Over the past few weeks I've increasingly been made aware of just how many people don't understand exactly how important it is to ensure their web browser is kept up to date!

Firstly however, maybe slightly more concerning, I have found that a lot of people don't even seem to know what a browser actually is or does!

A web browser is a software program that you use to view websites. It's the big blue "e" symbol a lot of you are use to double clicking and then typing in website addresses. It's your window to the world wide web and what is displayed and how it is displayed all depends on:-

Which browser you are using;

and;

How up to date it is.

Of course, it isn't that simple, and there are so much more important factors that come into place as to how and why websites appear as they do, but them ain reason websites can appear different from computer to computer is down to the browser being used.

What Are The Main Browsers Used?

20.2 % – Internet Explorer
37.7 % – Firefox
34.6 % – Chrome

A lot of people simply do not understand how important it is to update their internet browser. The old saying "If it ‘ain’t broke don’t fix it" may spring to mind for some.

So Why Should I Update My Internet Browser?

Firstly, and quite simply, updating your browser WILL dramatically improve your internet browsing experience. When new browsers are released they aim to be quicker and more efficient and processing the data they receive.

Possibly more importantly to a lot of users, particular online shoppers, is that updating your web browser ensures your are kept protected certain security threats online. Although modern browsers are freely available, and easily downloadable, on the Internet so many people still have browsers out of date by several years!

My next point relates to a blog article I wrote a few weeks back about "The Importance Of W3C Compliancy". Every website SHOULD abide by certain web standards and rules that are set by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). Now this is possibly the hardest thing for some people to understand, but in order for all these rules and standards to function and display correctly amongst all the browsers, then the browser software developers must physically update their software to make them do this!

The W3C standards are always being improved with new releases, consisting of bug fixes, new functionality and announcements of out of date code. These updates allow us website designers and developers to continue to be creative and be increasingly efficient with our code. This in turn goes back to increasing your user experience by dramatically improving website page load times!

What Version Web Browser Do You Have?

It is usually fairly simply to check which version you r browser is. Simply click the HELP button at the top of your browser and then hit the ABOUT…. option. The question is, how do you know if it's out of date. Well, Firefox and Chrome both tell you on this same screne, and gives you the chance to click and update. Internet Explorer however, should update itself via Windows update. If not you can simply load up Winows update and "Check For updates". You could also download it manually from http://www.microsoft.com/ie.

So, with all these reasons why you NEED to update your browser, why not check out your browser version now! If your reading this blog your already in your browser so it's only a few clicks away!