[e_xrd]

Hi! I'm a newbie in this forum and web designing in general.

I understand that we should respect all internet users and to ensure our site should try to accomodate them all. With so many browsers today, these must be considered. However, where do we draw the line in terms of versions?

I'm just wondering why do some users prefer to use older versions of their browsers instead of upgrading to the latest ones. A small percentage still use NN 3 and 4. I think >half use IE 5 and 6 which are new versions. Mozilla and Opera are gaining popularity. Furthermore, latest versions have more protection and privacy, eg. block pop ups; for emails, spam filtering, etc.

Most probably there is something I don't know. What do you think?

[frx]

people are lazy or dont know how to.

[cam]

Personally, I develop for IE5+ and check in the last few versions of ff,moz,opera. Always worth seeing if you can use the site in lynx too.

Quite a useful page on this topic is http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

As for the reasons, you've got to remember certain operating systems don't support the latest versions of browsers (e.g. older versions Windows with the latest Internet Explorer), so if the user doesn't plan to upgrade their OS they are stuck with an old browser. Plus there are those who have no idea that there are alternatives, or why they should be using them.