Oh guffaw. The time has easily come where we are allowed to say "no" to several browser versions, or at least ignore them. Even Google has dropped support for IE6.
Supporting several browsers does not mean that a website has to look perfect in all those browsers. My sites will look good on the latest version of Chrome, IE, Opera, and Firefox.
Users of IE6/7/etc are already self-inflicting harm on their own web experience, why should we care to cater to them? They can have the website I display, but I'm not building the site for the past.
I don't care if previous browser users see the Best Of All Possible Websites, as long as they see something. And since I'm developing Canvas apps, I don't care if some of them see anything at all.
I imagine IE will reluctantly take the road of Chrome or FF and be more insistent about updates, especially outside of the corporate world. I also think that in the future the consensus will be that there isn't anything wrong with dropping support for aged browsers, and just displaying one "simple" site version to them.
I've never really understood the outward hostility Web developers display towards their clients, audience, customers, etc. Your job is to deliver the best experience you can for people viewing Web pages. If given all the information at your disposal, the costs don't outweigh the pros for your audience, that's one thing. But not doing it because it's hard or you just don't feel like it is a bit childish (please note I'm using "you" to mean the prototypical Web developer here -- not you as in simonsarris).
We all have to do things we don't like in our jobs, that's just part of it being a job. I can even accept a certain amount of healthy advocacy. Encourage people to upgrade if you'd like. But outright refusal to do your best because your customer doesn't run the browser you wish they did is just a very odd tactic to take.
Oh, and the ditch is on the beach so the tide will be coming in any time now.
Hyperbole, yes. Web development isn't exactly ditch digging, but if you really want to understand why so many web developers are openly hostile toward supporting these older browsers, it's because the exercise is tantamount to digging ditches with jelly-handled garden spades on a rigid time table. When you get in to these much, much older browsers, it's a back and forth game of break/fix whack-a-mole. It's broken in one browser, so you try to fix it by using another approach, only to find that it's now broken in the current browser. That or you end up using ugly work arounds that just cruft up the application and make maintenance a nightmare.
Ultimately this comes down to a business decision. I consider each browser version as a market to be sold in to. I may find it an unrealistic business proposition to increase my developer hours by 30%, just to support a specific browser, when there's a big fat market of current browser users ready to use my application.
I've been doing Web development for a long time. So, I'm aware of the environment. Usually the costs of supporting older browsers are grossly exaggerated. Unless you're completely new to the game, you already know how to deal with older versions of IE because at one time they were the state of the art.
But, if you* really don't enjoy what you're doing, do something else. There are always going to be browser differences and they're not all IE-related. But you're getting paid to know those differences and handle them so your customer gets a good experience.
* Again, "you" == the wider population of Web developers.
I agree with you on one point. In a lot of cases, the cost of supporting older browsers (say, IE7 and newer) is grossly exagerated, but if we're talking IE6, I completely disagree. Maybe for simple websites, but the moment you start getting in to web applications with a moderately complex Javascript UI, the costs go up very quickly.
Or if it is our own project simply decide not to support them and take a hit on who can see our website. For most things I've done I'd rather do this than properly support IE6.
In the real world time is limited and expensive resource, and the more of it you spend catering to a small fraction of users, the less you can spend on improving your service in other ways – possibly more beneficial to the end users.
It's a matter of trade-offs that have to be made based on intended audience and information available. No need to be offended.
Sure. Like I said, if you're actually measuring it, then that's one thing. But supporting older browsers usually isn't that hard if you know what you're doing. Obviously there are some features that you just can't backport and there's not much you can do there. But more often than not I read comments like "as a policy, I just won't support IE < 9."
In any event, the cost argument is the purview of the business owner perspective, not the Web developer. And it's hard to look at in isolation. I don't know that many sites that wouldn't love to have another 5% of traffic. Yeah, it may cost more to support older browsers, but driving traffic to a site costs money, whether through ads or spending time on inbound marketing. Trying to bump conversion rates on your existing traffic costs money and time as well.
There's obviously a balance to it. At the extreme end, I know of businesses that support anything with > 0.5% market share because at the volume they operate at, it's worth millions. At the other end, I see startups fight tooth-and-nail working on their funnels, while throwing away legitimate sources of revenue.
It's rarely all-or-nothing. For me "not supported" means that the site wasn't extensively tested on a given browser or it doesn't offer full experience, not that it doesn't work at all. Another issue is whether those enterprise IE6 users are really the target audience of your startup.
Anyway, it seems like we both agree that it should be a deliberate decision.
Do you remember Netscape 4.x? I sure do -- I was supporting it well into 2004 because I didn't have the nerve to tell my overlords that it was cost-ineffective. One day when the CSS (or, rather the JSS written as CSS) recursion levels got really deep, there was a small explosion (approximately one kiloStan yield), and we dropped support. (NS4 users got a usable app, but not the enhanced experience that other users were getting.)
Strangely enough, we didn't lose customers. It turns out that people were using NS4.x because we supported NS4.x. They will upgrade if they have a reason to do so.
If you've written the site/app well, it will work in Lynx, fer cryin' down the sink. It won't be pretty or slick, but it'll work. There is absolutely no need to make a site feature-for-feature identical or pixel-perfect across all browsers, as long as the functionality is there. And if users understand that their browser is holding back the experience, they will change the browser.
It's very similar to waiters complaining about their customers, or any job ever complaining. People bitch about work, especially the less fun parts, especially when they can put the blame on someone.
There are just a lot of vocal web designers on the web, go figure.
>Users of IE6/7/etc are already self-inflicting harm on their own web experience
Don't assume users have a choice. Even if they do, don't assume they understand the choice.
>why should we care to cater to them?
If you want to ignore a % of your users, that's fine. Some of your competitors wont. That's your choice. Just realize you can be losing potential users/customers and that lesson about updating their browsers will be lost on the customers that went elsewhere.
I'm not suggesting those users who don't have a choice should be ignored completely, I'm suggesting they be ignored for the Best Of All Possible Websites (or whatever you'd like to call it).
Even if you display to 70+ browsers you can still get away with programming two versions, as most websites do today (or more than two, as most major websites do). One will simply be less complex and pretty than the other (CSS3, etc).
In the future I imagine that will be the standard: Modern version of a website, and then lowest-common-denominator version, which works with IE[X]+ and older mobile browsers, and stubborn/corporate firefox users, etc.
In my case I don't have a choice: Canvas cannot work on IE6/7/8. Excanvas works until animation is introduced, then becomes progressively worthless.
If you want to ignore a % of your users, that's fine. Some of your competitors wont.
You know, as a long-time Linux and Firefox user, I've made that point to a number of newspaper web sites, etc etc etc. I usually get the written equivalent of an eye-roll.
Why is it that it's OK for a business to ignore Linux and Mac users (back when Macs didn't have such a huge mind-share). or Firefox and Safari users, but it's not OK for a busines to ignore the same fraction of Windows users?
>Why is it that it's OK for a business to ignore Linux and Mac users ... but it's not OK for a busines to ignore the same fraction of Windows users?
I don't think it's "OK" as much as it is a business decision. Developing software for various platforms is vastly different (in terms of resources) than developing websites for cross browser compatibility. The barrier to entry in the web world is also much lower, which leads to a higher level of competition and as I mentioned if you don't support a browser, a competitor will. As you no doubt know, that same statement isn't commonly made about platform software.
> If you want to ignore a % of your users, that's fine.
Developer time spent supporting IE6 is developer time that could have been spent addressing feature requests or other issues impacting the rest of your user base. Or perhaps it could have been spent supporting a platform your product doesn't yet support at all, such as Android or iPhone.
Point is, there's always an opportunity cost for spending developer time supporting any feature or platform. No matter what you do, you're ignoring somebody. There is nothing special about IE6 users in this regard, particularly given that they are now a distinct minority.
If you're in a position where you can totally ignore IE8 users, that's fine with me; but that's not where most developers are at.
And I agree; the more time goes by, the more I want to provide a super simple version of each site to oldIE, like throwing the Universal IE6 Stylesheet to all of them.
I'm convinced most developers will be able to ignore most of the 76 potential IE engines though; even if it wasn't possible to override I can't see too many people browsing with IE11 set to masquerade as IE7.
> Users of IE6/7/etc are already self-inflicting harm on their own web experience
Why would these users self-inflict harm? Unless they're the victim of a enterprise IT overlord, it's because they don't understand what they are doing. They probably don't even have a good mental model of what a browser is.
So when these users visit your web site with their old browsers, I doubt they think "Hey, this web site is rendering poorly because I have an outdated browser" they probably think "this web site is broken".
In the event you haven't received the memo: Google is one of Microsoft's largest competitive threats. By simultaneously attacking Microsoft's browser, Office Suite, and OS monopolies, they're pushing a large wedge into Microsoft's core competitive advantage (mostly installed userbase and inertia).
As others have noted, while browser share may not show much IE6 usage, it's large organizations (and their large bill payment capacities) which account for most of the legacy usage. A key point to keep in mind when trying to grok why "market share" (as a percentage of user-agent pageviews) need not translate directly into "our target user base". If IE6 pays the bills, then you'll continue to support it.
This said as no particular fan of Microsoft. Or, increasingly, of Google.
Oh guffaw. The time has easily come where we are allowed to say "no" to several browser versions, or at least ignore them. Even Google has dropped support for IE6.
Supporting several browsers does not mean that a website has to look perfect in all those browsers. My sites will look good on the latest version of Chrome, IE, Opera, and Firefox.
Users of IE6/7/etc are already self-inflicting harm on their own web experience, why should we care to cater to them? They can have the website I display, but I'm not building the site for the past.
I don't care if previous browser users see the Best Of All Possible Websites, as long as they see something. And since I'm developing Canvas apps, I don't care if some of them see anything at all.
I imagine IE will reluctantly take the road of Chrome or FF and be more insistent about updates, especially outside of the corporate world. I also think that in the future the consensus will be that there isn't anything wrong with dropping support for aged browsers, and just displaying one "simple" site version to them.