wynode

Since the move to VB4 one of the fist major issues (apart from the style) was the slow page loads. Most of this was resolved after some tweaks to VB. The main tweak being disabling the rendering of rounded corners.

Anyway, that got me thinking a bit more about improving the overall user experience by increasing page load speeds. This was probably also due to the fact that around that time Google announced that it would take page load speeds into account for its page ranks (although not widely in use just yet). I'll be making some blog entries in the near future with some information about changes made on the server side of things (still a work in progress) so stay tuned.

For now, I thought I'd share some stats on the various browsers people are using.

Why?

Well the reason is that the browser that you use has a fair bit to do with how quick your pages load up, especially if you are using an old browser. The feature that has the most impact in my opinion is the number of consecutive connections that the browser allows for each host. The initial HTTP specification specifies a maximum of 2 connections per hostname. However from IE8 onwards (and Firefox 3), the default value is 6 as per the browser configuration. This value can be changed however.

The following is a list of browsers (sorted from highest to lowest) that Ozhonda visitors are using. It is good to see a lot of Firefox users out there. At the same time there are a lot of users using older browsers like IE7 which only allows 2 connections per hostname (just a simple move to a newer browser will see improvements in your page load times). I put this down to either users who haven't upgraded (running an older version of windows) or people browsing from work (where IT doesn't always upgraded to the latest versions of IE for various reasons).

Anyway, here is the breakdown of visitor browser use for this month.

Ozhonda visitor browsers - Overall

This has been further broken down into the various versions below.

Ozhonda Visitor Browsers - by version

It is good to see that there are very few people using IE6 (around 3%) which is quite a contrast to other parts of the world where there are a lot more people still using IE6. Once again I put this down to users browsing at work where corporate IT departments are still running old browsers. The problem though is not only for the end users but also for web developers who have to write applications for this old browser. This article has a nice sum up of the situation. I particularly like this quote in regards to the continued use of IE6 and how it affects developers:

Five years from now, said Eich, IE6 isn't likely to be a concern. Until then, Web developers will have to continue to swim forward with an anchor around their necks.

I'll try and find some old stats and compare to see how viewers have changed their browser preferences.