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<font color="#020202">Date: March 4th, 2005<br>
To: Members of the MIT Community: </font>itpartners@mit.edu,
macpartners@mit.edu, winpartners@mit.edu,
sw-release-announce@mit.edu, ed-tech@mit.edu, linux-help@mit.edu <br>
<font color="#020202">From: Information Services and Technology
<br>
Subj: </font>Web Browsers at MIT - reiterating support and
recommendations for FY2005 and beyond<br>
<font color="#020202">Cc: </font>is&t@mit.edu, itag@mit.edu,
it-lead@mit.edu <br><br>
<br>
Information Services and Technology, (IS&T), recognizes the continued
reliance on web browsers to deliver critical information and timely
services, and that vendor support for web browsers by computing platform
varies greatly. Criteria for selecting the best suited web browser
by computing platform include: support for x.509 certificates,
robustness, stability, ease of use, trends in customer preference, and
endorsement from the key web site providers within our Community.
It is essential that we consult all of the key web masters and
maintainers across campus before any strategy in this communication is
implemented; so, that they have adequate time to provide any crucial
feedback.<br><br>
This year's collective decision, mirrors the past two years strategic
direction, IS&T will focus its support of operating system web
browsers to recommend and support Internet Explorer under Windows, Safari
under Macintosh and *Firefox under Linux/UNIX.<br><br>
While we are recommending specific browsers by platform, web site
developers should design their sites to comply with web standards rather
than developing towards specific browsers.<br><br>
While we are recommending specific browsers by platform, web site
developers should design their sites to comply with web standards rather
than developing towards specific browsers. For more details, see
<a href="http://web.mit.edu/ist/web/reference/create/standards.html" eudora="autourl">
http://web.mit.edu/ist/web/reference/create/standards.html</a>.<br><br>
We encourage you to consider web browser support within your department
and anticipate software upgrades prior to June 2005. Natively
supported browsers are closely linked to their operating systems and
appropriate upgrades should be planned, too. Fiscal 2006
recommended operating systems are:<br><br>
Red Hat Linux 3 or later<br>
<br>
Solaris 9 or later<br><br>
MacOS X (10.3 or later)<br><br>
Windows XP professional with latest service
packs<br><br>
Recommended Browsers by computing platform:<br><br>
-- Linux users: Firefox 1.0.1 will be introduced as a
recommended and supported browser this spring.<br>
Mozilla will remain a recommended browser although we anticipate steady
decline in use throughout FY2006.<br><br>
-- Macintosh users: Safari v 1.2.2
or later (x.509 personal certificate support), Apple's developed and
maintained web browser for MacOS X (10.3.3 or later) is currently
supported. We anticipate recommending support for Safari v 2.0
which will be included with MacOS X (10.4) later this Spring.<br><br>
-- Windows' users: Internet
Explorer, IE 6 SP2 or later, is the recommended and supported web browser
for the upcoming fiscal year. It is important that the web browser
version be current with the operating system and all critical web browser
patches be kept current.<br><br>
*Firefox version 1 or later is a popular and viable alternative browser
on Windows and Macintosh platforms, although it is currently not fully
supported by IS&T.<br><br>
We hope that providing this information and recommendations now will
allow our colleagues to plan accordingly. We remain confident that
these web browser recommendations are adequate for the upcoming year and
lessen the burden on desktop maintenance. Please feel free to share this
announcement with colleagues who may be interested and should you have
any pressing questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Software
Release team at <swrt@mit.edu>.<br><br>
Sincerely,<br>
Deb Bowser<br>
IS&T Customer Support Services<br>
Software Release Team<br>
W92-176<br>
617-253-3879<br>
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