The three digit hexadecimal short-hand represents a smaller subset of colors deemed to be web-safe, or in other words, colors that are gauranteed to work on a display only capable of displaying 256 colors. The benefit of this is to eliminate dithering, which happens when colors outside of that 216 are used and is when the OS tries to simulate a color by combining colors that it knows how to display to create a color that it is not capable of displaying. There are 216 possible colors using this shorthand, minus 40 which are OS reserved. Those forty colors vary from operating system to operating system.
This feature is supported amongst all the popular browsers.
HTH!
Regards,
Rich
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