4 ms·

IE has fallen below 5% on the sites I monitor. Why bother?

by the-dude 11y ago

wunki 11y ago
A lot of businesses are still forcing its employees to use IE.
- melling 11y ago
  They'll change when it becomes a big enough problem. That's how business works. Don't encourage them by supporting old IE's.
  - 9point6 11y ago
    For a lot of business owners using an old version of IE, the browser is something to facilitate their bespoke ActiveX application. They probably don't care if their employees can browse less sites. And on the flip side, a lot of those employees are a sizeable chunk of business for other businesses when they browse on their lunch breaks or whatever. So, large sites aren't going to fully drop support for any browser until after the market share has dried up.
    - melling 11y ago
      That's their problem. They'll install Chrome. Quit making excuses. I've heard it all a thousand times. Stop supporting old browsers today and business will adapt.
      - jtheory 11y ago
        I think you're assuming that the employees in question are permitted to install software freely on their work computers, and/or that the company decision-makers are aware of new sites/services they're denying themselves by their policy. Firstly, the policy is there for a reason -- often something like "we paid a lot in 2003 for this custom software, and if we upgrade browsers we'll have to pay X to have it rewritten/replaced". X may be a rather large sum of money -- easily enough to overwhelm whatever benefits they might get by becoming paying customers of whoever's new venture. There's also a potential for a sort of catch-22; new sites/services may pop up that could even replace their old custom-built software... but if they can't even try it out and the site looks awful on their browsers, a) it's less likely they'll make the jump and b) it gives the impression of being a new-fangled flash-in-the-pan sort of thing. After all, the serious companies online put the effort into supporting older browsers.
- changke 11y ago
  then dropping IE support is a good way to force them focus on the job instead of surfing on the web. ;-)
  - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
    Sucks if your business's users are corporates and the CEO's PA books her bosses flights/hotels with a competitor
    - vetinari 11y ago
      If they are really conservative, they surely book flights and hotels by phone, not web.
  - pluma 11y ago
    Except when your app is meant to be used by them for work and their IT has them stuck on an old version of IE. I know that customer requirements are pretty much unheard of in startup land but other companies have to obey this kind of limitation in order to make any money (which again is an alien concept in startup land -- not every business model survives on growth alone).
onion2k 11y ago
As with all things, not every user is the same. The raw number of visitors using each browser is rather a useless metric for a lot of sites - you should be looking which browsers convert to sales more, click through adverts more, spend the most time on the website, etc. In my experience IE users are much more likely to complete an interstitial signup form or leave a site via a banner than Chrome or Firefox users. IE may have fewer users, but those users are much more valuable if you're building an ad-supported site. Also, if you're making a substantial site with, say, 10 million MAUs, 5% of them is 500,000 people. That's a lot. Do you really want that number of people telling their friends "The site doesn't work for me"?
- the-dude 11y ago
  Not every site is about money. My numbers are actually closer to 3% than to 5%. I could not care less.
  - onion2k 11y ago
    If your point was "Why bother if you're building a site where the IE traffic is of no consequence?" then you should have said that. Obviously there's no point spending time and money writing code that no one benefits from, but that isn't the case for every site. Plenty of sites still need to work in IE because it will affect their income. If someone out there is writing a website whose only customer is an eccentric billionaire who spends $100m a year but insists on using Mosaic 2.0 on a dusty old 286, then they should be testing their updates on Mosaic. Go where your customers are. If you don't have customers, do what you like. Although I'd question whether you even need a website if that's the case.
    - the-dude 11y ago
      I do have customers: about 97% of them. I also provide free services as a gift to my local community ( Groningen ), just to give back. I am not downloading GBs of VMs and spend hours of time to validate IE for a couple of illiterate smugs.
oliciv 11y ago
For a start, how do you know that the reason for the low usage isn't that they are broken in IE? You could be turning customers away.
outside1234 11y ago
You forgot the enterprise.
Encosia 11y ago
If you're looking at overall traffic, combining mobile, tablet, and desktop/laptop, that's probably in the ballpark of correct, but that simplistic measure isn't something I would allow to drive too many decisions. If your site depends at all on user generated content (even comments), one active desktop/laptop user is probably worth hundreds or thousands of screenboard users. On my non-corporate-facing sites, IE is still 30+% of desktop usage, even though it's only 5-10% of overall usage. Also, if you provide an untested experience to your IE users, you're probably bouncing many more users than you realize. Very few people return to a site that doesn't work in their default browser. nb: I'm typing this in Chrome on a MBP.

IE has fallen below 5% on the sites I monitor. Why bother?

wunki 11y ago

A lot of businesses are still forcing its employees to use IE.

melling 11y ago
They'll change when it becomes a big enough problem. That's how business works. Don't encourage them by supporting old IE's.
- 9point6 11y ago
  For a lot of business owners using an old version of IE, the browser is something to facilitate their bespoke ActiveX application. They probably don't care if their employees can browse less sites. And on the flip side, a lot of those employees are a sizeable chunk of business for other businesses when they browse on their lunch breaks or whatever. So, large sites aren't going to fully drop support for any browser until after the market share has dried up.
  - melling 11y ago
    That's their problem. They'll install Chrome. Quit making excuses. I've heard it all a thousand times. Stop supporting old browsers today and business will adapt.
    - jtheory 11y ago
      I think you're assuming that the employees in question are permitted to install software freely on their work computers, and/or that the company decision-makers are aware of new sites/services they're denying themselves by their policy. Firstly, the policy is there for a reason -- often something like "we paid a lot in 2003 for this custom software, and if we upgrade browsers we'll have to pay X to have it rewritten/replaced". X may be a rather large sum of money -- easily enough to overwhelm whatever benefits they might get by becoming paying customers of whoever's new venture. There's also a potential for a sort of catch-22; new sites/services may pop up that could even replace their old custom-built software... but if they can't even try it out and the site looks awful on their browsers, a) it's less likely they'll make the jump and b) it gives the impression of being a new-fangled flash-in-the-pan sort of thing. After all, the serious companies online put the effort into supporting older browsers.
changke 11y ago
then dropping IE support is a good way to force them focus on the job instead of surfing on the web. ;-)
- spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
  Sucks if your business's users are corporates and the CEO's PA books her bosses flights/hotels with a competitor
  - vetinari 11y ago
    If they are really conservative, they surely book flights and hotels by phone, not web.
- pluma 11y ago
  Except when your app is meant to be used by them for work and their IT has them stuck on an old version of IE. I know that customer requirements are pretty much unheard of in startup land but other companies have to obey this kind of limitation in order to make any money (which again is an alien concept in startup land -- not every business model survives on growth alone).

onion2k 11y ago

As with all things, not every user is the same. The raw number of visitors using each browser is rather a useless metric for a lot of sites - you should be looking which browsers convert to sales more, click through adverts more, spend the most time on the website, etc. In my experience IE users are much more likely to complete an interstitial signup form or leave a site via a banner than Chrome or Firefox users. IE may have fewer users, but those users are much more valuable if you're building an ad-supported site. Also, if you're making a substantial site with, say, 10 million MAUs, 5% of them is 500,000 people. That's a lot. Do you really want that number of people telling their friends "The site doesn't work for me"?

the-dude 11y ago
Not every site is about money. My numbers are actually closer to 3% than to 5%. I could not care less.
- onion2k 11y ago
  If your point was "Why bother if you're building a site where the IE traffic is of no consequence?" then you should have said that. Obviously there's no point spending time and money writing code that no one benefits from, but that isn't the case for every site. Plenty of sites still need to work in IE because it will affect their income. If someone out there is writing a website whose only customer is an eccentric billionaire who spends $100m a year but insists on using Mosaic 2.0 on a dusty old 286, then they should be testing their updates on Mosaic. Go where your customers are. If you don't have customers, do what you like. Although I'd question whether you even need a website if that's the case.
  - the-dude 11y ago
    I do have customers: about 97% of them. I also provide free services as a gift to my local community ( Groningen ), just to give back. I am not downloading GBs of VMs and spend hours of time to validate IE for a couple of illiterate smugs.

oliciv 11y ago

For a start, how do you know that the reason for the low usage isn't that they are broken in IE? You could be turning customers away.

outside1234 11y ago

You forgot the enterprise.

Encosia 11y ago

If you're looking at overall traffic, combining mobile, tablet, and desktop/laptop, that's probably in the ballpark of correct, but that simplistic measure isn't something I would allow to drive too many decisions. If your site depends at all on user generated content (even comments), one active desktop/laptop user is probably worth hundreds or thousands of screenboard users. On my non-corporate-facing sites, IE is still 30+% of desktop usage, even though it's only 5-10% of overall usage. Also, if you provide an untested experience to your IE users, you're probably bouncing many more users than you realize. Very few people return to a site that doesn't work in their default browser. nb: I'm typing this in Chrome on a MBP.