What & Why, Upgrade your Browser?You are reading this because you clicked on the upgrade notice on the main page. The reason you saw the notice is because your browser does not support current agreed web standards developed by The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), [1]. The Telos site will display in version 4 (or earlier) browsers such as Netscape 4.7, we have spent a lot of time making sure this is the case, but it will not display correctly or as it was intended. This is one reason why we suggest that you upgrade to a browser that supports the standards that this site strives to adhere to but let us furnish you with some background information. In the early years of the Internet browsers read the HTML code that allows them to show you a web page in many different ways. To deal with this web designers and coders built pages that 'cheated' (they broke the rules!), they had messy workarounds for all the bugs that were in the browsers we all used. This was time consuming, made pages bigger and longer to download and inhibited the growth and practice of good, accessible design. The reason why it really is time to upgrade your browser is that we now have far better browsers, ones that allow us to build leaner cleaner web pages and use the new code and standards that are in use now and which your browser does not support. Now that we have browsers available that adhere to common standards web pages can be built correctly. They won't, however, look right in older browsers, and we don't want to leave you behind so we have created this page for your information. A good starting point, if you are considering upgrading your browser, is the Web Standards Project's (WaSP) [2] browser upgrade initiative. There are links on this page to a variety of good free browsers and further details, if you're interested. It is very likely that the latest version of the browser you're using now will be detailed there as well. (Netscape 4.x users might like to note that the Mozilla browser looks - in terms of design, menus and almost everything bar the logo actually - virtually the same as your current browser but is one of the most up-to-date and standards compliant browsers of them all!) If you have a slow modem and don't want to be stuck downloading a new browser, many computer and Internet magazines come with a CD full of software which usually includes the latest browsers too. If you have an older computer that won't run the latest browsers we suggest that you make sure you have the latest possible compatible version of your browser or consider an alternative, more standards compatible, browser that will work on your computer. You can find some useful advice, information and downloads of older browsers at Browser News. If you can't find what you're looking for there try the evolt.org browser archive, a comprehensive resource that includes older, and some very early and very obscure, browsers. (Anyone with an interest in the history of the Internet and browser software might also find these pages useful!) Thanks for visiting - we hope that you are convinced by what you've read here and enjoy your new browser. If you have any further questions please e-mail Roger, the Telos Webmaster. Telos Webmaster
Glossary: Browser: A computer program with an interface for displaying HTML files, used to navigate the World Wide Web. Bug: an error in a computer program or system. HTML: Hypertext Mark-up Language, the coding language used to create web site pages.
Organisations: [1] The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): Directed by the "inventor of the World Wide Web" Tim Berners-Lee the W3C was created in October 1994 to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common standards that promote the evolution, growth and accessibility of the World Wide Web. The W3C has around 500 Member organisations from all over the world and has earned international recognition for its contributions to the growth of the Web. [2] The Web Standards Project (WaSP): WaSP was formed in 1998 with the goal of promoting core web standards and encouraging browser makers to do the same, thereby ensuring simple, affordable access for all. By 2000, as a result of the WaSP campaign, standards compliant browsers started to appear with one leading browser after another delivering many of the standards promoted by the W3C and WaSP. By 2001/2002 the market-leading browsers (Internet Explorer and Netscape), along with many of their competitors, provided excellent support for web standards and others were well on the road to similar levels of compliance.
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