Old browsers never die...
I receive monthly statistics about my personal Web site that gives me a lot of data. I can see that the most popular pages at http://kathyschrock.net/ are my blog, Kathy Schrock's Kaffeeklatsch, my Unofficial Guide to American Graffiti, and Rockwell Schrock's Boolean Machine, an interactive demonstration of Boolean search strategies usable on an interactive whiteboard.
However, the statistic I also find interesting is the one that tells me which Web browsers the visitors are using who come to my site. This past month, Netscape 4 led the way with Firefox and IE6 not too far behind. Those three covered about 66% of the visitors.
The surprise comes when I look at the bottom of the list. About 10% of the visitors to my site use browsers such as WebTV 1.x and WebTV 2.x, Netscape 2 and 3, Internet Explorer 2, 3, and 5, Safari 1, Firefox 0 and 1, and AOL 3 and 4.
The users of these older Web browsers can probably get to my site, and navigate it, since it does not deploy the use of too many new technologies. I can just imagine the frustration these users feel when they try to visit some cool new sites or employ the use of some new Web 2.0 tools. Granted, their computers may not be able to handle the plug-ins or add-ons that some of these new technologies require, and they will continue to be frustrated until they can get a newer commputer.
Some of your teachers may not realize there are updates available to their Internet browsers that will run on older machines. Or that there are some additional browsers, such as Avant and Opera, that may work for their particular situation.
A short mention of something like this at a PD session or a faculty meeting could provide one of your teachers with the information he or she needs to be able to effectively use their older computer to navigate the Web sites of today.
(And while we are on the subject, perhaps talking about upgrading their Adobe Acrobat Reader to the highest version possible for their machine might make sense, too! You can still find the a download of Acrobat Reader 5 for Windows 95 and 98 if you look around!)
Photo courtesy of OiMax as per the Creative Commons licensing.
However, the statistic I also find interesting is the one that tells me which Web browsers the visitors are using who come to my site. This past month, Netscape 4 led the way with Firefox and IE6 not too far behind. Those three covered about 66% of the visitors. The surprise comes when I look at the bottom of the list. About 10% of the visitors to my site use browsers such as WebTV 1.x and WebTV 2.x, Netscape 2 and 3, Internet Explorer 2, 3, and 5, Safari 1, Firefox 0 and 1, and AOL 3 and 4.
The users of these older Web browsers can probably get to my site, and navigate it, since it does not deploy the use of too many new technologies. I can just imagine the frustration these users feel when they try to visit some cool new sites or employ the use of some new Web 2.0 tools. Granted, their computers may not be able to handle the plug-ins or add-ons that some of these new technologies require, and they will continue to be frustrated until they can get a newer commputer.
Some of your teachers may not realize there are updates available to their Internet browsers that will run on older machines. Or that there are some additional browsers, such as Avant and Opera, that may work for their particular situation.
A short mention of something like this at a PD session or a faculty meeting could provide one of your teachers with the information he or she needs to be able to effectively use their older computer to navigate the Web sites of today.
(And while we are on the subject, perhaps talking about upgrading their Adobe Acrobat Reader to the highest version possible for their machine might make sense, too! You can still find the a download of Acrobat Reader 5 for Windows 95 and 98 if you look around!)
Photo courtesy of OiMax as per the Creative Commons licensing.
Labels: Kathy Schrock, Web browsers
posted by Kathy Schrock at 7:33 AM
6 Comments:
Are you sure those stats are just from last month? What's the OS breakdown? If these stats are accurate they're really disturbing. I'd like to know more detail.
Tom,
After looking at it again, although I cannot see what OS is using which browser, I see that the corrected stat is that a little over 10% (not 20%) come from really old browsers. Sorry about that...there are 27 browser types on the list and I guess I was adding too quickly.
As far as the OS goes, 6% come from Mac System 9 (or lower), 2% come from Windows 3.1, and 1% from Windows 98, and the rest are from newer OS and also include Linux, Sun, and WinCE.
The sample is only 140,000 or so hits. Also remember,that most of my hits would be from teachers and people who like American Graffiti, probably not a good cross-section of typical users of the larger Web sites.
These are not the Schrockguide stats but just my personal home page stats.
OK. Thanks. That's a little less frightening.
I remember the first edtech online course I took about five years ago on building a website. The message was keep the website free of bells and whistles because browsers and bandwidth couldn't handle it. Boy have things changed quickly. I mean the tech gurus discouraged even the use of flash at that time.
I am having trouble understanding why you are not getting more mac hits. It seems to me that everywhere I look I am seeing macs. Surprising statistics.
Thank you for your push about PD. That is a good idea. Sometimes I just take these things for granted.
You must be very proud of your son. His Boolean site is fantastic! I am using it on Monday with my Freshman English classes.
I completely understand the frustration of users on older computers. Teaching as I do at a small rural school, I maintain one "good" computer and three older ones that I baby along. Students squawk about the wait time but persevere. I am currently attending a BOCES seminar on some of the web2.0 concepts that are almost within reach. We shall update!
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