[thelist] system requirements for Netscape 4.x vs recent browsers
Sarah Sweeney
mr.sanders at designshift.com
Thu Jun 17 08:45:53 CDT 2004
Joel Konkle-Parker wrote:
> Well, I had to browse using NS4 yesterday. My main machine was down, so
> I was using the old SGI in the office. I'd say definitely engineers
> using UNIX are prime offenders.
My brother develops a site for the graduate department in a university
and complains about the computers (and the users) in the labs, which
apparently were set up under a deal with a major vendor; part of the
deal was that NN4 was installed as the default browser. Now, even though
most if not all of these computers also have IE (6, I think), people use
NN4 cause it's the default. He also mentioned that a lot of students
visiting the graduate department site come from some foreign countries
where their computers don't tend to be as high-end as here, so NN4 is
more prevalent. These are a couple of examples of the kind of users who
still use NN4. I would imagine that lots of schools, businesses,
libraries, etc, have had NN4 installed by default, and will be upgraded
eventually - just don't hold your breath!
In my particular case, I think a lot of the visitors of the site I'm
working on are also working in an office where NN4 was installed by
default, and users don't have admin privileges, so they can't upgrade.
Still, I've printed a small message at the bottom of the screen
suggesting that users upgrade, and I've included links to a few recent
browsers. It would be great if I could think up a one-line explanation
of *why* they should upgrade - something that would not offend, and
would be easy for anyone to understand. However, I doubt this is possible :)
--
Sarah Sweeney
Web Developer & Programmer
Portfolio :: http://sarah.designshift.com
Blog, etc :: http://hardedge.ca
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