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many sites still sadly support IE<=8 I'm curious: how much have "evergreen" browsers changed this? Do developers typically target Chrome from a few months ago?

many sites still sadly support IE<=8 I'm curious: how much have "evergreen" browsers changed this? Do developers typically target Chrome from a few months ago? Two years ago? Just "today"? Maybe a better way to put it: if you only cared about Chrome, how long would you wait after a new feature was introduced to start using it?

quarterto 11y ago
Well, IE8 is the most recent version that's supported on Windows XP, which is still used in a distressingly large amount of corporate environments. There's also still a load of corporate IT on Vista and 7 that won't upgrade past IE8 because reasons. IE9 and above is effectively evergreen, and Edge explicitly is, but we're gonna have a load of people stuck on IE8 for a while to come.
- mordocai 11y ago
  I don't know about IE9 being "effectively evergreen" but I can say that the only browser specific bugs we've had to deal with recently have been IE9 so I wouldn't consider it on the same level as IE10 and IE11. IE9 is the oldest browser we support, and soon we won't support it either.
Nadya 11y ago
Chrome/Firefox/Safari auto-update unless a user disables autoupdates which is atypical. As such, most devs will only target the most up-to-date version and maybe a single version back (which if something breaks in a single version back, you're already using bleeding edge stuff and probably don't care...) Few devs care for older support unless they're working on enterprise, are masochists, or really really really care about supporting 0.00000001% [0] of their users because they care that much (and more power to them!!) Most devs can point to Microsoft and say "Look, even the guys who created it are no longer supporting it." as an excuse to not support it themselves. I frequently do this when asked to support Safari 5... on Windows. Apple doesn't support it - neither do I. If you work with say.. Healthcare clients you often need to support back to IE7 or even IE6 because that is what they use internally.... [0] I mean to say "practically zero, but not zero percent".

quarterto 11y ago

Well, IE8 is the most recent version that's supported on Windows XP, which is still used in a distressingly large amount of corporate environments. There's also still a load of corporate IT on Vista and 7 that won't upgrade past IE8 because reasons. IE9 and above is effectively evergreen, and Edge explicitly is, but we're gonna have a load of people stuck on IE8 for a while to come.

mordocai 11y ago
I don't know about IE9 being "effectively evergreen" but I can say that the only browser specific bugs we've had to deal with recently have been IE9 so I wouldn't consider it on the same level as IE10 and IE11. IE9 is the oldest browser we support, and soon we won't support it either.

Nadya 11y ago

Chrome/Firefox/Safari auto-update unless a user disables autoupdates which is atypical. As such, most devs will only target the most up-to-date version and maybe a single version back (which if something breaks in a single version back, you're already using bleeding edge stuff and probably don't care...) Few devs care for older support unless they're working on enterprise, are masochists, or really really really care about supporting 0.00000001% [0] of their users because they care that much (and more power to them!!) Most devs can point to Microsoft and say "Look, even the guys who created it are no longer supporting it." as an excuse to not support it themselves. I frequently do this when asked to support Safari 5... on Windows. Apple doesn't support it - neither do I. If you work with say.. Healthcare clients you often need to support back to IE7 or even IE6 because that is what they use internally.... [0] I mean to say "practically zero, but not zero percent".