I’m jumping in with a double post today because lately I’ve been getting e-mails from a few clients and e-mail subscribers who said that, when they went to the website, it was a mess and didn’t load properly.

I was super concerned and went on a little fact-finding mission.

It ends up that the load problems were a result of them using Internet Explorer 6 – a version of Explorer that is, as a standard, unsupported by the web industry and developers around the globe. It’s not even supported by its creator, Microsoft, any more.

I’m not laying down a giant criticism, only making a recommendation that you consider upgrading to a newer browser (Most are FREE!) as we want you to have a fantastic web experience here at OBE, make your computers more secure and be as current as possible in terms of web browsers.

IE 6 is two generations old in terms of browsers as IE 8 came out in March of this year. This means that IE 6 can’t provide the same web experience that modern browsers can. Internet Explorer’s page rendering has caused serious issues for Web developers and users. Pages that look and function properly in Firefox, Safari, and other browsers cannot function in Internet Explorer 6.

It is not supported by and cannot support rich media experiences (Flash, a majority of streaming media, audio content) that are commonplace in today’s web experience. Unsupported means unsecure – opening you up to viruses, bugs and constant load issues. Microsoft phased out support for this browser last year.

We want to make sure all of our readers and advertisers can enjoy all that OBE has to offer and are doing everything we can to make sure that experience is the same across the board.

For IE6r’s take a peek at what the site looks like in other browsers:

Internet Explorer 6 does not have the capability to display our content properly and therefore Our Big Earth does not support IE6. It’s not just us either. You’ll begin to find soon, or may have already discovered, that many sites will no longer support IE 6.

We HIGHLY recommend that you spend a few moments today updating your browser.

We like Firefox and Safari here as they have great tools and are excellent industry standards.

But, there are newer versions of Internet Explorer that are easy to upgrade to and will get you the goods at OBE as well as expand your Internet experience as a whole.

You can Download Internet Explorer 7. There’s even an option to download IE 8 if your system has the capabilities.

Hope you are enjoying your afternoon!