I have been doing some other web work for a different site that I currently have in the early development stages. I should point out that I browse with Chrome as my primary browser and if that has any issues, I load up Firefox. I also have the latest versions of Safari and Opera that I can use too to check on various things. What about Internet Explorer you ask? A software abomination I say. I use it *only* for browsing records at Ancestry.com. Firefox used to crash (don’t know if it still does) all the time at Ancestry’s site.
So I was curious what the visitors to Saurette.com were using. I have checked my stats from August 1st up until October 20th and have the results (most to least use):
- Internet Explorer 7
- Firefox 3
- Internet Explorer 8
- Internet Explorer 6
- Safari 4
- Chrome
I was surprised that IE 6 was used so much these days. The top 3 were not far apart from each other. It takes a good sized drop from IE 8 to IE 6. Fortunately for me, Saurette.com renders fine in all the iterations of IE (last I checked anyways). The other site I am developing does not. IE 6 and 7 mess it up while *every* other standards compliant browser renders it correctly.
Maybe it is because I’m a techie, but I really can’t fathom why people still use IE at all. All the other browsers are better – plain and simple. A simple download and install and, boom, you are up and surfing and seeing pages viewed the way they were meant to be viewed.
As you can tell, this has nothing to do with genealogy, but I felt the need to mention it in case you ever visit sites and can’t understand why they look wrong (Steve stares directly at the IE 6 users). Don’t be so quick to blame the designer. Good design attempts to be standards compliant for maximum exposure to all the browsers. Microsoft just has to be different. I should point out that IE 8 is better, but still not 100%.
I want to hear from the few people who browsed the site via their iPhone! How’d that go?
