Hello,
What do you think about practicing a ‘Switch to a new browser day’ on which we can inform people that are using older browsers to switch to a new or different one on our websites.
Here is the link to the original idea:
http://www.beaconwatch.com/post.php?id=18
Let me know what you think.
Thanks.
It’s a nice idea, but I don’t think it’ll have much effect.
Your target groups are:
a) people on corporate networks
b) people with little technical knowledge
Group a cannot change (whether they want to or not), as the decision lies with the company they work for.
Group b (I’m thinking of my parents and their friends) don’t want to change as what they have works.
Yeah, even I believe it would be hard to implement. But like you said, if we just target ‘group a’ and the owners of the website want to practice it, then it will definitely help. But what I like about this idea is that it is just suppose to be for a day, every year. So even if major websites like Google, Facebook, Youtube and twitter practice this day. I think it will definitely help and every year when new browsers come out, more people will switch to them because of this. But that’s just how I feel.
I wouldn’t inform people one day a year that they can switch browser, but rather tell people with very old browsers every day of the year that they should update, using a service like http://browser-update.org/
Lol, yeah you can do that too. But the important thing is that, imo, famous websites should definitely do it for it to be effective, at least one day or all year long.
Google already do that 365 days a year and 366 days in leap years. Anyone who doesn’t have their browser set ti identify itself as Chrome will get a message suggesting that they upgrade to Chrome every time they do a search.
Thanks for informing about that, I did not realize that until now.
But what I like about the idea is that it suggests to make it an official day. That would definitely create a lot more awareness imo. But I don’t know if it is even feasible to even create awareness in the webmaster community to implement this.
Before you could do that you’d really need to have a What is a Browser day. Most of those people who are running antiquated browsers don’t know what a browser is and would assume that any reference to upgrading a browser is not directed at them as since they don’t know what a browser is they assume that they don’t have one to upgrade. To them the blue e in their desktop is called “the internet” and they assume that everyone else accesses the internet the same way. Those browser thingies that apparently some people need to upgrade must be needed to access some special part of the internet that they don’t use since their direct access to the internet doesn’t require a browser.
Not changing the Chrome, man 
But Firefox isn’t a typical browser.
- It is the only browser without a debugger built in.
- It is slower than all the other browsers.
- It is getting close to being the least standards compatible browser now that IE has almost caught up.
You really should consider switching to a good browser such as Chrome or Opera and leave that antiquated Firefox behind.
I’ve tried 5 browsers - IE, FF, chrome, safari, rockmelt but still id like how FF and chrome features saves me a lot of work and time…rockmelt is cool though
No change. Still now I am using Mozilla Firefox.
<snip />
I hear a lot of people extolling the virtues of Opera, and I have a copy installed on my machine, but I haven’t really noticed that much of a speed difference between it and FF. Maybe the Linux versions are less different speed-wise than the Windows versions?
The main reason I use Firefox is because of all the developer extensions (HTML tidy, web developer toolbar, color picker, color contrast tester, etc), and I don’t know how many of these are available on Opera.
Now my phone is a different story. I started using Dolphin a while back, which was a decent browser, but I’ve since switched to Chrome. I just prefer the way it works and renders pages.
I think people should have at least 2 good browsers installed on their system. I always use Chrome, but I also have Firefox installed. Rarely when something is acting weird in Chrome, such as if some video is not playing correctly… then I use Firefox.
[font=verdana]Two of the main speed advantages that Opera has are (i) it has a lot more native functions than Firefox, so there is less need to slow it down with clunky add-ons (this is often why Firefox performs badly on speed tests), and (ii) it has lots of shortcuts that allow you to carry out tasks quicker because you aren’t hunting through menus or typing as much in. It has great web developer facilities (including a colour picker!), which I’ve barely scratched the surface of. It generally gets new features first and they are then copied by other browsers, natively or as add-ons, some time later.
I have been using Opera for years, and any time I have to use any other browser I feel like I’m not just trying to work it left-handed but left-footed, because so many of the tricks that I usually use don’t work. It takes a little bit of effort to get the best out of it, which is what puts a lot of people off, but what you get back for that little bit of effort is well worth it.[/font]
I guess I’ll have to do some Opera fiddling when I get home tonight. :scratch:
Having number of browsers will not help. The only thing that is going to help is the browser that you are comfortable with like in using and about its add on.
So that you will have update version of browser keep it on automatic check for update and install.
Particularly with all the people still running old browsers who don’t even know that such a thing as a browser exists - to then the blue “e” on their desktop IS the internet so why would they expect to use anything else.