I love pouring through Google Analytics stats!   There’s just a wealth of interesting data that’s mined from your website once you’ve implemented this free tool.   One of the trends I’ve been watching over the past several months is the web browser software that people use when visiting 2Dolphins.

You’ll note from the stats graphic on the right (Click the image for a larger, easier to read version) that less than a year ago, the predominant web browser was still Microsoft’s Internet Explorer v6.   So, Dede & I have been tailoring our blog posts for that older browser   Namely, we’ve resisted the urge to assume that visitors are using a tab-enabled browser, so we’ve continued to code off-site hyperlinks to open in a new browser window.   We felt that this makes it easier to keep your place while reading posts on this site but also still check out all of the links we post here.

But maybe the time’s coming to rethink that.   Internet Explorer is still the most common web browser to hit this site - by a very slim margin - but increasingly, visitors are using the tab-enabled IE v7.   And a significant number of visitors are now Firefox users, with almost all of them being on the tab-enabled v2.x.

Admittedly, I was especially hesitant to move to a newer browser at first.   Even with the razzing I got at work (yes, that means you, Eric & Martin!), I stood firm, proclaiming, "My current web browser does everthing I need, so why bother?"

Well, how wrong I was!   Tab-enabled browsing is worth upgrading for.

If you’ve resisted Microsoft’s pressure to upgrade to IE v8, the even greater pressure from the Internet-savvy crowd at large to move entirely over to Firefox, or the itch to try Google or Apple’s hot new entries in the market, this is a great time to give in.   They all work very similarly and by far, my favorite feature of the newer browsers is that you can wheel-click (with the scroll wheel on your mouse) links to force them to open in a new tab.   Which to choose?   I’m holding loyal to the Redmond gang because there are still some websites that specifically written to work with Microsoft’s browser, so I err on the side of caution.

Regardless of which software you go with, you’re going to be shocked by how quickly you become hooked on tabbed browsing.   Ready to try it for yourself?   Get the latest versions of the apps here:

    Microsoft Internet Explorer 8

    Firefox 3

    Google Chrome

    Apple Safari 4
 

Labels: software