I think the IT industry has a tendency to push our clients and users to upgrade, or change things to suit our requirements or desires. Often times the reasons may be rooted in practicality, but as good IT workers tend to develop heuristics for problem solving they can sometimes find it hard to explain their reasoning.

A good example is browser upgrades. We all know it’s a worthwhile suggestion, and having the latest browser is the best option in most cases, but explaining that to a user or client can be difficult. It can be especially difficult if you don’t have face time with a user; the most common situation in the web environment.

Telling a user that the site works better in Firefox 3 or Safari 4 will, perhaps, just lead to the user finding a site that works better with their browser instead. It would be nice if we tried a different tact, and in doing so helped not only ourselves, but the wider community of developers. After all we want the same outcome : to have our work viewed the way we intended, for the minimum amount of work. Cross browser development sucks!

I was thinking the other day that I don’t think I’ve ever heard from a developer that users should switch browsers for security reasons, or any other reason the user would care about. Users don’t care about ACID compliance, or Javascript optimisations or any other technicalities. What they do care about though is security, especially now that mainstream operating systems, manufacturers and financal institutions have gotten the word out about phishing and other vulnerabilities.

• All the latest browsers support some form of malware protection and anti-phishing protection. This increases user security.
• All the latest browsers concentrate on process isolation and run time optimisations. This decreases crashes and increases browsing speed.
• All the latest browsers have been improving standards compliance. This increases the likelihood that more sites will work for the user.
• All the latest browsers manage their own update process. The user isn’t required to remember to stay up to date in the future.
• All the latest browsers have the latest patches and updates and latest features. This gives the user the most secure, fastest, and feature packed experience.

We all know that unless you have a very good reason, it’s silly to be running an old browser. However when was the last time you explained the benefits for them personally? Increased security, increased stability, increased speed, more compatibility with other sites and the latest features available.

If you find a better way to sell your clients on spending 5 minutes to upgrade their browser then make sure you spread the word. Every user you convert is a win for the web community and the internet in general!