What is the difference between document.getElementById('mybox') and mybox? [duplicate]

Answer 1

Some browsers in some rendering modes will create a global variable for each element with an id.

It is non-standard, won't work everywhere and definitely can't be depended upon.

Answer 2

They don't "both work the same". IE introduced making element ids into global variables, other browsers copied it to some extent but don't fully support it. It's considered a very bad idea, just don't do it.

Answer 3

mybox.value does not work in most cases. I believe IE is the only browser (and only some versions of it) that would support it. In my Firefox browser, I get mybox not defined error message in the console.