As explained per Scott Isaac's:

Quote

Start.com currently runs in the latest versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer (although there are some bugs in some versions). We've received feedback questioning why we don't support additional browsers. The browsers we support is currently a technology driven decision. We want to support additional browsers, but not all browsers support the necessary standards. I am going to explain a few technical issues we have faced that are critical to us expanding Start.com's support.

 

First, the browser must support the DHTML event and object model. I am not going to list the specific standards, but assuming a browser can meet the following three requirements, the remaining support will most likely be sufficient.

Support for dynamically downloading code

We download most scripts by dynamically creating SCRIPT tags. Unfortunately, we have found some browsers do not expose any events or properties that we can use to detect the script has been loaded. Specifically, we have not found an appropriate onload event or readystate-type poperty in Safari.

Support for adding custom properties to base DOM objects

Our goal is to avoid writing browser specific code within our application implementation. To accomplish this, our framework equalizes the object models and even extends built-in behavior by extending the prototypes of the base DOM objects. For example, we add properties to the base HTMLElement and Event objects.  Specifically, we have not found a way to do this in Opera.

Support for parsing and retrieving xml tags

We embed custom tags into our documents. These tags need to be properly parsed into their appropriate tree. For example, in the HTML document we may have tags such as:

<web:binding selector=".list" type="Demo.List"><web:defaults></web:defaults></web:binding>

We need to be able to query and extract these elements, their associated attributes, and any child elements.

 

These represent the typical requirements that have blocked us from running on a larger set of browsers. If you represent a browser that does not run Start.com, we would appreciate any help resolving these issues. You can reach me directly via the e-mail address listed in my profile, or you can contact the start.com team directly. For the rest of you, we are working hard at enabling Start.com on the widest array of browsers and devices.

• feed read/unread support
• more/fewer headlines
• auto-refresh for feeds
• many improvemens on:
• look and feel
• feed subscriptions
• default experience
• sidebar behavior
• as we as many bug fixes

please send us your feedback (comment or email startfb) - tells us what you like about start and what you don't like. share your ideas and suggestions for new startlets, ux, ads, functionality, etc.  we value your input, no feedback is left unread :)

as many of you may be aware of, a new of version of start was recently released:

• a preview of start.com/3 was released on june 3rd at 6:30 pm:
  a blend of /1 and /2 and your feedback. the highlights include new UI, search results/history integration, overlay module, drag and drop
  
• UI facelift was released on june 8th at 9:00 pm:
  a cleaner look and feel with a softer color scheme and much less clutter as well as a much improved drag and drop experience

this is still a preview as we have some issues that we still need to resolve, mainly:

• firefox support
• opml import
• roaming
• improved add content experience
• improved left pane navigation

keep sending us your feedback... we love feedback.

apologies about the lag for this entry, we promise to update this space more frequently. we are also working on a community discussion board. 

sanaz ahari
start.com program manager

The recent release of Firefox version 1.0.3 had some security fixes that broke parts of the start.com framework.  We've identified the issues and have added workarounds to bring it back in line.  Thanks to our chief javascript and DHTML wrangler Scott Isaacs for making it all good again!

• Added support for increasing and decreasing the number of headlines in a module.  There is no global setting, but the number of headlines are remembered for each module across sessions.  If the feed is listed in My Feeds, the number of headlines will be remembered each time you open a new module.
• Fixed a bug that was causing images not to be displayed in search results
• Fixed an encoding issue in search results
• Added collapse/expand buttons to the bottom of the module when 1 or more headlines are opened.
• Fixed a bug that was causing the sidebar entries not to be sorted correctly in Firefox.
• Fixed a bug that was causing double-clicks to be handled incorrectly in Firefox

Next week, we'll be shifting our attention to our next prototype, so we won't be making many changes to /1 or /2 for the next few weeks. Taking your feedback into account, we'll be trying to meld v1 and v2.  We'll post an announcement when it's ready to see, and we'll look forward to hearing what you think!