Out of Egypt:

My Google Analytics data is up

Oh glorious day - Google Analytics is like a web counter on steroids. Now I know what browser you're all using. (Don't worry; Google keeps you all anonymous.) Apparently 40% of you are using Internet Explorer. This is unfortunate; here's why.

The short version: Microsoft, for one thing, refuses to properly support Web standards, so pages that display properly on Mozilla/Netscape/Firefox/Safari/Opera/Konquerer, basically every other browser out there, don't do so on Internet Explorer. Also, Microsoft has proprietary features such as ActiveX which malicious web developers can use to give you spyware or do other nasty things to your computer. Other browsers don't have this problem nearly as much. Also, other browsers, such as the one I use, Firefox (so glad the college installed it - use of non-IE browsers is even recommended by the U.S. government), have features like tabbed browsing, which enables you to keep the number of browser windows you have open to a minimum by keeping multiple page windows within the same main browser window. This is especially useful when browsing link-rich sites such as Wikipedia, which has a tendency to make one want to go in multiple directions at once.

So that's the story, at least as well as I can tell it. For those of you who are already sold on other browsers and want to have a good laugh, check out Spread Internet Explorer, a parody of the main Firefox advocacy site.

I use Netscape and Safari. And not even Safari much anymore. IE is definitely a product of the dark ages; I go through epilectic shock whenever I view my web page via IE. I haven't quite converted to Firefox yet. People who seem to know about these sorts of things tell me I should jump on the Firefox bandwagon, but I am not convinced it is better than Netscape yet (which I originally installed in order to access secure sites for school).

Posted by: funke at November 18, 2005 2:32 PM

By the way, does Google Analytics give you web search data? I find it amusing to discover what brings people to my blog via google or yahoo or MSN web searches. My favourite so far is "how much does a pound of potatoes cost in Indiana?" Apparently the internet tells you everything these days.

Posted by: funke at November 18, 2005 2:41 PM

funke: what version of Netscape are you using? If it's post-version 4.x, (which I *really* hope it is, 4 is ancient) then you're using essentially the same rendering engine as Firefox does. Firefox and Netscape are both products derived from an open source project called Mozilla. Firefox is the flagship browser of the Mozilla folks. Netscape is just the same engine with a few Netscape stuff tacked on.

What all that means is that going from Firefox and Netscape, pages should look and behave in the same way. The actual interface of the browsers are different, though.

Also, you're on a mac, right? You did mention using Safari, so I'm assuming you are. If so, do check out Camino. Camino is yet another Mozilla-derived browser, so it renders the same as Firefox and Netscape, but Camino is the only browser specifically made for the Mac. As such, it performs faster than Firefox does on the mac, and, for lack of a better word, it just "feels" better. Firefox always feels to me like it's pretending to be a mac program, where Camino *is* a Mac program.

Maybe you're not as much of a dork as me to get what I'm trying to say. It's just all the little things, like how Firefox uses square windows buttons on web forms, where Camino uses proper, rounded buttons, using the same Mac font, the way God intended, and so on and so forth. Anyway, enough of my rambling.

Posted by: nougatmachine at November 18, 2005 3:28 PM

Set your mind at ease, nougatmachine. I've got version 7.2 for Netscape. And yes, I've got an iBook, OS 10.3.9. But that is about as geeky as I want to be for today. :)

Posted by: funke at November 18, 2005 5:09 PM

I don't really care what browser people use, just as long as it's not IE. I can understand wanting to use a Mac-native program on Macs; after all, their GUI is hard to beat.

Thanks for your input, Dagen. I don't know as much about all this as you.

Yes Sarah, Analytics gives search data.

Posted by: Evan Donovan at November 19, 2005 5:37 PM

generally I agree that mozilla is better for browsing, if not for all the technical reasons (which I don't really know), then just because the tabs make it a more convenient and efficient browser. I must say, though, that to me explorer supports the Outlook webmail page much better than mozilla. I have a burden to let people know they can have mixed allegiances; IE for email and something else for everything else--that's just fine.

I like how you monitor your friends computer habits, Evan. kind soul. :)

Posted by: charlotte at November 20, 2005 5:38 PM

Outlook on the Web, since it's a Microsoft app, logically enough integrates best with Microsoft products. I just don't use it since I check my email in the lab with real Outlook. (My own computer's broken.)

My real reasons for wanting people to change browsers are not purely altruistic, since Firefox/Mozilla, etc. are more useful and secure than IE, but also enable me if I were to design web sites to do more elaborate things with web standards and have them be guaranteed to work.

Posted by: Evan Donovan at November 20, 2005 9:03 PM