Why should you upgrade your browser? You don’t know how many times I’ve heard from someone that their windows machine is getting slower. (Disclaimer: I never mind helping out a friend with their computer and I’m not saying it’s their fault for it being slower). My first response of course is to get a Mac. Then, the next question I would have is what browser are you using. Let’s face it… Internet Explorer has a lot of security holes and it typically runs a lot slower. I know that Internet Explorer 7 is a lot more secure and Internet Explorer 8 is suppose to be even more secure, but other browsers like Firefox, Chrome, and Safari are far more faster. Some people don’t even know that there are other browsers out there. Of course, a lot of times, it does depend on where you browse to on the internet, so be careful.
Another reason to upgrade your browser is the matter of how certain sites render. As a web programmer, this one really is a pain. I realize that, in order to be a good web programmer, I should make it work for all browsers, even the old ones, but do you know why certain very complicated website work still even with older browsers? It’s because they had to do some hacks to make it render correctly. The man hours behind that fix was probably high.
My recommended browsers are Safari 4 beta on the Mac (with Firefox as a backup) and Chrome on Windows. Of course everyone has their preferences and there are other browsers out there that people haven’t even heard of like Opera, Camino, etc. I just happened to stumble onto the Browse Happy site. It’s a pretty amusing site on why to upgrade from Internet Explorer.
Okay, rant over.