OK, tell me what you see (Rorshach for browsers)

Click on this link and post here what you see. I run MSIE, so I see a dead elephant. But the site says Netscape browsers would render the image as a happy cow. What do you see? I think this counts as an IMHO thread, because it is a poll. But I also want a verification of something I heard (different browsers show the same images differently).

Using MSIE 5.0 I see a dead elephant, using Netscape 3.0 I see a fuct up looking cow.

I use explorer, and got a cow.

IE - elephant
Netscape - cow

Using Netscape 3.0, it looks like a cow, but I certainly would not describe it as a happycow.

I see the elephant. (IE)

Netscape 3.0 on a Mac and I’m seeing something that looks like a happy kangaroo posing in front of a one-horned creature with wide ears.
IE 5.5b on a Mac and I’ll be damned if I can tell WHAT the thing is but it’s definitely different.

Just for variety’s sake, iCab on a Mac = the same happy kangaroo blocking my view of the one-horned wide-eared whatchamacallit.

On Netscape on Mac (and PC) the happy cow. In IE 5 for PC, dead elephant.

The weird stuff starts with iCab for Mac. AHunter, I don’t know what I see! But it’s definitely bizarre. It almost looks like the two pictures blended together. Same with IE 4.5 for Mac…but when the picture was loading, it looked bright and pixelated, (and unrecognizable) and then as it completed loading, it looked the same as with iCab. A weird hybrid of the two images, almost.

IE- another elephant.

Elephant. IE

Elephant (IE & Opera)

I see my mother-in-law

( pass me another beer )

Seriously, I have IE and I saw an elephant.

The cow has serious ears.

They say its not a redirection based on detecting your browser but I can’t see that it can be anything but that.

They are two completely different images - so it’s not a “browser feature” (there phrase) that renders the page differently, they just send you to different pages depending on what you’re using.

Anyone think differently ?

No - they are not two different images. Or at least I doubt it. I saw a hybrid of the two images (looked kinda like one image superimposed over the other) with the iCab browser on my Mac, and on the Mac version of IE. AHunter saw something which (I assume) was simular on his Mac. Something funny is going on, but it isn’t as simple as two seperate images.

I see a cow picking its nose with its tounge…anyways we can tell if they are spoofing us with opera, cause it can be set to identify as IE or Netscape…I used to have it, im sure a doper around here has it? Anyone…?

Oh, and on their next page of browser weirdness (http://x42.com/koolefant/hopper/) iCab shows two IDENTICAL images - both look like a hybrid of the Hopper picture and the Peter Sellers picture. Very very weird. But this same page will display two distinct pictures with Netscape or IE (on the PC) - the Hopper picture and the Sellers picture, side-by-side.

I have yet to see what IE 4.5 on the Mac displays on this page. Probably the same weirdness that iCab shows.

That link made clickable:

http://x42.com/koolefant/hopper/

That is interesting, I’m not on a Mac but that does seem to offer a clue.

Only things I noted were the relatively poor quality of the images (a clue to the hybrid thing ?) and also he’s saying IE on Solaris renders like NS for this - err…ok ?

Maybe we need someone with serious Photoshop experience to wander by

“koolefant.gif” renderings on a PC running Windows 95:

  1. Internet Explorer 2.0 & 3.0: Dead Elephant
  2. Netscape Navigator 4.08: Cow face

but…

  1. Old copy of Netscape Navigator (version 1.22): both, or, more precisely, an interlaced picture, twice as wide as the two renderings above, consisting of alternating vertical lines of the two images. The cow image is more colorful and brighter, so it generally dominates, and the overall effect is mostly of a horizontally-stretched version of the cow face, twice as wide as on Netscape 4.08. But the alternating lines from the elephant pictures are also there, just not as distinctive.

I wonder if this gif file takes advantage of the way newer versions of IE and Navigator handle either progressive or animated gifs.

Is it me or does that cow look like he’s picking his nose with his tongue?

Needs2know