Convince Your Site Visitors to Upgrade their Web Browsers

Internet Web Design, Ie, Javascript, Mozilla Firefox, Upgrade

29 jul 2008

Old web browsers are not just insecure, they also pose a problem for web designers as they have to design sites while keeping the older versions in mind. If you like help people upgrade their outdated browsers, Pushup has created a script that can be easily integrated in any blog or website.

web browsers

Old web browsers are not just insecure, they also pose a problem for web designers as they have to design sites while keeping the older versions in mind.

update If you like to help people upgrade their outdated browsers, Pushup has created a script that can be easily integrated in any blog or website.

This JavaScript checks the version of your site visitor’s browser and will show him an upgrade link if a new version is available – see screenshot.

Your site visitor can either click the link to install the new release of his browser, or choose to be reminded after a time you specify. Thanks Dion.

Marco

Very nice… but how to test this? Downgrade the browser? lol
http://mintywhite.com/tech/ Rich

I put it on my website as my site does not look good in IE6.
http://www.rohitblog.com RohitBlog

This is nice script, I can see it useful for many occasions- one being when you want to make it convenient to user to upgrade instead of just displaying message like- “This site is best viewed on xxxx”
http://www.sciencebase.com David Bradley

Nice idea, but why are they pushing Firefox 2? We’ve moved on to version 3 now and 3.1 is already in alpha…
http://mykooldayz.blogspot.com Rahul

Nice tool..really helpful for website owners and visitors both.
http://www.brashweb.com atashbahar

“Save The Developers” has been working on the same idea for a while. They run different campaigns and current campaign is “Say No To IE 6!”. They provide a script to include in your site (you can see how it works in their site).
Visit them at http://www.savethedevelopers.org/
http://www.akademy.co.uk Akademy

Sounds like a good idea. At least at first.

Does this link to the page where they can download the new version or does it just download a new version? If it’s the latter this sounds like a great way for unscrupulous types to get users to download malicious programs…
http://www.luxortraveltips.com David Titherly

Does it also check memory and processor – to confirm that upgrade is possible?
Ian Sabey

I think it is extremely arrogant of web designers to dictate to their users. Standards compliant pages should work – choice of browser is up to the user.
http://www.luxortraveltips.com David Titherly

Not sure ‘dictate’ is fair. Users can choose whether to upgrade or not. My concern is that some people would like to upgrade their browsers but cannot afford to upgrade their machines to cope.
Jack Mortensen

Problem is, usually older browsers are not standards compliant. A lot of work goes into making pages look OK in a browser that does not support a standard feature, or misinterprets a standard feature.
Newer browsers are getting better at conforming to the standards.
Reminding people that there is a newer version of their browser of choice seems like a good idea to me.
Wayne M.

Unfortunately, this goes against the basic security principles I try to support – never download software from anywhere but its home site. It is far too easy to point someone to a bogus download site.

If you work with corporate or especially government users, they often do not have the choice to upgrade their browsers – they are required to use the “approved” one.

I am afraid that backwards compatibility testing will be with us for a long, long time.
Tomas S.

The pictures shown are just for their purposes. Not what the end user sees (Which they just see that top corner ‘pop up’).

Also, it links to the official site for the browser, not to the download itself. So that concern is mute.

To the concern of corporate or government users, I feel many are blissfully ignorant. If they knew that their version of the software was outdated they might start asking ‘why?’ which might be all it takes to get them hooked up with an alternative.
MGB

This is all nice and well and good, but this faces the same challenge as fonts do. You can design it however you want, but when that visitor halfway around the world views it in something that isn’t up to snuff, there’s nothing you can do about it. We still get hits from NN4 and Windows 3.11 for crying out loud. You can lead a horse to water…
Jon Peterson

Yeah, but who (with a site that’s gonna be drawing hits from international or corporate traffic) is actually going to include something like this on their page?

This is something that will most likely be used by a niche market of sites targeting geographic areas in more social markets.

Technology, Software and Internet

Convince Your Site Visitors to Upgrade their Web Browsers

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