Is your browser getting old? Does it sometimes show Web sites in peculiar ways? Do you receive warning messages that your type of browser is no longer supported? It is probably time to upgrade your browser.
Upgrading has many benefits:
The easiest way to get a copy of the Internet Explorer or Mozilla browsers is to purchase the UW Internet Connectivity Kit (UWICK) at the University Book Store. The UWICK includes other software that you might find useful, including email programs, anti-virus software, and file transfer programs, all preconfigured for use at the UW.
You can also download the browsers from the UWICK software site.
Most browsers are also available by free download from the Web:
There are many browsers from which to choose. UW Technology can only support a limited number of flavors. Currently Internet Explorer and Mozilla are offered on UWICK.
For further information, use the send a question to UW Technology Web form or send email to help@u.washington.edu
Basically, technology has improved greatly in the last three years. Older browsers do not understand the latest versions of HTML and do not have reliable implementations of stylesheets, a powerful feature used by most modern Web designers. By working within the latest standards, Web designers have more control of how a page displays, sites can be more accessible to wider range of devices (including cell phones and accessibility software), and code can be kept much simpler.
The old version 4 browsers, including Internet Explorer and Netscape, were created before HTML and stylesheets were fully standardized and therefore varied greatly in how they worked, making it very complex to write Web pages for them. Newer browsers are much more standards-compliant, making them more reliable in displaying what the Web designer intended and much more consistent in how they work compared to each other.
