The problems of accessing social websites is often discussed by government webbies, and I dare say it is an issue for the private sector too. How can we be expected to engage with online communities if they can’t get past the firewall?
However, a bigger issue in my view is the fact that even if one can access Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or WordPress.com, one’s ability to use the site is quite likely to be totally hamstrung by the browser that you are using. If you work in the UK public sector, this is likely as not going to be Internet Explorer, and probably version 6, if not 5.5. IE6 was launched in 2001, 5.5 in 2000.
That’s right. The vast majority of people are using a browser that is at least seven years old. Imagine what has happened on the web in those seven years. It’s unbelievable that we are still relying on this crap. I mean, given the moaning that goes on about potential loss of information that is often heard when using social web services is suggested, it ought to be quickly pointed out that the knackered, outdated browsers that are being used are a far greater risk than a document that’s being edited on Google Docs.
Anyway, the browser usage figures are pretty depressing, especially in the UK. Take this map of Europe, for example, which has been produced by XiTi Monitor. It shows the percentage takeup of Firefox in each country:
Yup, we as a nation are second only to the Netherlands in our slowness to switch to a better browser. Makes you proud, doesn’t it?
If we want to be able to sell social media and web 2.0 to people, we need to make sure they have the infrastructure in place to ensure it works properly. This links in partly to issues around accessibility, which Laura Whitehead wrote about recently, and also the potential digital divide. But here’s a challenge that could have a massive positive impact on the use of the web in the public sector: get your department to switch to FireFox.
What browser do you use at work? Has it caused you any problems? It’d be interesting to find out.
I use Firefox at work and home now and love it.
Sadly, this wasn’t the case when I worked directly in local government. I was told I could not use Firefox on my work system, and was often frustrated by the limitations of IE.
I’ve never understood LG resistance to OpenSource “products”. Surly a public sector organisation would want to encourage free and collaborative software?
As an IT tutor doing first steps ICT, I found it frustrating that many ICT qualifications required the use of MS Applications and that we could not install OpenOffice on student computers.
Officially IE 5.5 in the office, hopefully 6 or 7 soon.
Everywhere else its Firefox for me.
5.5 – that is depressing. Have you run into difficulties because of it yet?
I don’t this issue is ever going to disappear whilst we rely on people, or their overworked IT staff, installing software on their local machines.
Perhaps what the world needs is an incredibly clever bit of flash programming that would work on old browsers but perfectly render a website to the latest standards.
You’d have to make sure that all the typical user interface methods – selecting text, printing, hot keys etc, all worked in the exact same method, but I believe this is achievable.
Effectively Flash would be being used as an ‘online browser’ in the same way that Google Docs is an ‘online word processor’.
Forget for a moment that generally old-school geeks think of Flash as a painfully slow, non-friendly experience and imagine that some geniuses did a bang-up job of it… it could work.