New Website For AVRL, new browser for you?

You may be aware that the Annapolis Valley Regional Library launched a newly designed website a couple of months ago.  The change was necessary to better serve patrons who would like to access the site using phones or other mobile devices.  In moving in this direction, we were unable to develop a site that would work on all of the older versions of browsers.  When the site went live, we were all excited to get some real feedback from our users.   Unfortunately we quickly realized that many of our users are still using some of these older browsers.   

 
Anyone still using Windows XP as an operating system and is also using Internet Explorer will get a page that looks like the picture below when they visit www.valleylibrary.ca

Not at all like the version we wanted everyone to see, which is like the image above.

The best solution is to upgrade to a more current browser.  XP is officially out of support and is no longer being updated automatically by Microsoft which means Internet Explorer 8 is the last version that will work on XP.  The good news is there are alternatives to Internet Explorer that are faster, less vulnerable and give you the ability to add functionality.  Our favorites are Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

 Google Chrome came out in 2008 and has become the most popular browser worldwide. Chrome is fast, updates automatically and has a store filled with addons that can add functionality like adblocking or a Facebook addon that lets you keep up with friends’ activity even when you aren’t on Facebook.  Chrome is also one of the most secure browsers, blocking known malware and phishing sites automatically. 

 Mozilla Firefox is an open source offshoot of Netscape Navigator and has been one of the most popular browsers for many years. Firefox is quick and has a familiar interface. It was one of the first browsers to embrace addons and has a library of thousands to choose from.

There are countless reasons to upgrade your old browser and start using something new and up-to-date. Trust us when we say that your experience on the Web will be infinitely better if you choose to do this.

Whatever you’re doing on the Web—reading email, shopping, banking, or anything else—a new browser will allow your experience to be safer, faster, and much more beautiful.

Tech Advice - Web Browsers

Our own AVRL Systems Support Team (we call them our computer gurus) has some advice to share:

Step 3:  Web Browsers

One of the most important ways to keep you computer free of spyware is to be careful what you click on.  Almost every webpage has some kind of advertising on it and not all of it is innocent.  You can actually block a lot of the advertising simply by using a different web browser and using an “add-on” that prevents the ads from being displayed.

Firefox  is an open source web browser that has been developed and refined over the last 10 years and has slowly been taking some of the market share away from Internet Explorer (big blue E on your desktop) All you need to do is download it and install the Adblock Plus add-on and you can say good bye to many of the ads you see while surfing. 

Chrome  is the new kid on the block. It was introduced by Google in 2008 and has become very popular because of its speed and minimalist look.  It has also introduced the Chrome web store where you can download “apps for the web” that will work inside the Chrome browser.

 

AdBlock Plus is a small program that can be integrated into the Firefox and Chrome web browsers.  It works by blocking advertisements at their source; preventing them from appearing on the page you are viewing. 

Come back next Wednesday for the final installment on how to protect  your computer!