Since we’ve launched our new platform, we get lots of questions on page load time.   Unfortunately there’s isn’t one simple answer.  Several factors can contribute to page load, but for many of our users having the right browser can help make the load time better.

Most users who visit our site use Internet Explorer.  The version is where we run into issues.  A large percentage of our users use Version 7 or better.   But there’s a small percentage of users who still have Version 6 on their computers.  For most, that’s where the problems start.

IE6, was released in 2001.  Since then web standards have changed dramatically, which makes sites like WISHTV.com & INDYTV.com difficult to load.    In some cases the columns don’t display correctly or get push down below another.

If your computer is running Windows XP, you can upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 at the Microsoft Update site.  It’s a free update.  Just so you know, IE8 is just around the corner.  It’s currently in public beta and can be downloaded from Microsoft Update.

Our site works best in Firefox.  It’s a bit more secure and complies with many of the web standards WISHTV.com & INDYTV.com were designed to meet.   Best of all it’s a free download and will run on Windows operating systems including Windows 2000 & Windows ME.

For MAC users, our old site was very difficult to use.  I’m not a MAC user, but Safari and Firefox for MAC should render our pages just fine.

Another issue of course is your connection speed.  Pages that include tabbed browsing like our weather page and home page, may take some time to load.  I see this frequently when working on my mobile broadband card.  Our development team continues to look at ways to improve the load time for slower connections.

As always, if you have questions, feel free to email me or leave a comment below.