Now’s the time to update your Internet browser

There are three main browsers people are using to access the Kiwanis web sites. Internet Explorer makes up over 70% of the traffic, Firefox makes up another 20% and Safari is in third place with 6%. Overall, our sites are visited by 26 different browsers.

So … there is a good chance that you are using Internet Explorer (IE) to read this blog. What version are you using? 99.98% of our users are using either version 6, 7, or 8. Version 8 was released on March 19th of this year and already 22% of you have upgraded. There are still 20% who have not. If you’re still on version 6 and are able to upgrade, now is a great time to move in that direction.

Many of the bigger sites are now starting to say they will not be supporting issues with Internet Explorer 6. Among them YouTube and Digg. These companies see that their time would be better spent working and using the features of modern browsers instead of tweaking sites to ensure they work on the older, lesser used versions. We do plan on moving more of our resources in this same direction.

Web content must be tested and tweaked for each browser version. Unfortunately, IE6 is the most difficult browser version to design and code for, sometimes adding 40% more time to any testing and tweaking process. A few missed launch deadlines have been due to IE6 issues.

To find out what version of IE you are using, click on the Help button in the top menu area of your browser window. Select “About Internet Explorer” from the drop-down menu. A small box will pop up and under the heading it should say Version: and then a string of numbers after it. I currently have version 8.0.6001.18702. The first number in the string tells you the version number. I’m on version 8. Your screen may say 6, 7 or even 8 if you have already upgraded.

Internet Explorer 6 was released in August of 2001! If you would like to upgrade, click Tools and then click Windows Update. Select this to upgrade your browser and start using some of the new features.  If you would like to see a list of the features you will gain by upgrading, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/features/faster.aspx

Please let me know how you feel about your current browser and if you will be upgrading if you have not already done so. If you don’t plan to upgrade (or cannot), please let us know that as well (and why).

Also, we have more stats that we can share if people are interested in the numbers. It is interesting to see the diversity of our users.