Trade News | 06 Nov 2006 :
Wrong-footed by IE7
A
number of high profile sites seem to have been caught on the hop by the launch
of Internet Explorer 7. Following the launch of Microsoft’s upgraded web
browser, a UK
consultancy firm, Etre, tested for browser compatibility and reported mixed
results.
An
Etre blog post claims Microsoft had requested that firms and web site operators
test their sites with the updated browser because it had concerns “that sites
that worked perfectly in IE6 would not perform similarly in IE7.” Etre also
pointed out that, since the upgrade between browsers was to be distributed as a
"high priority" install via Windows' Automatic Updates feature,
"a large chunk of the 80% of users that currently browse the web with IE6
will adopt IE7 overnight".
Etre
tested 100 sites against IE6 and IE7, and found that 13 were simply not compatible
– including some significant business sites such as Lloyds Bank, BP and the
Yell group.
However,
the majority were viewable, and Etre attributed part of this success to the
fact that the sites were not standards compliant, and thus were “insulated …
somewhat from IE7's various bugs and glitches”.
Deri
Jones, chief executive of web site testing firm SciVisum was not surprised that
the sites were less than perfect, adding that he thought the Etre study “slightly
overplayed the extent of the problem".
He believed
the fact that Microsoft had pushed the update through automatically would
inconvenience firms. “Web site managers are forced to get their sites out in a
rush; this forced re-allocation of web developers' effort may be quite an
inconvenience for many organisations.”
“It
would have been a nice gesture on Microsoft's behalf if they had coded in an
option to IE7 that would make it behave exactly like IE6,” said Jones.
Although
his firm specialises in testing web sites, Jones said there had been no widespread
trend of firms seeking to ensure IE7 compliance.