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Oh poor, deluded TNW. Software only dies in the way developers care about when users stop using it. Well beside its actual expiry (which seems to be 2020), peo

Oh poor, deluded TNW. Software only dies in the way developers care about when users stop using it. Well beside its actual expiry (which seems to be 2020), people STILL use XP with an ancient versions of IE6 and IE7. Many Vista users stick on IE7. So calm yourself and put flexbox back down. You've got a few years before that's supported enough.

chris_wot 11y ago
If I was a developer, I'd carefully look at my referer logs and if only 15% of my user community was using IE 8-10, I'd just develop for IE 10. I would NOT warn the end users about needing to upgrade, I'd just let script errors occur and not release any compatibility fixes. I'd respond to support tickets explaining that there are bugs in their old version of IE and suggest they upgrade, or install Chrome or Firefox. If they are corporate users, I would be about now announcing that as Micirosft are EOL'img these IE versions only IE 11 and upwards will be supported. I'd probably give a grace period of 3 months officially, and depending on which can clients are affected I'd possibly give them 4-5 months to upgrade.
- jtheory 11y ago
  Why this, specifically? > I would NOT warn the end users about needing to upgrade People using your product are discussing it on review sites, on social media, with friends/family, etc.. If you silently give some of them a broken product, a few will contact support; but I imagine most will assume your product is just low quality. So that's the word they'll spread. For corporate users: well, you'd need to talk with your customers. They might be facing a seriously expensive upgrade process, and could be extremely unhappy to hear you're setting an arbitrary deadline for them.
  - _pmf_ 11y ago
    > but I imagine most will assume your product is just low quality And they would be right.
- iqonik 11y ago
  And then when your clients don't renew, your revenue is significantly affected, you have to lay off staff, you have a realization that this works in an ideal world, but we don't live in one.
  - mcs_ 11y ago
    i don't know... how much is the cost to develop an application to cover 100% of the available desktop browsers? maybe use that value to improve mobile target make more sense at this point?!
    - iqonik 11y ago
      In my experience it is far less than the cost of acquiring new customers, onboarding and supporting them, also far less risky.
    - ehnto 11y ago
      It really, really depends on your site's demographic. Example: skin care website, they sell women's beauty and anti aging products. Their demographic is 15% IE8, but you know who are most likely to buy their products? Mature women, who are also more likely to be the ones in that 15%. The next part of that puzzle was when they launched into China. China has a huge population still on XP and IE8. Literally millions of uniques from IE8. We even had a percentage from Netscape! Fortunately the agency handling them was smart enough to research the demographic in both instances, but many agencies won't. They will brazenly force their opinions on their users who frankly, don't give a crap how you feel. They just want it to work so they can buy stuff. You have to view every hit as a customer. Imagine if Walmart stopped letting in 15% of customers.
      - tracker1 11y ago
        I would think mature women would be the ones more likely to be using an iPad/iPhone. I've worked in several positions where the demographics are skewed towards middle age, and the use of the iPad alone is far larger than IE<11.
- oliwarner 11y ago
  It's easy to say this stuff, less easy to implement in a business. It depends on your demographic and your content. Take B2B sales or B2B SaaS. Enterprise users are THE main reason for crappy old browsers in my experience, so the real question becomes... Are you really willing to take a 10% hit on sales? You can announce EOLs until the cows come home (Microsoft has and look how well it has done them). If your product stops working, they'll complain at you and then cancel their contract and find another provider who will support them. I'm speaking from a gruelling 15 years experience developing enterprise SaaS. We've only just dropped IE6. It'll be years before IE8 goes away.
  - will_pseudonym 11y ago
    It's the 80/20 rule for me. Think about the type of client (individual user/corporation) that is still using < IE 10. I'd wager that they're well paying, yet difficult to deal with. They're entities who live in a legacy world. I've worked in those places, and honestly I won't develop software for anything but the first-most and second-most recent platform, because I want to target people like me. People who care about value over cost. People who value time over money. Entities who use legacy software have more problems than their browser. It's symptomatic of a much larger issue, and I love being able to filter them out!
    - zhte415 11y ago
      > It's the 80/20 rule for me. Think about the type of client (individual user/corporation) that is still using < IE 10. I'd wager that they're well paying, yet difficult to deal with. At an entity level, they may be difficult to deal with, but at the level of an individual in the organisation they know their company has problems. These people move around, and personal relationships are really important long term. This is my main motivating factor. As long as the client pays (20% of revenue...) and there are no other risks, I'm happy to employ a front end developer who has probably has years of experience making IE6/7 degrade somewhat gracefully. If it were my own product, my own time, my own cost, absolutely not, but if sales were assured with this type of customer, sure. This is a personal opinion. No one client is the same. I find it interesting to contrast 2 clients I work with who are in differing fields of the same space: (massive names in) financial services: One does QA on only the latest stable version of major browsers (down to Opera, my personal favourite) browser on Windows and Mac; The other does QA on any browser or platform with 2% visitor share (measured by visitors to their website), and also accommodates customers who may be on something obscure but the customer demands it. The former's approach sounds pretty aggressive r.e. serving, or not serving, the customer, but the latter's caused them to avoid abandoning a really backward platform for 5+ years for all customers. Swings and roundabouts. Interesting how we take varying judgments.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jacquesm 11y ago
  That's not a very good way to run a commercial entity. And it is also why developers should not be making the call about which browser to support and which not. The reason why is that the fixed cost of a business are that: fixed. The profit is usually over-represented in the last few percentage points of the people using the service or buying the products so if you lop off some arbitrary percentage at the top that 15% of your users might be 80% of your profits. That's a very quick way to die.
  - serge2k 11y ago
    It's a fine way to run. data based decision based on the cost of support and the amount of traffic.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      It is extremely rare that the cost to support a browser outweighs the economic importance of those using those browsers. If it is then you are probably too small an entity to matter anyway, but as soon as your IE6 users are numerous enough that you can assign a percentage to the population you would probably be well advised to simply serve them rather than to attempt to force them to upgrade, if they haven't done so yet they either have very good reasons or you won't be able to convince them anyway.
      - tracker1 11y ago
        I am working at a Fortune 100 financial company currently, IE8 support is already retired, and IE9 in the next month or so. This being a numbers based decision.
        jacquesm 11y ago
        I suspect that the demographic make-up of the customer base is a huge factor in this. Location and age, predominantly.
        11y ago
- perlgeek 11y ago
  Giving 15% of your users a shitty experience is a really bad of doing business.
  - tracker1 11y ago
    Where I work IE<11 accounts for under 5%, ymmv.
- grandalf 11y ago
  It's not as if web developers like supporting broken, outdated browsers. It's done because without the users using those browsers, the business would be worse off. There are lots of intermediate steps like warning about an inferior experience, but at this point it's necessary to test most websites on at least a few versions of IE9. I've found that using react I've had very easy compatibility with older IE, etc. The only thing I've had to do is install a polyfill or two.
- kdamken 11y ago
  While I completely get where you're coming from, realistically this can be very messy. You'd quickly find that an increasing number of your support calls were from those users having issues. 15% doesn't sound like a lot, but 15% of a million people is 150,000 people. So, you'd succeed in angering a lot of customers. Much better to try and inform all of your customers (not just corporate) of the upcoming changes, and provide support materials for them to follow while giving them a reasonable timeframe to do so.
  - tracker1 11y ago
    Maybe you should use conversion metrics combined with usage statistics weighted against trending and flow relative to feature enhancements and capabilities instead of any raw value against general hits? Each business is different, and even then different areas of a product can have differing requirements and needs. What is 15% for you, may be <2% and declining for others. My current and former positions see iPad users in greater numbers than any other single platform/browser, as an example. It may be better served to create features that work for the larger audience and other platforms easily supported than grasping at a fraying edge.
- kbutler 11y ago
  > If I was a developer, It's pretty clear you're not a developer (or wouldn't be for long). There are two really bad decisions here: 1) You are driving away up to 15% of people who actually use your product. How much would you spend to acquire that many active users? It's easier to keep existing users than acquire new users. 2) Sending users through a ticket system for errors you could have prevented with a simple warning is a bad experience for them and far more work for you. And most users will silently disappear instead.
  - dimgl 11y ago
    I feel inclined to agree. These kinds of decisions are the ones that get you in deep trouble when the vocal minority starts to scream. It really is very trivial to at least give some sort of message, warning or guide to upgrade when attempting to use a web product with an incompatible browser.
  - tracker1 11y ago
    Depends on your user base. In my current application/site, our IE < 11 userbase combined is under 5% and declining. IE8 has already been dropped, and IE9 soon. The product I work on is directly related to customer acquisition at a financial institution. So I'd say it's a pretty safe bet the numbers have been run thoroughly. disclaimer: my opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
- bosdev 11y ago
  Not showing a message to your users is very user hostile. It's one thing to not offer a service, it's another to frustrate your potential users.
tracker1 11y ago
At my current job, IE < 10 is less than 2% and support for IE8 has already dropped, and IE9 will next month iirc.

chris_wot 11y ago

If I was a developer, I'd carefully look at my referer logs and if only 15% of my user community was using IE 8-10, I'd just develop for IE 10. I would NOT warn the end users about needing to upgrade, I'd just let script errors occur and not release any compatibility fixes. I'd respond to support tickets explaining that there are bugs in their old version of IE and suggest they upgrade, or install Chrome or Firefox. If they are corporate users, I would be about now announcing that as Micirosft are EOL'img these IE versions only IE 11 and upwards will be supported. I'd probably give a grace period of 3 months officially, and depending on which can clients are affected I'd possibly give them 4-5 months to upgrade.

jtheory 11y ago
Why this, specifically? > I would NOT warn the end users about needing to upgrade People using your product are discussing it on review sites, on social media, with friends/family, etc.. If you silently give some of them a broken product, a few will contact support; but I imagine most will assume your product is just low quality. So that's the word they'll spread. For corporate users: well, you'd need to talk with your customers. They might be facing a seriously expensive upgrade process, and could be extremely unhappy to hear you're setting an arbitrary deadline for them.
- _pmf_ 11y ago
  > but I imagine most will assume your product is just low quality And they would be right.
iqonik 11y ago
And then when your clients don't renew, your revenue is significantly affected, you have to lay off staff, you have a realization that this works in an ideal world, but we don't live in one.
- mcs_ 11y ago
  i don't know... how much is the cost to develop an application to cover 100% of the available desktop browsers? maybe use that value to improve mobile target make more sense at this point?!
  - iqonik 11y ago
    In my experience it is far less than the cost of acquiring new customers, onboarding and supporting them, also far less risky.
  - ehnto 11y ago
    It really, really depends on your site's demographic. Example: skin care website, they sell women's beauty and anti aging products. Their demographic is 15% IE8, but you know who are most likely to buy their products? Mature women, who are also more likely to be the ones in that 15%. The next part of that puzzle was when they launched into China. China has a huge population still on XP and IE8. Literally millions of uniques from IE8. We even had a percentage from Netscape! Fortunately the agency handling them was smart enough to research the demographic in both instances, but many agencies won't. They will brazenly force their opinions on their users who frankly, don't give a crap how you feel. They just want it to work so they can buy stuff. You have to view every hit as a customer. Imagine if Walmart stopped letting in 15% of customers.
    - tracker1 11y ago
      I would think mature women would be the ones more likely to be using an iPad/iPhone. I've worked in several positions where the demographics are skewed towards middle age, and the use of the iPad alone is far larger than IE<11.
oliwarner 11y ago
It's easy to say this stuff, less easy to implement in a business. It depends on your demographic and your content. Take B2B sales or B2B SaaS. Enterprise users are THE main reason for crappy old browsers in my experience, so the real question becomes... Are you really willing to take a 10% hit on sales? You can announce EOLs until the cows come home (Microsoft has and look how well it has done them). If your product stops working, they'll complain at you and then cancel their contract and find another provider who will support them. I'm speaking from a gruelling 15 years experience developing enterprise SaaS. We've only just dropped IE6. It'll be years before IE8 goes away.
- will_pseudonym 11y ago
  It's the 80/20 rule for me. Think about the type of client (individual user/corporation) that is still using < IE 10. I'd wager that they're well paying, yet difficult to deal with. They're entities who live in a legacy world. I've worked in those places, and honestly I won't develop software for anything but the first-most and second-most recent platform, because I want to target people like me. People who care about value over cost. People who value time over money. Entities who use legacy software have more problems than their browser. It's symptomatic of a much larger issue, and I love being able to filter them out!
  - zhte415 11y ago
    > It's the 80/20 rule for me. Think about the type of client (individual user/corporation) that is still using < IE 10. I'd wager that they're well paying, yet difficult to deal with. At an entity level, they may be difficult to deal with, but at the level of an individual in the organisation they know their company has problems. These people move around, and personal relationships are really important long term. This is my main motivating factor. As long as the client pays (20% of revenue...) and there are no other risks, I'm happy to employ a front end developer who has probably has years of experience making IE6/7 degrade somewhat gracefully. If it were my own product, my own time, my own cost, absolutely not, but if sales were assured with this type of customer, sure. This is a personal opinion. No one client is the same. I find it interesting to contrast 2 clients I work with who are in differing fields of the same space: (massive names in) financial services: One does QA on only the latest stable version of major browsers (down to Opera, my personal favourite) browser on Windows and Mac; The other does QA on any browser or platform with 2% visitor share (measured by visitors to their website), and also accommodates customers who may be on something obscure but the customer demands it. The former's approach sounds pretty aggressive r.e. serving, or not serving, the customer, but the latter's caused them to avoid abandoning a really backward platform for 5+ years for all customers. Swings and roundabouts. Interesting how we take varying judgments.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jacquesm 11y ago
That's not a very good way to run a commercial entity. And it is also why developers should not be making the call about which browser to support and which not. The reason why is that the fixed cost of a business are that: fixed. The profit is usually over-represented in the last few percentage points of the people using the service or buying the products so if you lop off some arbitrary percentage at the top that 15% of your users might be 80% of your profits. That's a very quick way to die.
- serge2k 11y ago
  It's a fine way to run. data based decision based on the cost of support and the amount of traffic.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    It is extremely rare that the cost to support a browser outweighs the economic importance of those using those browsers. If it is then you are probably too small an entity to matter anyway, but as soon as your IE6 users are numerous enough that you can assign a percentage to the population you would probably be well advised to simply serve them rather than to attempt to force them to upgrade, if they haven't done so yet they either have very good reasons or you won't be able to convince them anyway.
    - tracker1 11y ago
      I am working at a Fortune 100 financial company currently, IE8 support is already retired, and IE9 in the next month or so. This being a numbers based decision.
      - jacquesm 11y ago
        I suspect that the demographic make-up of the customer base is a huge factor in this. Location and age, predominantly.
        11y ago
perlgeek 11y ago
Giving 15% of your users a shitty experience is a really bad of doing business.
- tracker1 11y ago
  Where I work IE<11 accounts for under 5%, ymmv.
grandalf 11y ago
It's not as if web developers like supporting broken, outdated browsers. It's done because without the users using those browsers, the business would be worse off. There are lots of intermediate steps like warning about an inferior experience, but at this point it's necessary to test most websites on at least a few versions of IE9. I've found that using react I've had very easy compatibility with older IE, etc. The only thing I've had to do is install a polyfill or two.
kdamken 11y ago
While I completely get where you're coming from, realistically this can be very messy. You'd quickly find that an increasing number of your support calls were from those users having issues. 15% doesn't sound like a lot, but 15% of a million people is 150,000 people. So, you'd succeed in angering a lot of customers. Much better to try and inform all of your customers (not just corporate) of the upcoming changes, and provide support materials for them to follow while giving them a reasonable timeframe to do so.
- tracker1 11y ago
  Maybe you should use conversion metrics combined with usage statistics weighted against trending and flow relative to feature enhancements and capabilities instead of any raw value against general hits? Each business is different, and even then different areas of a product can have differing requirements and needs. What is 15% for you, may be <2% and declining for others. My current and former positions see iPad users in greater numbers than any other single platform/browser, as an example. It may be better served to create features that work for the larger audience and other platforms easily supported than grasping at a fraying edge.
kbutler 11y ago
> If I was a developer, It's pretty clear you're not a developer (or wouldn't be for long). There are two really bad decisions here: 1) You are driving away up to 15% of people who actually use your product. How much would you spend to acquire that many active users? It's easier to keep existing users than acquire new users. 2) Sending users through a ticket system for errors you could have prevented with a simple warning is a bad experience for them and far more work for you. And most users will silently disappear instead.
- dimgl 11y ago
  I feel inclined to agree. These kinds of decisions are the ones that get you in deep trouble when the vocal minority starts to scream. It really is very trivial to at least give some sort of message, warning or guide to upgrade when attempting to use a web product with an incompatible browser.
- tracker1 11y ago
  Depends on your user base. In my current application/site, our IE < 11 userbase combined is under 5% and declining. IE8 has already been dropped, and IE9 soon. The product I work on is directly related to customer acquisition at a financial institution. So I'd say it's a pretty safe bet the numbers have been run thoroughly. disclaimer: my opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
bosdev 11y ago
Not showing a message to your users is very user hostile. It's one thing to not offer a service, it's another to frustrate your potential users.

tracker1 11y ago

At my current job, IE < 10 is less than 2% and support for IE8 has already dropped, and IE9 will next month iirc.