time for a browser upgrade?

November 13, 2008

Recently, we noticed that 22% of the people who visited www.getartisan.com.au still use Internet Explorer 6.

As technology continues to advance, websites require more sophisticated browsers in order to present the site in the way it was intended. IE7 was released way back in October 2006, meaning that most people seem unfazed with the concept of updating their software regardless of if it is free or not. Estimates of IE7's global market share place it between approximately 26% and 47%.

One of the main advantages for updating your web browser is due to the fact that developers will aim to make them more compatible with the current industry standards. In an article for ZD Net, Chris Wilson, the Group Program Manager for IE stated that, “"There were a ton of bugs from IE6 that were causing web developers a lot of pain - and we really wanted to nail those and the most requested features upfront."

Of course, there are many popular alternatives to the Internet Explorer brand, the most popular being Mozilla’s Firefox browser.

Firefox recently hit the Guinness Book of Records for achieving 5 million downloads within the first 24 hours of their version 3 being released. Firefox had 19.97% of the recorded usage share of web browsers as of October 2008, making it the second-most popular browser in current use worldwide, after Internet Explorer. Firefox runs on various versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and many other Unix-like operating systems.

Of course, IE8 is now released as a beta version and it will be interesting to see what advantages upgrading to that version will provide.

However, it still goes without saying that if you wish to enjoy the Artisan website in all it’s glory, make sure you have the most recent version of your web browser installed on your system.

What browser does your studio use? And what advantages do you find it has? Drop us a line at lawrence@getartisan.com.au.