Best if viewed in...

Some web sites display the phrase "best if viewed in Internet Explorer 6 or higher".

In the past, this phrase would anger me. I could assume that the web site work work only with Internet Explorer, and my browser of choice (either Opera or Firefox) would fail in some way.

Now the phrase amuses me.

I ask myself, in today's world, why would someone put "works best with IE6" on their web site? What are they hoping to accomplish? What message are they sending?

Internet Explorer version 6 is old. Even Microsoft recommends a later version of Internet Explorer.

Today's browser "market" consists of IE, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari at a bare minimum, and Opera and Lynx for the truly browser-aware. Building a web site for only one browser is unthinkable.

So the message is from an earlier age.

I also suspect that the message was put on sites that performed transactions of some sort, sites that were more than brochure-ware. These sites have users who are attempting to perform some task, either shopping or submitting time cards or recording information. My guess is that the message was a disclaimer, designed to first reduce the number of users with other browsers, and second to provide an easy "out" for the help desk of said web site when people using the "wrong". (Anyone complaining would be pointed to the notice and told to use IE6. Support call closed, user issue, no problem!)

Today, the notion of turning away customers because they have a different browser is ... unusual. It is a rare company that can decline paying customers.

I read the "best if viewed in" phrase now as an indicator, a measure of a web site's age and maintenance. Only web sites designed and built in the late 1990s (and possibly early 2000s) would have this message. Therefore, a site that still bears this message was built in that era and has had no (major) maintenance. Any maintenance that has been performed (if any) has been specific and limited to the task at hand.

In other words, the site is not living on "internet time". It's owner is not updating the site, modifying it to meet new business conditions or leverage new technologies. The web site is... old.

I use the phrase as an indication a company, of how "with it" they are.