background sounds, and Active/X controls where appropriate.

America Online access software - The original browser included with America Online (version 2.0) is not usable with Sportswire.com as it did not support HTML tables properly and cannot go into secure socket layer (SSL) mode.  Beginning with America Online version 3.0, their browser was upgraded to be much more robust and quicker. The most recent versions of America Online for the PC allow you to upgrade to a browser which is based on Microsoft Internet Explorer technology, and it is much faster then all of their previous versions.  This upgrade is known as America Online for Windows 95, or it is also called the MSIE browser upgrade.  When you are using America Online software, goto keyword UPGRADE to go to the upgrade center where you can download the most recent version of the browser components.

Compuserve and Prodigy access software - Although these software packages provide less capable browsers then most, they are usable with Sportswire.com.

Mosaic based browsers - Air Mosaic, SPRY and other companies offer packages based on the original NCSA mosaic code.  While many of these browsers will work correctly with Sportswire.com, we strongly recommend that you consider upgrading to either Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape offerings. The Mosaic browsers do not always draw tables correctly and some versions cannot go into Secure Socket Layer (SSL) mode.

Java and Active/X information

Sportswire.com currently is designed to function properly with Java and Active/X capable browsers.  Although we have minimized the use of these technologies to prevent compatibility problems with users, it is a simple fact that more and more of the Sportswire.com experience will be enhanced by browsers that support these technologies. For this reason we recommend either the Microsoft or Netscape browsers. Due to the extremely powerful and capable functionality that is available with Active/X based browsers, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, we recommend that you consider using this browser, or a browser based on Internet Explorer technology, if this is possible.

Although Sportswire strives to appeal to the widest group of people, we will be providing much more enhanced functionality for people who use browsers based on Microsoft's Internet Explorer technology in the future.

Cookies and other information

Sportswire.com runs on Microsoft Internet Information Server and uses Active Server Pages (ASP) to deliver the HTML experience to you. Because cookies allow the server to maintain better state and status information about your navigation in Sportswire.com, they are used throughout the site.

Although there has been much MISINFORMATION and scare-tactics surrounding the use of cookies, we can assure you that they are safe, harmless, and do NOT invade your machine or your privacy in any way.  Most of the press and people misunderstand what cookies are, and thus, they attempt to scare people into being afraid of them. A cookie is nothing more then a textual or numerical value that is sent from the web server to your machine, so that the web server can later "request" the text or the numerical value from you in order to identify what you were last doing, who you are, or what "state" your connection to us is in.

Because cookies are harmless, you should not be afraid to allow Sportswire.com, or any web site for that matter, to send them and request them from your machine.  This process is automatic and silent and quick.  Cookies provide so many benefits and absolutely no drawbacks that they are used in many places in Sportswire.com.

You must enable cookie support in your web browser to use all of the functionality in Sportswire.com.  If you are so PARANOID about cookies and the propoganda and misinformation about cookies that you do NOT want to allow your browser to use them, then we expect that not only will you not be able to use many of the features of Sportswire.com, but you might as well not bother surfing any of the sites on the internet, since the number of sites using the benign, harmless, yet valuable cookies is growing by leaps and bounds every day.  In addition, if you are paranoid about cookies and use the silly cookie deletion programs, then you are probably so dumb and paranoid about computers and the internet in general, that we really don't want you to spend time here.   Cookies are harmless, yet very valuable.  Don't let anyone take your money (on those stupid cookie deletion programs) or scare you into thinking that cookies are some silly big-brother invasion of privacy.  Anyone who is afraid of using cookies is simply demonstrating their ignorance about the internet in general.