Hex or Decimal? Until recently, it was assumed that colors should always be declared in RGB hexadecimal notation. In fact, I still meet designers and developers who are completely unaware that they have alternatives. RGB decimal has been around for quite awhile and will work in any browser you want to throw it at. But which is “better”? I personally find that it’s much easier to envision a color in decimal numbers (which I’ve used all my life) than in hex values. I can look at the value 135, 127, 107 and know it’s a reddish beige much faster than if I see 877f6b. Additionally, since there is no alpha version for hex, if you want transparent colors, you have to use decimal values. The only argument in favor of hex color values is that they are more compact (a smaller file size) than decimal values. But even over a large-scale Web site, you might save only a few bytes (millionths of a second in load time).