What happens when you try to access the Windows Live Home site at http://home.live.com/ with 256 colors? Good question. The answer is: that depends on your browser. Why? Because the background art (the “wave”) is rendered differently, depending on what browser rendering engine is being used. But—have a look yourself:
This is Internet Explorer 8. What do we see? A proper pixelation of the wave. But wait, what are those grey areas? To talk in Firefox’s words, “Well, this is embarassing.” The grey areas are what should be a perfect engine for transparent PNGs. So, it is not only IE6 being dodgy; everything depends on the viewpoint.
Well, this is Google Chrome. The wave is rendered by reducing the colors, and the rest just looks odd. So, every browser has its downsides, but this time I clearly prefer Internet Explorer.