Why Should You Upgrade Your Browser?

If you are reading this, then you are using a web browser. It's your portal to the web. Your surf board for surfing the net. Your car for driving the internet highway. Your... you get the point. It's what makes the internet work.

But does which browser and version you use really matter? ABSOLUTELY! And let me tell you why. 

Newer browser:

1. are MUCH faster
2. make pages look MUCH better
3. are MUCH more secure

Ready to upgrade? Click here to download the fastest browser - it's FREE. Not convinced yet? Read on! 

The internet started out as just plain text. Then they added links. Then they added images. Then they added support for animated pictures of puppies wearing birthday hats. Then they added flash. And javascript. And java. And every year what can be done with a browser gets more and more amazing. It's no different from television. First it was just radio noise. Then black and white. Then color. Then VHS tapes. Then DVDs. Now we are at 2 inch thick HD TV's with 7 surround speakers playing theater-quality BluRay movies in 3D at home. 

If you are still using an old browser, you are using an old black and white TV. Or a beat up 1975 Toyota Celica car. If that's all you've ever used - that's fine - you don't know the difference. But now imagine that I can give you a brand new 2013 Ferrari and put a 60" HD 3D TV in your living room - and it's all FREE. That's what you get when downloading a new browser - a faster, better performing experience, and it costs you NOTHING.  

Ready to upgrade? Click here to download the fastest browser - it's FREE. Not convinced yet? Read on! 

If you're still reading, you might be thinking "Hey, I'm fine. I'm not missing out on anything." I'm sorry, but I can only say that you don't know what you are missing until you try it out. If you are still on an old browser like Internet Explorer 7 or 8, you're getting a 10" black and white TV view of the Internet. Your pages are probably 5x slower than they would be on another browser, and they have graphical issues, and are open to lots of security issues. So, you are getting a much worse online experience.  

But in addition to that, I want you to upgrade because it helps Chess.com. How could that possibly be? Because when our users use old browsers, we have to try to keep supporting those browsers even though the code and technologies to do that cost us a lot of time and resources. If everyone were on a modern web browser, all of the time we spend making sure that things don't fall apart in a 5-year-old browser like Internet Explorer 8, we could instead invest in building more chess awesomeness - game modes, training tools, etc. But we spend at least 20% of our time trying to make sure that our code works for old browsers. That's like asking James Cameron to shoot the film "Avatar" with additional cameras and then edit it so that it looks just as awesome on square 10" black and white TV as it does in the huge IMAX 3D theater. 

Even Microsoft is desperately trying to get people to upgrade away from older version of Internet Explorer because it's embarrassing for them. Check out: http://www.beautyoftheweb.com

We have already stopped supporting IE6 and IE7, and after next month we will no longer try to make things work in Internet Explorer 8 either. Internet Explorer 9 has been out for a long time, and Internet Explorer 10 is nearly here. So if you've been on IE8 for the last 5 years, time to download a new one. 

Download a free faster browser today! →

Chrome

Firefox

IE9

STILL not convinced? Then let me explain some more! Web pages are nothing more than a bunch of text and instructions that are sent from one computer (ours) to another (yours), and then quickly rearranged to present you with what looks like a spiffy clean page. Ta da!

But that isn't really what your computer gets. This is what your computer gets - thousands of lines of: 

When you click on a link on a webpage, and that sends a signal to our servers (a bunch of super computers sitting in a chilly dark warehouse in Los Angeles, CA!). Our servers then figure out what you were trying to do, and then start building a webpage for you, and then send that web page back to you. That web page is a bunch of text, as well as a set of instructions for other things to download: images, code, data, buttons, etc. Your browser then takes that page and all of the other stuff and mixes it all up into the web page you are looking at. It's kind of like trying to bake a cake from a bunch of ingredients. When you are using a new, modern web browser then when we send you the instructions your browser knows exactly what it means and can handle all of the ingredients, mix them up quickly, and put them in a super fast oven... and within less than a second you have a nice cake! But when you are using an old browser, it's like we are sending instructions, but your browser/chef is a 4 year old child who doesn't have access to any sugar and has an oven that gets no hotter than 150 degrees. So it takes him forever to understand the instructions, then he mixes it all up without sugar, and it takes 8 hours to bake, and tastes bad when it's done. 

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Well, that's about all I can do. If you're still not convinced and refuse to download a modern FREE browser that will make your internet life significantly better, there isn't much more I can do :) I don't gain anything personally from trying to give you a free TV and new car... I mean new browser. If you want to wait extra time for your web pages to load and look at uglier pages, that's your choice. But I promise you that it's well worth the 5 minutes it takes to download and upgrade your browser!

Here's a YouTube video that compares modern browsers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnt4A0t9HZw

Again, I personally recommend Chrome (as do most Chess.com users). It's the fastest and I think easiest to use, and it's now the #1 browser. Firefox is also nice, but it's a little bit slower and harder for older computers. Internet Explorer 9 is a step up from IE8, but is still much worse than Chrome and Firefox. Safari is also good. Opera is nice, but has some odd quirks that make web development painful. 

Download a free faster browser today! →

Chrome

Firefox

IE9

Best of luck and see you soon on Chess.com. Enjoy!