[thelist] older browsers - why are people still using them? (long)

Eöl eol1 at yahoo.com
Tue Dec 11 12:57:17 CST 2001


My $0.02US :) (and I am a professional web developer),

It honestly depends on your market.  I work as the
senior web developer for my campus dept.  The fact of
the matter is (after having some ppl conduct a phone
survey to public institutions city/state/nationwide)
that most state and federal instutions still run NS4.x
and IE5/6.  (with some that ONLY run ns4.x and some
that only run IE5/6).  Out of the 100 we called, only
2 had upgraded to NS6.x (or Moz).  Didn't get into why
(didn't want this to be an invasive survey), so talked
to some ppl on my campus and other state/system
campus's on why they still run ns4.x campus wide. 
Here is the reasoning, use IE.  I am not shittng you,
this is what they said.

After talkign to them about it, it seems that back in
the browser war days (6 or 7 years ago), NS4.x (since
it was a better browser) and IE4 were mandated on all
state public systems.  This was for accessibility at
the time since NS had well over 50%+ market share and
didn't want to alienate public users.  Well as NS
market share eroded (less the 15% today and falling),
IE got better and came preinstalled on newer boxes. 
If your page looked like crap on NS4.x, call your
institution tech support and they would tell you to
use IE.  It would work, look good in IE5+, so ppl
stuck to it.  That continues to be the philosphy
today.  80%+ of our users use IE (this isn't sites
hits, this is actually application usage stats from
the boxes).  Why as an system admin do I want to waste
my time (and prob over a month or) updating thousands
of computers campus wide to NS6.x when I can continue
to get them to use IE.  IE COMES PREINSTALLED on all
my new boxes so why waste my time.  People that do
honestly care about how much ns4.x stinks on my campus
are more than welcome to install ns6.x locally and
they do.  I am guessing that this applies to almost
all public institutions (results of survey seem to say
so).  They run windows networks, IE comes preinstalled
with the latest version of IE (plus newer MS software
usually updates your IE version automatically when you
install it.  So when I install the latest office, I
also get the latest IE), so no reason why your ns4.x
users can't switch.

Now as a web developers, this annoys the hell out of
me since I am forced to create two seperate sites for
my dept, ns4.x and IE/NS6.x.  If the software ppl
would just update campus wide to ns6.x OR TOTALLY
REMOVE NS4.x , i would be happy.  Less work for me. 
BUT as they rightly put it, MORE work for them.  I
know I as a human always get pissed when I have to do
more work for somebody else can do less.  Call it the
law of work selfishness :)

Now you figure how many public state/federal
institutions and private universities are across the
US (and world).  Bet you find about 95% of your ns4.x
dinosaurs there.

People like to blame it on the home user, but this 9
out of 10 times just isn't true (we dont' like to
think this because we are all tech savy and have
browser / standards loyalties).  I will use my 50 year
old mother for example.  She used ns4.x till her 486
became absolete in 1998. She then purchased a new
computer with windows98 and it came with IE5.  She
will use this till it becomes obsolete and then get a
new computer with win XXXX and IE X.X.  The fact of
the matter is, as old computers leave circulation at
home, NS4.x will leave circulation and IEX.X will
gain.  People at home don't care about browsers.  To
them, a browser (IE/AOL) IS THE INTERNET.  They don't
care about the technical differences between them or
the “i hate bill gates issue”.  IE works for them,
they are happy.  Why do they want to go though the
extra effort of installing a different browser when
you have one that already works on the computer you
just bought.  And before you say but Bill is evil,
remember, I as a home user don’t care.  Rational my
argument is I bought a Bill box (runs windows), I
might as well use his browser.  If Bill browser==evil,
then Bill OS==evil, but if Bill OS !=evil (I did by a
Bill OS box after all, so I must like the OS), then
Bill brower !=evil by default.  !evil==good.  IF you
do actually care, then you will go and get NS6.x, but
then again, you are not one of those ppl bitching
about pages lookign bad in ns4.x.

So what it comes down to is your audience and market. 
I as a public institution as required to support
legacy browsers.  In my case, I have to remember that
they 20K students on campus CAN’T UPGRADE there
browser (campus boxes are locked tight, only admins
can).  As a developer, need to remember that there are
prob millions of ns4.x users that CAN’T update their
NS4.x due to work constraints.

Now if I was a private institution, to bad. I would
run my pages xhtml1.1 with css2 and to hell with
everybody.  My market would be people that are a)most
likely running IE5+ b)people that are savy enough to
have NS6.x or Opera.  I will take the <5% market loss
to NS4.x users.  If they email me and complain, I will
kindly point out they can use IE (since they most
likely use windows.  If a *nix users ever complains
and he uses NS4.x I will laugh.  If he is tech savy
enough to use *nix, then he is tech savy enough to
update his damn browser) or they can go to NS site and
update for FREE.  My business cost justification is
the same way I justify php/asp.  Why should I pay my
web developers to do TWICE as much work and create
dual sites.  Especially when one of the sites market
share is eroding more and more everyday.  The benefits
and cost of coding a ns4.x specific site just isn’t
worth it.  AND NO I will not start doing my whole site
in flash like some ppl are doing.

Think I will stop there.  Could go on but why.  Hope
it was informative.  Might me holes in it, didn't
exactly sit down and write an essay or report. 
Complaints/bitches/whines, RE: me.

Cheers,

Eöl


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