New versions and updates of the good browsers seem to appear regulary. This may mean aded features, bigs been ironed out, smoother operation – in short, better browsers. Ideally, these changes should be reflected in at least reviews of the different browsers, which in turn may be a part in forming opinions. The question is then: How up to date are the reviewers?
In the online edition of the Indianapolis Star, I read an article dated yesterday about different alternatives to IE, and how it could be nice to try them and make the switch away from IE. A nice, well-informed article that doesn’t try to claim that a browser switch is the end to all problems. However, there were one little detail about one browser, that stated something wrong.
The browser is Opera, the statement was about the banner ads in the free version, and that to get rid f them you’d have to pay $40. This used to be true, but Opera has been completely free without any banner ads for some time now, so an article dated January 22, 2006 should reflect that. On the positive side, those banners were the only negative things said about the browser, so as they’re gone…
Anyway, I mailed the author a friendly (I hope) little correction, but it made me think a bit more about this: How many people base their opinions of the current version of Opera, based on what they know of a previous version, maybe even a much older version? When we see what people write on discussion forums and in comments on blogs, it may be quite a few. This is why I think it should be important that those who write reviews and articles and such are careful not to get anything wrong – there may be a “the newspaper said it, so it must be correct”-effect.
Maybe it will be easier when Opera 9 is released?
