“Unless you’re shopping among the major online services, which
require the use of proprietary software, you don’t even need to
worry much about operating systems. Most of the Web looks identical
on a Mac, Windows or Linux machine. The main difference is that
some Web multimedia is platform-constrained: Microsoft’s ActiveX is
Windows-only, while Apple’s QuickTime and Macromedia’s Flash work
only on Mac and Windows machines.”
“It is, however, possible in some rare circumstances to have an
operating system that’s too new for your Internet provider. For
about a month, users of Verizon’s DSL service who had upgraded to
Microsoft’s Windows Me were unable to get online; the software
needed to initiate a connection under Verizon’s DSL scheme wasn’t
updated until Oct. 16. Similarly, AOL’s version 5.0 software didn’t
run under Microsoft’s Windows 2000 when the operating system
arrived in February.”
“But for most home users, having a computer that’s too up to
date is not exactly something that keeps them up late at
night.”