Why Upgrade to Latest Version?
Keeping up with the latest version of your web browser also helps protect you from Internet based worms, spyware, adware, scams, and identity theft. I am also very aware of the kind of features being used by other web designers and have factored that in, so if you stick with what software I recommend, for my website, you will be in good shape, for the best experience, at most other cutting edge websites, as well. Newer browsers generally give better performance including being much faster on the slowest websites and make better use of the hardware your computer has like RAM and GPU.
Dealing with Internet Explorer 6-8
If you use a browser other than Internet Explorer 6-8, you will get much less spyware. Using another browser will help web designers because it is hard to get web pages to work with Internet Explorer 6-8. This is because Internet Explorer 6-8 is flawed in its design. This makes designing websites that work in Internet Explorer 6-8 plus all other browsers requires 2x the work for each version of Internet Explorer 6-8 you support plus all the hassles with testing.
Why Avoid Flash even with Internet Explorer?
The main reason why I ever used Flash is Internet Explorer 6-8 incompatibilities with Javascript and lack of support for CSS (which all the other major browsers support) which used to make it a nightmare, to do anything interactive, that needed to work with Internet Explorer 6-8 (even with having the great Javascript libraries like JQuery and Moo Tools). 3rd party Javascript libraries are now very free, easy to use, and do not require any programming skills, so they often are easier and cheaper than Flash, and even the performance in Flash Player is often worse, than Internet Explorer 6-8, for many things.
I no longer see the need, for Flash, for almost any reason: you just give up too much performance, compatibility with new Apple and Google devices, and CSS, HTML, SVG, and Javascript all work together better than before (but it is hard, to fully leverage them, with Flash because Flash kind of lives in its own parallel world). When you start trying, to update the formatting, on every page, of large sites, in one place, you will quickly see how useful CSS is and how many problems it fixes. In the future, we will be able to gradually fade out excessive Javascript, like we are now, with Flash, as CSS becomes more and more powerful and SVG support becomes more common.
Supporting and Testing for Internet Explorer 6-8
Designing a web page to be compatible with more than one version of Internet Explorer 6-8 requires you to be able to test every version of Internet Explorer 6-8 that you support, because you have to use different hacks for each version of Internet Explorer 6-8. This is because Internet Explorer 6-8 deviates from the commonly accepted ways of interpreting standards every other major browser was able to abide by (with much less money even though all the other major browsers are designed with completely different software).
Not only does Internet Explorer 6-8 not abide by the standards, but they have various levels of incompatibility (with these standard ways of doing things in web pages) with each version of Internet Explorer 6-8. Another limitation is that you have to pay for and deal with the security problems and the instability and maintenance just to test for Internet Explorer as it is Windows only. And the final difficulty is that you can only install one version of Internet Explorer on any one installation of Windows.
The way I deal with this, is to allow extra space in my web page layout, so I am not able to get precise positioning of elements like you can in any desktop publishing software or PDFs. The only reason why this website works in Internet Explorer 6-8 is due to specific direction from my Uncle Clive. I could not have figured out how to get past the complex and confusing bugs in Internet Explorer 6-8 without him telling my exactly what to do to make my layout work. I test for Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8, 9 in a virtual machine from an online testing service, so I don't need to manage a real PC for testing.
Best of Both Worlds
There is now a solution, for Internet Explorer 6-8 users, who are uncomfortable using a browser other than Internet Explorer 6-8, for whatever reason, including not wanting to learn how to use another browser. You can download and install something called Google Chrome Frame. What it does is allow website owners, who specifically ask for it, to use the Google Chrome web browsing engine, so there are no compatibility problems, with broken web sites who need Internet Explorer 6-8 or advanced sites, that use new web page features. This gives the best of both worlds.
It works on Internet Explorer 6-8 on Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Once you install Google Chrome Frame, just use the version of Internet Explorer 6-8 like you usually do. The only thing you will notice is that many web sites look better and work faster. Chrome Frame is made by Google is free and has no spyware or viruses in it. Google collects no more information from you than is collected, when you use any search engine, like Google, Bing, or Yahoo.
The only downside is for people who are visually impaired will not be able to take advantage of accessibility features like screen readers. In this case, I recommend downloading and using Firefox.
Internet Explorer 9
Microsoft has just released version 9, of Internet Explorer, to the public, as it has made it through testing. I have been able to test it today, on my website, through a web browser testing service. The simple design, which is mostly yellow and one column works fine, with every version of Internet Explorer version 7 and higher. If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7, then you can upgrade Internet Explorer, to version 9.My website looks fine, in the advanced version, with Internet Explorer 9. It renders the fonts, layered backgrounds, transparency, angled backgrounds, rounded corners, and drop caps very well, but it does not support the text shadow, on the headings. I was unable to test the audio, that works, without requiring another program, on the virtual machine I used.
Another thing to check is the performance of Internet Explorer 9. If you can run Windows 7, with all its special effects, without any lag or slow downs, then it probably will work well, but if you bought a cheap laptop (or netbook), then it is likely that it will be slow (much slower than even the previous versions). One way to get it faster relatively cheaply is to add more RAM. I would recommend that you check the websites, that you frequent, to make sure they are compatible, as this browser has had a complete overhaul. Also the 64 bit version has much worse performance, to the point of being almost unusable, and should be avoided.
Security is improved greatly and the interface is now much more minimalistic - the controls are smaller, which gives you more space, for the web pages. If you use tabs, then you will likely have trouble using more than a few of them at once, because of Microsoft wanting to give extra space, for web pages. Search is now built into the address bar, so that would make me concerned about how the web browser knows, if you are typing in an address, or a search term, without having to type in special commands. The fonts look much smoother, but some people with poor eyesight will find the text harder to read. Things have also been changed significantly, for accessibility features, used by those who are sight impaired, so they might need to update screen readers, for this new version of Internet Explorer.
New Developments: Don't Do Anything
I have learned some new things, after: finding some good design magazines online, having invested in some more software/services, and that some new techniques are now available, that have matured recently. The result of these new developments is, that I was able, to get the custom fonts and many of the special effects, on my website, to work, with Internet Explorer 6-8.
The performance appears fine software wise, bit I don't know how much RAM, or how fast a processor is necessary, for reasonable/usable performance. The custom fonts look much better, on Internet Explorer 7, or higher. I was able to come close, to making the ideal design available, similarly to how it appears, in most of the more popular new browser, in Internet Explorer 6-8, but the performance suffers noticeably, as well as there being 2 many layers, for all the background designs, to show up correctly.
I can now fully test, for every major version of Internet Explorer, from 6 on, and can now support most, of the modern features, on these versions. I still recommend upgrading your browser to a better one, because of the security and performance benefits alone.
