[Macpartners] Web Browsers at MIT - reiterating support and recommendations for FY2005 and beyond

[Deb Bowser]

Date:   March 4th, 2005
To: Members of the MIT Community:  itpartners at mit.edu, macpartners at mit.edu, 
winpartners at mit.edu,  sw-release-announce at mit.edu, ed-tech at mit.edu, 
linux-help at mit.edu
From:  Information Services and Technology
Subj:  Web Browsers at MIT - reiterating support and recommendations for 
FY2005 and beyond
Cc:  is&t at mit.edu, itag at mit.edu, it-lead at mit.edu


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.

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.

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.

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 
http://web.mit.edu/ist/web/reference/create/standards.html.

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:

      Red Hat Linux 3 or later

      Solaris 9 or later

      MacOS X (10.3 or later)

      Windows XP professional with latest service packs

Recommended Browsers by computing platform:

    -- Linux users:  Firefox 1.0.1 will be introduced as a recommended and 
supported browser this spring.
Mozilla will remain a recommended browser although we anticipate steady 
decline in use throughout FY2006.

       -- 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.

       -- 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.

*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.

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 at mit.edu>.

Sincerely,
Deb Bowser
IS&T Customer Support Services
Software Release Team
W92-176
617-253-3879
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