# Can't "View Source" now, what's up??
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-source-now-whats-up/291027
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 20, 2005, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-source-now-whats-up/291027 "2005-02-20T16:28:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2005, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-source-now-whats-up/291027/1 "2005-02-20T16:28:17Z")
I’m not a great web page designer, but I like to view the source code of web pages now and then.
I recently went from Windows 98 SE/IE 5.X (?) to Windows XP/IE 6.0. I used to be able to right click and “View Source” to see the HTML. Now nothing happens.
I’m just guessing it’s a simple check box in the Security options or something, but I’m not sure what to look for.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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### Author:  [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2005, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-source-now-whats-up/291027/2 "2005-02-20T16:30:42Z")
It’s a bug in IE. Clear your Temporary Internet Files by going to **Tools|Internet Options** and hitting **Delete Files**.
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### Author:  [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2005, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-source-now-whats-up/291027/3 "2005-02-20T16:37:13Z")
Thanks for the fast reply, and it worked!!
I never would have thought of that, thanks again.
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### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2005, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-source-now-whats-up/291027/4 "2005-02-20T16:55:14Z")
If you use Mozilla or Firefox you won’t have this problem.
😃
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### Author:  [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2005, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-source-now-whats-up/291027/5 "2005-02-20T16:57:33Z")
I’ll be sure to start a thread, “Should I switch to Mozilla or Firefox?”.
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### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2005, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-source-now-whats-up/291027/6 "2005-02-20T17:11:41Z")
> [@Duke of Rat](#):
>
> I’ll be sure to start a thread, “Should I switch to Mozilla or Firefox?”.
Well, you can become a great web designer if you were to use a standards-compliant web browsers. IE is not.
😃
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### Author:  [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2005, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-source-now-whats-up/291027/7 "2005-02-20T18:19:36Z")
I’ve never made a web page, I enjoy looking at source code. Interesting that you should mention that IE is not compliant. The html object we are manipulating did not work for any of us except those who were running IE.
> [@](#):
>
> so what’s it supposed to do. It does nothing on my mac running netscape
was one of the responses,
> [@](#):
>
> I’m in the same boat as you. It won’t work for me running on Safari, the latest version at that
was another.
> [@](#):
>
> It would seem it only works in IE. Too bad some programmers don’t take a little extra effort for the rest of us
yet another.
I have nothing against 3rd party browsers, but IE works for what I need.
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### Author:  [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2005, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-source-now-whats-up/291027/8 "2005-02-20T18:22:21Z")
Um, for the record, if you want to become a “great web designer”, you’ll want to please the majority of your users, and they are not using either Mozilla or Firefox. I’ll leave it to you to research what primary browser you should test on.
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### Author:  [@Hayden\_Sikh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hayden_Sikh)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2005, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-source-now-whats-up/291027/9 "2005-02-20T18:47:35Z")
While IE still holds the majority, FF users now account for 20% of the market according to the [statistics page at www.w3schools.com](http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp). In any case, I’d say a truely great web designer would make the page work correctly in all browsers, which from my experience has meant: do the initial design in FF or Opera, then tweak it so that IE will render it correctly.
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### Author:  [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2005, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-source-now-whats-up/291027/10 "2005-02-20T19:41:08Z")
> [@Bill H.](#):
>
> Um, for the record, if you want to become a “great web designer”, you’ll want to please the majority of your users, and they are not using either Mozilla or Firefox. I’ll leave it to you to research what primary browser you should test on.
I hardly think standards compatablility should be beyond the abilities of a ‘great web designer’. 100% is more of a majority than 80%, no?
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2005, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-source-now-whats-up/291027/11 "2005-02-20T19:54:11Z")
Asked, answered, hijacked and closed.
**samclem** GQ moderator