Browser usage.

[JQ Johnson]

--Bill Drew wrote: 

> 1. If people are using Win95, why not use the latest browser?
> 2. Some are still using Netscape 1.0 and 2.0, why?
> 3. When do users switch to the latest browser version?

It costs time and money to upgrade.  Many people believe "if it ain't broke,
don't fix it."  Time costs include yours as the workstation owner, the
system support staff's (which needs to be trained on a new browser so they
can answer questions, needs to investigate the new version before
recommending upgrade to make sure that it doesn't have any nasty surprises,
and may be the people doing the upgrade).  Money costs include the sometimes
substantial hardware upgrade needed to run a new version, the price of the
software (we academics get NS and MSIE for free, but some people have to pay
real money), etc.  And many institutions have distribution mechanisms that
leave software for a long time in the pipeline; for example, we press a CD
every year with software for all our students -- since it was produced
during the summer, it of course has NS 3 as the default browser.

At this institution the average faculty member typically does a major
software upgrade every 3 years (half of those upgrades because she bought a
new computer).  The average student or lab probably upgrades browsers about
annually.  So, we have a very large faculty/staff contingent still running
NS 1.1 or NS 2.0, and our modal student browser is still NS 3.0.  I think
we're pretty typical.

JQ Johnson                      office: 115F Knight Library
Academic Education Coordinator  email: jqj at darkwing.uoregon.edu
1299 University of Oregon       phone: 1-541-346-1746  -3485 fax
Eugene, OR  97403-1299          http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/