Could someone please enlighten me as to why I need to upgrade my browser? If it works with the old one it should work with the new. I used to be a web site programmer and I all ways made sure my web sites worked with the old as well as the new, that went for computers as well as browsers (not everyone can afford to have the latest and greatest). BTW I am using Explorer 7. This is not just about EQ forums but about all the sites I am running into that wants the newest and the greatest.
The only real reason to get the most current versions of software is almost entirely security/safety related, on the features front nothing really has happened that has been ground shaking since maybe 1999, mostly hype in my book. Maybe the only big thing will be when Flash finally dies and everyone uses the HTML streaming thing, if and when they can ever agree and get stuff done on it and have a standard. On the security, exploits, remote hacking/jacking front, its pretty important to get current especially if you do any sort of business online be that shopping online or viewing your utility bills/bank/insurance etc stuff online. From a dev perspective its actually nice to just deal with one platform instead of 20+ am including OS and web browser combo in that, it should not make a difference but for some things it does. The forever backwards compatibility is horrid for getting a product out that is tested and stable. Maybe one day web browsers will stop evolving and everyone can gravitate to one or two on one version each that just works and has minimal issues, for all sides on all platforms, that includes smartphones, tablets, PC what ever flavor and anything else I missed. Probably 99% of the issues on websites is to do with the fact there are standards but each version and product family of web browsers handles things differently, thus making the standards all but pointless in some elements of implementation. Maybe get an alternative browser, that can run on your machine if you can not afford to upgrade it to run current gen IE browsers, or look for a new low end computer that is within your budget and be current, it does not even have to a full blown PC really, a cheap tablet may be good enough for your web needs. Sooner or later they will stop even giving you notice, if that site is accurate only ~3% of the internet base is your version, and the ~5% that is 6 must be all those corporate machines that refuse to spend money on upgrades too, even though that version of IE has stupendous numbers of exploits and attack vectors available against it and M$ wants those gone, they don't want to support it, it's obsolete, too bad for all those bespoke programs made using it but lesson learned hopefully for devs/corp management.
The thing is baised on the sites I have seen IE 7 is used by between 3 & 5% of the internet, likly those still using XP that didn't get the FREE upgrade to IE 8. There are features that are just not supported in IE 7 that website authers want to use. IE 7 was also released like 6 years ago. Asking for a developer to support a 6 y/o browser is like saying that all games should run at the highest settings on a DX9 PC. Your asking them not to evolve with the lastest tech.
