The Connections Blog

IBM Connections 3.0.1 is supported on the following browsers:

Operating System	Browser
Windows	Internet Explorer 6 (except RSS feeds)
	internet Explorer 7
	Internet Explorer 8
	Mozilla Firefox 3.5
	Mozilla Firefox 3.6
Mac OS X	Safari 5
	Mozilla Firefox 3.5
	Mozilla Firefox 3.6
Linux	Mozilla Firefox 3.5
	Mozilla Firefox 3.6

As you can see this is a pretty comprehensive list, with the primary browsers across all the common OS platforms.  It represents a LOT of testing and support.

However it is also a little, ermmm, tired at this point.  We have Internet Explorer 9 in common use, the Firefox release schedule has gone berserk in recent months and is suddenly at version 9 as well, and the huge elephant in the room is Google Chrome which according to some studies is now representing at least 25% of browser use.  

This is not intended as criticism of IBM, they have a very very tough job testing the product against all the platforms and combinations and the browser vendors seem to be trying to outdo themselves with new releases and feature/functions at this point.  Whilst most enterprise-level customers (IBM's sweet spot, remember) are locked into versions of Internet Explorer pre-version 9 right now, one could argue that they are investing in the right platforms.  However, in my experience, an increasing share of Connections environments are being targeted at the non-enterprise customer (we have at least five such projects on the go right now), where no such control of browsers platforms is available.  Users will be using whatever browser they use for the rest of the Social web, and for the technically-astute that is going to be the latest releases of Chrome or Firefox.  The browser vendors (particularly Google) are also getting better at automatically upgrading user browsers automatically rather than asking for permission.  Put all this together, and wider and more recent browser support is becoming ever more critical day by day.

[To compound the issue, I have a feeling that IBM expected the next version of Connections to at least be imminent by this point, and thus newer browser support is baked into that rather than the current release 3.0.1.  But with that version seeming to still be a little way off (I'm sure we'll hear news at Lotusphere), we need to work with what we have now.]

So, why the title of the post? A story of two browsers? Well, I have some good news and some bad news...

Let's start with the good news!  There have been some issues with Connections Files and versions of Mozilla Firefox since version 4.  Files would simply not load.  This has been a known issue for a while, and has been causing some consternation as whilst Firefox 3.6 is the latest supported release, so many users have upgraded beyond that version.  So, I am really really pleased that IBM has released an iFix for this issue which means that Files works in all current releases of Firefox once more.  3.0.1.0-IC-Multi-Files-HF1-IFLO58492 is what you need.  This is not yet on FixCentral, so contact our good friends in IBM support to obtain the fix package (and thanks to David McCarthy in IBM Dublin for making me aware of this news!).

The not so good news... Whilst Google Chrome has been unsupported with Connections to this point, it has worked pretty well so far.  There have been some issues with rich text editing, but mostly it has been a fine experience.  I've used Chrome as my primary browser for at least a year and have not looked back.  However, this has changed in the last month with an automatic update for Chrome breaking support for Connections.  The issue again affects Files, with attempts to download files from the system resulting in a 'Duplicate Headers' message:



This occurs in both Windows and Mac versions of Chrome.  I spotted this last week, and Chris Whisonant blogged it yesterday too. This Google forum thread suggests the issue is due to recent versions of Chrome being very sensitive to "Content-Disposition" in the response headers, and it seems to affect multiple software platforms.  It is possible that Google will change this, but in the meantime the only option is to avoid using Chrome with Connections Files.  I'll be asking IBM for a fix, but I'm not sure what their response will be given that there is no official support for the browser today. I'll let you know!

By: Stuart McIntyre | 8 Comments | On: 10 January 2012 06:02:52 | Tags:  connections  chrome  firefox 

Comments