you can't expect everyone to have upgraded their browser since 1997
posted March 23, 2005
Client’s client’s email excerpt:
“Some areas of the •••.com site show incorrect layout using my standard browser, Netscape 4.7. It may be important to make this more accessible in the very near future, since people are beginning to look at (the site). I note that it works perfectly with Internet Explorer (2002 version) but not everyone will have this.”
This reminds me that last year, when I was editing a paper introducing a new online database for the Human Genome Project, all the screenshots provided by the developers showed that they were using Netscape 4.7.
That’s right, the Human Genome Project database lookup is optimized for Netscape 4.7.
hhmmm, for a site as well-known as ABC.com you would think that they would access their logs and see what their users are using as a browser. here–at my workplace which is also the web department of a large entertainment company–we check our logs weekly and make sure that we test on the top 5 browsers, not OUR standard company browser installation which is *GASP* netscape 4.01 (if you can believe it.) how very 1996 of us.
I was using ABC.com as a nonspecific client website name, not thinking of the American TV network. I changed it.
Actually, it’s more common than you think. When Netscape 4.7 came out it was chosen as the standard browser for many terminals in large corporations. I don’t know the reasons but probably because IE had lots of security flaws at the time. Anyway, upgrading all the terminals in a large companies is a daunting task and some companies take a long time to complete it only to find another new OS/browser out there. There is a certain reluctance to doing this. I recently did a project at a major international financial institution and their default browser was still Netscape 4.7.
Leave your response!
Kyoto Event Calendar
Links