Working together for standards The Web Standards Project

How Did I Get Here? Browser Upgrade Campaign

How did I get here?

The folks who built the site you were trying to visit have directed you to this page because your browser does not support accepted web standards. Or you may have followed a link to this page in order to learn more about upgrading your browser.

Note to spam recipients: If you are visiting this page as a result of an unsolicited email message we apologize. We have never sent any unsolicited bulk mail, and in fact only rarely do we use any email address in the webstandards.org domain. More commonly, our members reply to mail sent to webstandards.org email addresses using their own, private, email accounts. If you receive unsolicited mail claiming to be from this domain, the sender is almost certainly forged. Read more about why The WaSP Hates Spam and Viruses.

Note to site builders: The WaSP Browser Upgrade Campaign has come to a close. As such we ask that you discontinue your use of this upgrade message and visit the Beyond the Browser Upgrade Campaign page to learn about what to do instead.

Note to visitors redirected from other sites: if you are not where you think you should be, please contact the webmaster of the site you just tried to reach, and let them know your opinions on the matter. Please also ask them to cease the use of the Browser Upgrade Campaign redirect, as it will no longer serve the intended purpose.

What “web standards?”

The ones created by the World Wide Web Consortium – the people who invented the Web itself. The W3C created these standards so the Web would work better for everyone. New browsers, mainly, support these standards; old browsers, mainly, don’t.

What can I do?

Your choice of software may be out of your hands. However, if you do have control over what software you are using you should consider upgrading your browser. Doing so will improve your web experience, enabling you to use and view sites as their creators intended.

The following browsers support numerous web standards including CSS, XHTML, and the DOM (a universal means of controlling the behavior of web pages):

• Netscape v7 or higher (all platforms), Mozilla Firefox (Windows or Mac OS X), Galeon (Linux GNOME Desktop) or other browser stemming from the Mozilla.org project.
• Opera v7 or higher (Windows, Linux)
• Apple’s Safari (Mac OS X)
• Konqueror (Linux KDE Desktop)
• Microsoft Internet Explorer v6 or higher (Windows) or v5 or higher (Macintosh)

Please note that this page does not pretend to be an exhaustive list of browsers that support web standards, nor a test of browser compliance, nor a side-by-side comparison of various manufacturers’ browsers.

Recent Buzz

An End to Aging IE Installs

By Aaron Gustafson | December 15th, 2011

Do you hear that sound? That’s right Johnny, it’s the sound of millions of web professionals breathing a collective sigh of relief.

Today is a momentous day.

After spending years of griping about IE6’s staying power and lamenting Microsoft’s earlier decision to advocate against upgrading to IE7 (a decision they didn’t stick with, thankfully), Microsoft has turned a new leaf today, announcing that they will be pushing updates to IE to anyone who takes part in their Windows Update service.

What does this mean? Well, it means that grandma will be upgraded to IE8 if she’s still on Windows XP or IE9 if she’s on Vista or Windows 7.

Corporations (and individuals) still have the ability to opt-out of these updates, but this move should put an end to upgrades that haven’t happened purely because users didn’t know how to upgrade to a new version of IE. As Microsoft’s own Peter Laudati so eloquently put it, “Upgrade Your Parents Browser Weekend” is now officially obsolete.

Filed in Browsers, Microsoft | Comments (0)

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