Get Ready For “Update your Parents’ Browser” Day!

Get Ready For “Update your Parents’ Browser” Day!

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For many people, going home for the holidays is a step back in time. Not just because you may be returning to your childhood home, but because you might see IE6 or IE7 on your parents’ home PC.

While most people think of the Friday after Thanksgiving as merely Black Friday, the folks at The Atlantic have another idea we can get behind – Friday is now “Update Your Parents’ Browser Day!

On behalf of your web developer friends everywhere, why not help them upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 if they’re on Windows XP, or Internet Explorer 9 if they’re on Windows Vista or Windows 7?

All you need now is a good distraction, and this is something we can help with. The IE team put their pre-tryptophan heads together and came up with the Top-10 moments to update your parents’ browser this Thanksgiving holiday.

Top-10 Moments To Update Your Parents’ Browser

10. When they’re manning the fire extinguisher dealing with the yearly deep-fried turkey accident.

9. When they’re telling your cousins “when I was your age” stories.

8. When they’re face down in the eggnog punch.

7. When they’re fighting over the right way to carve a turkey.

6. When your mom kicks you out of the kitchen for peeling potatoes “the wrong way.”

5. When they’re sent to the grocery store at 2PM on Thanksgiving Day for extra cranberries.

4. When they’re sitting at the Adult’s table (rally the other kids to help).

3. When they’re standing in a Black Friday line. 

2. When they’re untangling Christmas lights.

And the number one time to update your parents’ browser is…

1. When they’re distracted by grilling you about when you’re going to get a real job, when you’re going to settle down, and when you’re going to give them grandchildren. 

So watch for these moments and many more to help them make the upgrade to a modern web browser today. Web developers everywhere will thank you!

Happy Thanksgiving from the IE team!

#upgradeyourparents

11 Comments
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  • Funny..... but I AM one of those parents that still runs the older IE, and do I dare say..... firefox. Why have I not upgraded? Its because I don't feel a need to have the latest and greatest, and furthermore, from past experiences, when I have upgraded, things break. Functionality becomes hindered, and I have to learn to use it all over again, with no added feature or benefit. Yes, I know, you young pups need something to justify your existence in the work force. Take it from a fellow engineer and web developer... if you really produce a great product, you won't have to coerce or convince people to use it. The product will sell its self. Speaking for young and old, people in general do not like to change unless there is a great compelling reason to do so. Functionality over bells and whistles is always better. Put that into your tool box under "lessons learned". Now go out and invent something really innovative!

  • Nathan 63 Posts

    It would be a great feature if we have option to synchronize the favorite or bookmarked sites and folders (categories) between SkyDrive and IE, so my favorites are always accessible wherever I go via IE built-in support or Bing bar (if using some other browser or platform). Also provide a simple web-based CRUD app (using MVC, with categories and search) which acts like a webapp for SkyDrive and webservice for IE and BingBar to manage, organize and synchronize these entries with IE (natively) or via BingBar.

  • abm 268 Posts

    Please bring the following extensibilities in F12 Developer Tools:

    1. While inspecting with the F12 developer tools, the asynchronous page update doesn't immediately update the code in devtools’ HTML tab. We need to close and reopen devtools to seek the updated code.

    2. When we click 'edit' in the HTML tab, it should narrow down the code to that of the selected tag and it's innerHTML (only) in edit mode.

    3. Implement autocomplete for Style while creating or editing rules in both CSS and HTML tabs.

    4. Preview of images onmouseover in tags such as <img src=....>, <input type=image....> or image embedded in stylesheet.

    5. Implement an easy way to add a new Style rule in HTML tab rather than switching to the CSS tab. For example; pressing <enter> for the first time should highlight-to-edit the name of the selected rule, next <enter> should switch the focus to that rule’s value then next rule's name and its value and since so forth, until it reaches the end of "that selector" (only). After that, the next <enter> should cause the creation of new rule's name-value pair under that selector. So this way, if the users have to create new rule promptly, rather than going to CSS tab and find the selector then right click to select AddRule, within the (right-side: Styles of) HTML tab, they select the last value of the desired selector and hit enter to create a new rule.

  • Wow! A post that actually acknowledges the existence of Windows XP, lacks a serious tone and actually isn't advertising Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 7! I can't believe this post actually appeared on a Microsoft blog!

    How about upgrading their web browsers when they ask us to have a periodic look at their computer and/or help them solve their problems? Oh, wait! I already did that.

  • I've rarely used IE in my 'computer life' (starting in 2000).  I've used FF, Opera and Iron.  For ease of use there are two things that I like about these browsers that IE doesn't have (or doesn't have as effectively):

    1.  Mouse Gestures.  Yes, I know the IE gesture add-on is out there, but -- at least for me -- it's very limited and jittery.  FF's FireGestures, Iron/Chrome's MouseStroke and Opera's built-in gestures have all been much more customizable and stable.

    2.  Text Zoom.  The alternative browsers allow zooming in on (i.e. increasing the size of) text only.  I use this frequently (or I have the Stylish add-on customized for many sites so that the font is bigger).  Only the text gets increased, nothing else.  In IE9 (as far as I can see) I can only zoom in on the whole page, meaning that I have to scroll horizontally (!) to see everything on it.

    ISTM that MS is somewhat behind in either not having the basic feature that other browsers have (text-only zoom) or having only a very limited version of it (gestures).

    If IE ever gets these things straightened out, I wouldn't be surprised if IE becomes my browser of choice !  :-)

  • IE9 on vista ... I cba to download service pack 1 ^_^ but probably I will if my dad doesnt catch me (I'm 10 years old :P)

  • I have a better idea. Why not spend your holidays updating yourself on anti-ageism and sexism legislation and good practice. You might even learn to be slightly less patronising in your next blog post.

  • mattenbo, you sound like a ton of fun.  we should hang out sometime.

  • Adam 1 Posts

    I upgraded my parents to Chrome long ago, thank you.

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  • I've rarely used IE in my 'computer life' (starting in 2000).  I've used FF, Opera and Iron.

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