Hotmail serving different content for different browsers
While putting our acid test through the paces it became apparent that Windows Live Hotmail (WLH) was exhibiting odd behavior in two different browsers. We tested our webmail clients in a couple different browsers not knowing the browsers themselves would have an impact on rendering. As it turns out, it unfortunately does.
In the case of WLH we encountered unique rendering of our acid test in each browser we tested: Firefox (Mac/Win), Safari (Mac/Win) and Internet Explorer (Win). The WLH generated/modified markup was slightly different in each browser as was the visual results. The thing to keep in mind here is this isn’t a browser rendering issue. Our acid test looks perfect in all three browsers, it’s the changes that WLH is making on the fly to the content itself that seems to be the issue here, which these screenshots demonstrate:
Our acid test page rendered in WLH with Firefox
Our acid test page rendered in WLH with Safari
Unfortunately it doesn’t end there. As well as the discrpeancies between Firefox and Safari, we were also presented with different rendering in Internet Explorer depending on the “version” of WLH we were using.
“Classic” versus “Full”
There are two versions of WLH: “Classic” and “Full”. Classic is an enhanced version of the original Hotmail GUI and Full is the new WLH GUI. One can switch between the two at any given time, and even go back and forth at will. It may be that Microsoft will simply upgrade everyone to the Full version at some point. But as of now, it’s a user-defined option.
The primary difference is the functionality of the application. The Full version is an AJAX-type interface with a preview pane, while Classic is faster with less bells and whistles.
So do they render emails differently? Yes, and no. It depends on what browser one is using to access an account. In Firefox and Safari, for example, switching between Full and Classic has little-to-no impact on the rendering of an HTML email. However, in IE there is a significant difference: Classic failed to render any of our CSS while Full rendered it fairly well.
Our acid test page rendered in WLH with Internet Explorer “Full” version
Our acid test page rendered in WLH with Internet Explorer “Classic” version
These findings mean that there are at least four different versions of content being served by this single email client depending on the browser and version being used. For our recommendations we used Firefox, which is actually one of the more favorable results out of these variations.
Stay Tuned for a Full Report
We intend to conduct some in-depth tests to help us better understand how WLH will render our HTML emails across various browsers and how this impacts our recommendations. We would like to help Microsoft with a comprehensive report so they can fully understand what we’d like to see with future updates of WLH. After all we can speak first hand about the labor required to test a webmail client. And, of course, they have it worse because while we simply report test results, they are charged with the task of making things right.
Very good job.
It’s hard in our time to send good html mail.
You’ve done a great job in these documentations.
Thanks, Billyboylindien. We definitely put a lot of work into this, which will all be worth the while if we can achieve a higher level of web standards in the email environment.
Any word on the Linux client Evolution?
This is similar to the behavior differences between the Microsoft Outlook Web Access email client (Premium and Basic). The Basic client completely strips out any style tags, as well as inline style references. Interestingly enough users are offered a choice of Basic or Premium if using IE, but only receive Basic (no choice) if using Firefox. I haven’t tested on a Mac, so I don’t konw how that’s handled.
@Jenn:
Actually, yes. Evolution doesn’t render CSS. It displays our acid test very much like the Safari example in this post. It would be great to have them on board with this effort as well.
Thunderbird on Linux, however, offers the same level of support that it does on other platforms.
@Jeff:
Awesome. Thanks for sharing this information; it will be helpful. We’ll look into that as well.
@Mark
Great to know! Thanks for the heads up :)
Oh, this sort of information is infinitely useful. I came across this exact problem in my testing of HTML emails (WLM not playing nice cross-browser), and it’s certainly been the cause of much hair-pulling and head-desking over here.
Thank you for everything you’ve offered thus far!
Forgetting CSS for a minute, Windows Live Mail/Hotmail cannot even render standard tables properly in FF, Safari and Opera. It adds in padding/spacing between every table row and tables themselves. I even affect MSN’s own newsletters! In Internet Explorer, the padding is (predictably) not visible.
It’s a absolutely shocking bug in my opinion, and the only web mail client that causes me real problems, as I have learnt to steer well clear of CSS in HTML emails for a long time.
re: exchange:
there is no plus/basic option for mac users that I’ve seen in either Safari or Firefox or even IE5. I never even knew such a thing existed until I just tried it on my pc!
@ Lewis:
The core mission behind the Email Standards Project is to push web standards into the email arena. Using tables for layout is not part of that agenda, which is why we did not test or report on support for them.
Regarding your wanting to avoid CSS in your HTML emails because of a lack of support, you’re not alone. And this is one of the primary reasons we’re asking email-client developers to support web standards.
@ a*p:
I actually use Macs for design/development and have been since day one. So my testing and screen shots originate on Mac and Windows depending on the context.
Regarding your specific challenge finding the “full” and “classic” links, you’ll find them behind the “options” button in the upper-right corner of the WLM GUI. I can see this on my Mac in Firefox and Safari, so I’m assuming you simply missed it?
I hope that helps.
@ everyone sharing gratitude:
You’re absolutely welcome. But don’t thank us—thank yourselves for being involved with the project. Success of ESP requires active participation from the web community.
This is some interesting information, thanks much for posting. Has the same study been done on Yahoo Mail, both the free and the Plus (paid) versions? I’d be curious to know what happens (or happened) there?
This news doesn’t surprise me as it seems all of the email clients struggle with HTML in some way, shape, or form. I’m curious as well if you have run your acid test on all the major players?
@Tom - Chair Mats:
You’re absolutely correct that all email-client developers struggle with support for HTML emails. It’s quite the challenge, and thus the reason we aren’t laying into them. We simply want to shed light on the need for better support and to offer our findings. Hopefully, this offers a nice foundation for them.
Also, you asked about our acid test. Yes, we have run this on the most commonly-used email clients, both desktop- and webmail-based, and reported the results on this site.
You´re doing a great job trying to emprove or establish a new standard for email communication! Hopefully we´ll be able to communicate in a more distinguished, higher creative way via email. I wish you guys all the best and good luck!
Tobi
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