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Frith620

: JQuery/AJAX on old Computers/Browsers I am working on a plattform that will have a lot of users in the so called "developing countries". So many of them will be using old computers and old

@Frith620

Posted in: #BrowserSupport #CrossBrowser #Jquery #Performance #UserFriendly

I am working on a plattform that will have a lot of users in the so called "developing countries". So many of them will be using old computers and old browsers in tiny internet cafes.

We want to make sure to give them a good user Experience and make sure the website loads as fast as possible.

Problem is, that while you can save a lot of requeasts and time, using jQuery/AJAX, it also brings along a lot of Problems:
- Will the Computers be powerfull enough to deal with the client side scripts?
- Will the old Browsers handle jQuery?

Does anyone have any experience with these sort of problems or might know of some sort of article on the topic?

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@Caterina187

On the server side, you can detect the browser by looking at the HTTP_USER_AGENT header: support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/306576 You can then use different versions of javascript files for different browsers like

<script type='text/javascript' src='MainLibraryIE6.js'></script>


Another trick is using browser conditional commands such as

<!--[if IE 6]>
<script type="text/javascript" src="FixIE6Problems.js"></script>
<![endif]-->


Also, JQuery 1.9 supports IE 8. JQuery 2.0 only supports IE 9 and higher.

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@Annie201

Depending on the country, the browser usage is very different. In China, for instance, there is 22%+ IE6. When developing for old browsers, keep in mind that even if they support ajax and other fancy javascript stuff, they probably do it a lot slower than more modern browsers.

We did a comparison for a customer project some time ago. IE6, compared to a Firefox 4 was more than ten times slower in javascript execution speed, so we had to add a lot of tweaks (for instance do not add js click handlers on dom ready event, but on mouse over of each element seperately). It's also a good idea to show loading/waiting indicators to the user during expensive js tasks to prevent further clicking which will again cost performance.

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