Simple! Just point your browser to this address: http://loads.in/

input your website’s URL and click away…

You can even view the progression of the page being loaded at the earlier times before its full-loaded. Quite nifty, no?
This is very useful if you’re developing sites for wider audience with slower internet connections especially in developing countries. If it takes ages to load, you will scare many potential customers away and never to return to your site again.

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In the middle of the blog post, I’ve mentioned savethedevelopers.org website that offered JavaScript to be embedded in our code to detect the visitor’s browser. If they are using IE6, a banner will show up encouraging them “to save the developer (us) by upgrading their Internet Explorer or install other grade A browsers. The website (savethedevelopers.org) managed to survived quite some time but eventually got closed down (some said under pressure of Microsoft’s, the company responsible of Internet Explorer).

Well, fast forward to now, Microsoft is doing the same thing all over again, this time, however, it’s official. Just visit: ie6countdown.com.

They offered script to show a banner when IE6 is detected. They also show the statistics of IE6 users all over the world, the reason to move off IE6, and a call to educate others (especially your friends)!

Yes, if you aware, this is none other than one of the marketing efforts to promote IE9 that is about to be released in the very near future. But I believe the goal is noble, let’s put IE6 to rest in peace forever please.

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The web-browser market has experienced a lot lately. Nearly a decade ago, the two dominant players of the time were Netscape Navigator (the reigning champ) and MS Internet Explorer (the contender). You might have witnessed the “Browser War” between Netscape and Internet Explorer (IE), which eventually won by IE.

Designer’s point of view

Personally, as a web designer, I have to constantly review these changes to cater to my target audience’s needs and visiting exper ience by designing websites that will “look and feel” similar when viewed using different browsers. Some call this “cross-browser / multi-browser compatibility”. You have to make sure that the site you designed will not break in that particular browser. One of the resource that you might want to go is the browser statistics, like: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

IE is losing grounds

From the statistics, you can see that Firefox is gaining market share consistently year by year. With the addition of Google Chrome in late 2008, the browser market share is once again a fiery battleground. IE has been losing its market share chunk-by-chunk to the competitors.

Why?

Perhaps, primarily because the competitors offer “innovative” additions to the browsing experience. Tabbed browsing made famous by Opera, even way back in the times of IE 5. Usable and customizable add-on / plug-ins for Firefox that extends the browser functionality to greater extends. Next comes “Google Chrome” with Google’s ambition to reinvent the web browsing experience.

Save the Developers

One additional reason why IE is losing its ground is perhaps most IE users are still stuck with IE 6. IE 6 has lots of limitations. A while ago, March 2008, a site called savethedevelopers.org offered a javascript popup for developers/designers to embed in their page, encouraging users to upgrade their outdated IE 6 to IE 7.

Somehow the site is now down and is redirected to Microsoft’s IE page instead. Interesting… Has Microsoft pulled some strings? For us, developers and designers, to maintain compatibility with IE 6 is a rather painful process. For example: IE 6 does not render transparent PNG “gracefully” so we have to include a PNG fix script. Certain IE-specific CSS hacks have to be applied to IE that normally are not required on other browsers.

Mobile Internet Browsing

Don’t forget that with recent advancements in mobile connectivity, more people are browsing the internet using their mobile gadgets. Opera Mobile is famous among Symbian-powered smartphones, including “smart-touchphones” with Opera Mobile for Symbian UIQ devices. iPhone users browse their favorite sites using the built-in Safari browser.

Now, us, designers and developers have more homework to do: to make sure that our design or code will not break on these gadgets, too.

Reference:

• http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-40800-113.html
• http://crunchgear.com/…/internet-explorer-bleeding-market-share/
• http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html

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