No popups
Popups break the browser paradigm
Dialogs such as accepting a certificate or allowing some data being sent must be done in browser forms.
Lets take a look at how two leading browsers handle a 404 and a domain which doesn’t exist.
IE6:
It does the errors within the browser. No popups. Great.
BUT it could be improved. They are inconsistent. And the 404 page provided by the browser could included a feedback form so a user could easily give feedback to the site maintainer.
Mozilla1.6:
Wrong, wrong, wrong! What an unhelpful default 404. That screenshot shows the confusion. Is it a 404 now, or does the domain not exist?
On my Nokia’s user agent, the error ”STOP page can not be loaded” just flashes for a second and disapears. Hardly enough time to take it in. Can’t go back to it as it’s a popup. And after comprehending the error, the error does not have any useful information whatsoever to debug the problem.