9 ms·

“But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

187 points by billpg 15y ago

thibaut_barrere 15y ago
> How many of us actually charge 30-100% extra for this work? I haven’t heard of many who do. Actually I see the exact opposite around me: developers billing by the hour and warning that IE 6 (or later) will generate extra work (and costs money). Most people I know just have a look at their site stats and see what is worth it.
- deleted 15y ago
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- Jacquass12321 15y ago
  Very much this, we informed the client that it was going to cost them more, and we itemized time spent fixing IE6 specific bugs and layout issues so we could offer them an idea of how much it was costing them. They needed this kind of data in order to convince their internal IT to migrate most of their user base off of IE6.
simonsarris 15y ago
Perhaps I am naive but this conversation seems easy to resolve with just a few words. Can anyone tell me how a client would respond to this: You can have a site with newer, nicer features, or you can have a site that supports older browsers. If you want both then you are commissioning two distinct websites. If you want usage statistics for old browsers I have them, and if you want to be economical I can produce the second website for older browsers at a reduced cost with reduced flair, after all only X% of people would see that site and it would still look reasonable, just not amazing. What would you like to do?
- tomlin 15y ago
  This point of view stands so long as the client hasn't heard something else from another vendor. New clients (the ones you'd have to explain this to) are often trying to avoid Caveat emptor situations. These IE development conversations are rarely one-way, regardless of how you sell it.
- mattmanser 15y ago
  To me that's lying to them. While supporting IE6 is onerous extra work, it's still work that can be done and has little impact on the final product. Take the other position, that 'Not supporting IE6 will mean I'll charge you 70% of my original quote, only x% of people use it in your target market' or better add it as an extra in the quote in the first place as the article suggests. Then it's up to them, it's a risk assessment. But be up front in your quotes with it, not an after the quote is won 'I don't know how to do it!'. The article's incredibly OTT on how much adding IE6 support costs, but I certainly would never go down the route of lying to a customer about it. If he charges double it's probably because he hates doing it and fair game to him.
  - tomgallard 15y ago
    I think the article is realistic in terms of IE6 support costs if you're not just building a simple website. Trying to build a responsive, dynamic webapp, that is identical in IE6 to a modern browser can easily add a lot of time. Just as an example, producing all the graphics for rounded corners, rather than being able to do them in CSS.
    - nemeth 15y ago
      That's not just an IE6 problem. IE8 has full CSS 2.1 support but can't do css3 rounded corners, opacity, or shadows. You can sometimes fake it with -ms-filter and CSS expressions (htc files) but those work just as well on 6 and 7. That said, I'm happy to drop IE 6 where not required by the client - 8 may not have html5 or CSS 3 features, but at least it's relatively bug free.
    - flomo 15y ago
      I've found that people don't really notice or care when IE shows them square corners. The thing about IE6/7 support is that it's a complete known quantity at this point. The problems & workarounds are well documented. There's tons of experienced HTML coders out there that know IE backwards and forwards. CSS frameworks like OOCSS include built-in workarounds. So if IE support doubles the cost, it must either be something very complex, or a real nickle-and-dime project. (Either that or the webdev doesn't really what they're doing.)
- chc 15y ago
  If they want fancy new features, just use Modernizr with a polyfill. That generally seems like a better solution for the dwindling population of legacy browser users than creating a completely different codebase.
  - Jacob4u2 15y ago
    You are still creating another site even when using polyfills. The surface area for display bugs in a polyfill is > 0.
mendable 15y ago
This article is great, but it works on the premise that IE6 support is a purely rational discussion by two knowledgeable parties before a contract is signed. -- In reality, you may develop a website, then the client is visiting their uncle bob one weekend who has an old computer with IE6 lying around, client + uncle bob open up the website to have a look, and it is "broken". Client then sends you a hate mail about broken contracts. You reply saying that you discussed IE6 lameness before you started the work. Client says you were talking jargon, client didn't understand, and you need to fix their website so it loads on their uncle bob's computer otherwise they are suing you for not delivering a working website. Good luck with that :)
- digamber_kamat 15y ago
  As long as the contract clearly mentions that you are not supporting IE6 I wont mind client suing me.
  - deleted 15y ago
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  - gte910h 15y ago
    Make sure you have the prevailing party's legal costs as part of the bargain in the eventuality of suit as well: Otherwise wining the lawsuit can be Pyrrhic
- learc83 15y ago
  Take that to it's logical conclusion, and you should still be supporting IE5 for mac.
- rmc 15y ago
  That sounds like an asshole client. Just make sure you have it specified in writing before you start a job the browser that are and aren't provided. Then if they want to talk to a lawyer, they can try. Best not to take any further work from that client again.
- flomo 15y ago
  Except it usually isn't "uncle bob", it's their biggest customer who still uses IE6, they're losing business, emergency, etc.
bo_Olean 15y ago
If we choose to make a website pixel-perfect in Internet Explorer 6 to 8, then we are doing up to 100% more work. Every clients/users should check this once : http://www.ie6countdown.com http://www.ie6countdown.com
- JoshTriplett 15y ago
  As much as I like that site, I can't link people to it because as a Microsoft site it just wants to move people to newer versions of IE, rather than to a decent browser. (Any decent browser, really; I don't care which, just not IE.)
TamDenholm 15y ago
I'm a web developer, whenever a client asks me about IE6 support, i enthusiastically tell them i'll happily support it. I then show them usage statistics for IE6 and tell them IE6 support costs a flat fee of £10,000 and let them think about it. No client has ever taken very long to decide its not worth it and none have ever taken me up on it, although i'm sure 1 or 2 have asked a different developer to make them an IE6 version, but thats fine with me.
- meanJim 15y ago
  I agree with this. Although I'm young and naive and I rather not pick up a client (because I have that luxury) that wants IE6 support.
- elektronaut 15y ago
  I haven't had a request for IE6 support in years, but if I got one I would say something like: "No, I will not do IE6 support for you. You've trusted me to solve your problem in the best and most efficient way, and supporting IE6 would be a waste of your money (and my time)."
  - zbuc 15y ago
    Unfortunately, some (very large) corporations still use IE6 across their organizations and require you to support it.
  - dasil003 15y ago
    The problem is this is piss poor client relations. When you make a declaration like this you seem arrogant. Effectively you are saying that your knowledge of web development trumps any concerns they may have to the point that you don't even need to know about it. Instead you have to take the time to understand why they are requesting it and then communicate the tradeoffs to them at the appropriate technical level for their expertise.
    - elektronaut 15y ago
      I'm usually less brash and assertive when I'm not making inebriated offhand comments on the internet. Honesty and confidence can go a long way in building trust if backed with demonstrated knowledge, though. In my experience, clients are usually pretty good at providing rationale for their requests, so my implied scenario is a bit of hyperbole. Often when the topic of legacy browsers comes up, it's because the client has been in the process of having a website made before, and is relieved to discover that the technology has moved forward since then.
digamber_kamat 15y ago
If any client demands IE6.0 support then I demand 100% more. the reason is not just that involves near 100% more work but also the skills required to do that job will be worthless in future.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
  That's not unreasonable but the key thing is to break that out in the quote. They need to understand what that support is costing them to allow them to make the choice as to how much they need it.
rhplus 15y ago
The article mentioned "graceful degradation" but what is really described should coming from the the other direction as "progressive enhancement". As the author mentions, only enable each version of scripts and styles to browsers that support them. For those that don't, the content remains. Here's an old article that gets the message across in a client-friendly way: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/understandingprogressiveenhancement http://www.alistapart.com/articles/understandingprogressivee...
Tloewald 15y ago
Then use chrome frame ;-)
jswinghammer 15y ago
I usually take a much different approach with this issue. I had to support IE 6 for years after anyone could reasonably have been asked to do that. I did it because our customers used it a lot and asking them to upgrade wasn't in the cards for us. We could have lost 30% of our business or just not do all the cool things we wanted to do. I realize it's not cool but we chose to just not do all those things. IE 6 does support a lot of what you need to do and once you figure that out it becomes easier to make it work without having to go back and fix it later. I'm pretty good at it now so I don't really complain if someone asks me to make something work in IE 6. It's not a huge deal if you know what the issues are.
- deleted 15y ago
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- mattmanser 15y ago
  IE7 only came out 5 years ago, IE8 2 years ago. Making sure IE6 was supported was still commonplace even last year. You're not as unique a snowflake as you think you are, we've all been having to do it. It's only becoming viable now to suggest otherwise.
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    "You're not as unique a snowflake as you think you are" That's unnecessary. The point, without the invective, please.
WayneDB 15y ago
"We have a responsibility to ourselves and to the Web to follow the principle of universality." Not feeling that at all, so speak for yourself. If I want to target a specific browser or device, I do it when it makes sense. Screw universality. The users install what I tell them to or they don't get the privilege of using my site or product. (Do you think Steve Jobs would disagree?)
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  Given how much he trumpeted HTML5 and the nixing of Flash from its, yes, I think he would disagree seriously. People begged Apple for the ability to create real apps. The original plan was to build HTML apps, but comparing a web app to a native app was no comparison at all (and it still isn't; I hate almost all web view"apps").
- politician 15y ago
  This attitude leads to fragmentation which causes more headache e.g. the web browser market.
- awj 15y ago
  That sounds like a great recipe to start justifying shaving off fractions of your market until you're down to only reaching 40%. Not saying that's what you're doing, but any kind of "Screw X, I will tell the users what they want" decisions have to be made carefully. It's a lot easier to think you've made a Steve Jobs kind of product than it is to actually make one.
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  I would think so, if you are talking about websites at least rather than an entire computing platform. The entire point of a website at it's core is to send and display pages of information, this isn't really a problem that should require specific versions of special software to solve. With the exception of requiring quicktime for the videos the apple website has always rendered fine for me on pretty much any browser I have viewed it with.
gte910h 15y ago
IE6 Support is currently handled here via a second, reduced functionality site as a standard practice (and charge accordingly).
draegtun 15y ago
Unfortunately IE6 is still very popular in the corporate world of Europe. I'm currently running an internal websurvey for a large car rental company and looking at this weeks http logs shows that IE6 is still getting 61% :(
- toumhi 15y ago
  my logs (for a file sharing solution for businesses in France) show 5.5% for IE6. Maybe because there are more early adopters at the moment? I for sure hope I won't need to spend hundreds of hours supporting IE6...
  - thibaut_barrere 15y ago
    hi Tommy! My guess is that most "IE6 only" corporations would not allow using a file-sharing site anyway :) I still maintain one site which is around 70% IE6 (internal stuff in insurance). But one day it will change all at once, for political reasons :) I'm not sure you will see more than what you currently see on the long run...
    - toumhi 15y ago
      oh hi Thibaut :-) good point, I'm not targeting big corporations anyways. I guess the problem could be that even 5% could be a problem, as people sharing files would complain their 5% customers cannot see the files... well, we'll see, no complaints so far ;-)
- mattmanser 15y ago
  Large car rental companies are not exactly cutting edge on IT. They tend to have a lot of small locations that's not exactly easy to start upgrading because of the cost of sending people out to do it all. My local branches look like they had their last refurb in the late 90s for example. One example does not a sample make.
  - draegtun 15y ago
    ... They tend to have a lot of small locations ... These aren't the rental outlets but their main business offices in UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal & Bulgaria! NB. The Bulgarian results shows 71% using IE6 in their main office(s). One example does not a sample make At no point did I say it was relevant outside my sample :)
avb 15y ago
Let me preface this with saying I long for the day IE6 is completely irrelevant. The fact is, when doing client work I have a responsibility to design the site in a way that when their customer visits they get the information they need. If the website is broken, for whatever reason, that looks badly on my client and on me. When I do a site I code and design for modern browsers. However, I make sure even IE6 users can get the information they need or order products or whatever the case is with the website. True, the IE6 users are small in number, however in some cases they can make up an older or important demographic to a client.
bmccormack 15y ago
This seems like a relatively simple business proposition to a client. "X% of users on the internet today use IE6. I will be happy to provide pixel perfect support for Y dollars." Adjust Y up and down based on your ability and desire to continue to support web applications that use IE6.
mcantor 15y ago
Somehow I had managed to completely miss the term "polyfill" until just now. Handy!
chrisjsmithuk 15y ago
To be honest, I say fuck them. I'd rather lose the work than have to support IE6 as it's a time and therefore money sink. You have to be pragmatic with respect to such things. Even most European corporate clients I've worked with have dumped IE6, most going straight to IE9.
libria 15y ago
It's interesting that despite all the investment that Google is making in Plus and their desire for a foothold in this market, they flat out refuse IE6: http://i.imgur.com/ONRK4.png http://i.imgur.com/ONRK4.png
- mixmastamyk 15y ago
  Good for them. There is a trade off to be made, better/quicker features delivered at the expense of supporting an obsolete browser.
- tikhonj 15y ago
  I love how it says "Google+ no longer supports your browser" when (as far as I know) it never supported it.
drKarl 15y ago
It all depends on the kind of site you are building and the technologies involved. On some sites it may be ok to deliver a "less beautiful" web but with all the contents, in others it won't. Oftentimes nowadays you'll face a complete rewrite. In some recent projects I even worked hard to convince the client that it wasn't worth supporting IE8. It's not only that it loads faster with modern techniques (as CSS3 allows awesome effects that would need images/javascript with CSS2), but some functionality built around HTML5 would need a COMPLETE rewrite in Flash. Of course that means that if they insist on supporting older browsers not only that would mean a 30%-100% increase in price but new features the want afterwards will be more expensive as well (because you're supporting two different projects).
deleted 15y ago
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- gte910h 15y ago
  >A line item like "IE6 support" is how to generate negative feedback from clients. Not at all. The few clients I've had who've said anything at all have been overwhelmingly positive about knowing exactly how much IE6 support would cost vs not. That's one of the reasons we started implementing it as a second, simpler site, much cheaper, allows that number to go down even more.
joshuacc 15y ago
Previously submitted here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3192237 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3192237 What I find curious is that the de-duper apparently doesn't check for case differences in the URL encoded characters. http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/03/%E2%80%9Cbut-the-client-wants-ie-6-support%E2%80%9D/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/03/%E2%80%9Cbut-the-... http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/03/%e2%80%9cbut-the-client-wants-ie-6-support%e2%80%9d/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/03/%e2%80%9cbut-the-...
j45 15y ago
Fight opinion with facts. Ask your customers if they got IE6 support as advice from someone. Show how many people use it now and what that sliver of IE6 users now see with gracefully deprecating css libraries.
moreorless 15y ago
Isn't this just like about anything else? There are still plenty of people who use VCR's. There is still good money to make for people who are willing to support older technology. If you don't do it, someone else will.
- shinratdr 15y ago
  Except we stopped making new standalone VCRs years ago, and new movies haven't been published on tape for years as well. The interesting part of the IE6 debacle isn't the fact that a legacy program is sticking around longer than we had hoped, it's how ridiculously strong the longevity of it is. Most likely IE6 marketshare will stay in the double digits in many countries long after the world has completely forgotten about VCRs.
snorkel 15y ago
IE6 support can be made reasonable for most apps as long the client understands that the IE6 support will be usable, decent looking, but not 100% the same look and experience as with more modern browsers. You just need to explain to the client that they don't want to blow their budget wrestling with nit picky white space inconsistencies.
njharman 15y ago
"Do what the client needs, not what they want." Great advice I got once.
- Isofarro 15y ago
  In the context of IE6 what's best for the client is the one that best serves their business objectives in regard to their customers. If their target market contains a significant-enough element that uses IE6 then what's best for the client is a website that supports those business objectives with that customer.
docgnome 15y ago
"Even if they don’t care about accessibility, my responsibility is to make the website somewhat accessible." I'm unclear on who the legal requirements for accessibility fall on exactly so I may not understand properly... but I'd think this is a legal requirement to make your website accessible (at least in the US under Section... 508?)
- Isofarro 15y ago
  Section 508 only applies to US government organisations and businesses/agencies providing services to those government organisations. US legal requirements for public sites are probably covered in ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), under the provision of reasonable accommodations. So far legal rulings are varied and vague, swinging one way then the other about whether ADA applies to websites (despite a DOJ opinion that they do/should). Some states have their own legislation, like California's Unruh Civil Rights Act which was used against Amazon (Target settled and agreed to make their website accessible).
chacham15 15y ago
Maybe I'm missing something, but recently there has been a lot of work in graceful degradation. Such examples include Modernizr (based upon yep-nope) which allow detection of features and asynchronous loading of polyfils for missing functionality. Missing css3 support for IE6-8 comes in a 10 second fix called CSS3PIE. To use it you add 1 css line to apply the htc to the necessary classes (or all with the * selector) and there you have curved corners in IE6-8 with no additional work.
iamben 15y ago
We tried to drop IE6 support for an ecommerce client recently. But looking at analytics, IE6 customers are still doing 5 figures a month in revenue. The client just can't risk the potential lack of conversion in a site with a 'graceful degradation'. The testing that's gone into making it convert as it has must apply across all the major browsers from which they get traffic. Shame, it's a complete pig to develop for. edit: They must look and behave more or less the same. Personally I have no qualms about the IE users not seeing rounded corners on some boxes. As long as they're in the same place and the same colour, etc.
jwallaceparker 15y ago
We explicitly don't support IE on our heavy JavaScript web app. Users get an alert saying, "Use Firefox or Chrome. If you want to use IE and are upset that you can't, let us know." Nobody has said anything about it. I think so much depends on your audience. Our audience is writers using their own computer. They're happy to use Firefox and Chrome. I only see IE6 support as a problem for people on corporate machines who don't control their own software.
jdavid 15y ago
Who are these clients and why are you not firing them? You run a business, they run a business, and everyone is trying to make money. How much money do you think an IE6 user has? the browser is like a decade old. It's why we target iPhone and not Android in the mobile world. ( because iPhone users out spend android users. ) Tell your client the truth, tell them that you keep up to date on the latest trends and if they want to use someone else let them, and then tell them exactly what your work will do. I would not even offer to support IE6 anymore. Maybe IE7. There are a few reasons. #1 you can't download IE6 legally any more #2 you can't install it legally on linux or mac systems to test. #3 IE7 in quirks mode does not work exactly the same as IE6. #4 web development for legacy browsers is less about building things, and more about working around problems. and i just don't find that fun. It is your duty as a web professional to turn down this work. Microsoft does not even support his browser anymore.
- Isofarro 15y ago
  "Microsoft does not even support his browser anymore." http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/08/microsoft-dropping-support-for-ie6-is-not-an-option.ars http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/08/microsoft-drop... Which documents Microsoft's commitment to support IE6 until April 2014.
- Isofarro 15y ago
  "How much money do you think an IE6 user has? the browser is like a decade old. It's why we target iPhone and not Android in the mobile world. ( because iPhone users out spend android users. )" So your solution to the IE6 problem is to ignore it and to repeat the same mistake again for developers to have to deal with again in the future? We have the IE6 problem because that's where the money was back in it's day. It was the winner of the browser war, and thus became the interface to the substantial source of profit. Very much like your perception of the iPhone. What you need to consider is not just what's profitable right now, but what will be profitable tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and next decade. IE6 won the browser war; the iPhone browser is nowhere near that dominant in the mobile world.
- jdavid 15y ago
  when i was running the site http://unity3d.com http://unity3d.com less than 1% of our visitors could not properly render an html5 doctype.
pacomerh 15y ago
I don't offer IE6 support, offering IE6 support keeps the browser alive, and it has to be killed collectively. I'm guessing that an example of a client that would ask for IE6 support would be Car Mechanic shops that have CRT monitors and super old computers. And probably a corporation that can't upgrade all people at once and their secretaries don't know what a browser is.
ypcxz 15y ago
well those clients, my dear, can go FUCK themselves. money is not that important to me. (so what, I am passionate about this. IE6 is like installing a trojan on your computer.) btw. why is Hacker News so badly slow?

187 points by billpg 15y ago

> How many of us actually charge 30-100% extra for this work? I haven’t heard of many who do. Actually I see the exact opposite around me: developers billing by the hour and warning that IE 6 (or later) will generate extra work (and costs money). Most people I know just have a look at their site stats and see what is worth it.

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Jacquass12321 15y ago
Very much this, we informed the client that it was going to cost them more, and we itemized time spent fixing IE6 specific bugs and layout issues so we could offer them an idea of how much it was costing them. They needed this kind of data in order to convince their internal IT to migrate most of their user base off of IE6.

simonsarris 15y ago

Perhaps I am naive but this conversation seems easy to resolve with just a few words. Can anyone tell me how a client would respond to this: You can have a site with newer, nicer features, or you can have a site that supports older browsers. If you want both then you are commissioning two distinct websites. If you want usage statistics for old browsers I have them, and if you want to be economical I can produce the second website for older browsers at a reduced cost with reduced flair, after all only X% of people would see that site and it would still look reasonable, just not amazing. What would you like to do?

tomlin 15y ago
This point of view stands so long as the client hasn't heard something else from another vendor. New clients (the ones you'd have to explain this to) are often trying to avoid Caveat emptor situations. These IE development conversations are rarely one-way, regardless of how you sell it.
mattmanser 15y ago
To me that's lying to them. While supporting IE6 is onerous extra work, it's still work that can be done and has little impact on the final product. Take the other position, that 'Not supporting IE6 will mean I'll charge you 70% of my original quote, only x% of people use it in your target market' or better add it as an extra in the quote in the first place as the article suggests. Then it's up to them, it's a risk assessment. But be up front in your quotes with it, not an after the quote is won 'I don't know how to do it!'. The article's incredibly OTT on how much adding IE6 support costs, but I certainly would never go down the route of lying to a customer about it. If he charges double it's probably because he hates doing it and fair game to him.
- tomgallard 15y ago
  I think the article is realistic in terms of IE6 support costs if you're not just building a simple website. Trying to build a responsive, dynamic webapp, that is identical in IE6 to a modern browser can easily add a lot of time. Just as an example, producing all the graphics for rounded corners, rather than being able to do them in CSS.
  - nemeth 15y ago
    That's not just an IE6 problem. IE8 has full CSS 2.1 support but can't do css3 rounded corners, opacity, or shadows. You can sometimes fake it with -ms-filter and CSS expressions (htc files) but those work just as well on 6 and 7. That said, I'm happy to drop IE 6 where not required by the client - 8 may not have html5 or CSS 3 features, but at least it's relatively bug free.
  - flomo 15y ago
    I've found that people don't really notice or care when IE shows them square corners. The thing about IE6/7 support is that it's a complete known quantity at this point. The problems & workarounds are well documented. There's tons of experienced HTML coders out there that know IE backwards and forwards. CSS frameworks like OOCSS include built-in workarounds. So if IE support doubles the cost, it must either be something very complex, or a real nickle-and-dime project. (Either that or the webdev doesn't really what they're doing.)
chc 15y ago
If they want fancy new features, just use Modernizr with a polyfill. That generally seems like a better solution for the dwindling population of legacy browser users than creating a completely different codebase.
- Jacob4u2 15y ago
  You are still creating another site even when using polyfills. The surface area for display bugs in a polyfill is > 0.

mendable 15y ago

This article is great, but it works on the premise that IE6 support is a purely rational discussion by two knowledgeable parties before a contract is signed. -- In reality, you may develop a website, then the client is visiting their uncle bob one weekend who has an old computer with IE6 lying around, client + uncle bob open up the website to have a look, and it is "broken". Client then sends you a hate mail about broken contracts. You reply saying that you discussed IE6 lameness before you started the work. Client says you were talking jargon, client didn't understand, and you need to fix their website so it loads on their uncle bob's computer otherwise they are suing you for not delivering a working website. Good luck with that :)

digamber_kamat 15y ago
As long as the contract clearly mentions that you are not supporting IE6 I wont mind client suing me.
- deleted 15y ago
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- gte910h 15y ago
  Make sure you have the prevailing party's legal costs as part of the bargain in the eventuality of suit as well: Otherwise wining the lawsuit can be Pyrrhic
learc83 15y ago
Take that to it's logical conclusion, and you should still be supporting IE5 for mac.
rmc 15y ago
That sounds like an asshole client. Just make sure you have it specified in writing before you start a job the browser that are and aren't provided. Then if they want to talk to a lawyer, they can try. Best not to take any further work from that client again.
flomo 15y ago
Except it usually isn't "uncle bob", it's their biggest customer who still uses IE6, they're losing business, emergency, etc.

bo_Olean 15y ago

If we choose to make a website pixel-perfect in Internet Explorer 6 to 8, then we are doing up to 100% more work. Every clients/users should check this once : http://www.ie6countdown.com http://www.ie6countdown.com

JoshTriplett 15y ago
As much as I like that site, I can't link people to it because as a Microsoft site it just wants to move people to newer versions of IE, rather than to a decent browser. (Any decent browser, really; I don't care which, just not IE.)

TamDenholm 15y ago

I'm a web developer, whenever a client asks me about IE6 support, i enthusiastically tell them i'll happily support it. I then show them usage statistics for IE6 and tell them IE6 support costs a flat fee of £10,000 and let them think about it. No client has ever taken very long to decide its not worth it and none have ever taken me up on it, although i'm sure 1 or 2 have asked a different developer to make them an IE6 version, but thats fine with me.

meanJim 15y ago
I agree with this. Although I'm young and naive and I rather not pick up a client (because I have that luxury) that wants IE6 support.
elektronaut 15y ago
I haven't had a request for IE6 support in years, but if I got one I would say something like: "No, I will not do IE6 support for you. You've trusted me to solve your problem in the best and most efficient way, and supporting IE6 would be a waste of your money (and my time)."
- zbuc 15y ago
  Unfortunately, some (very large) corporations still use IE6 across their organizations and require you to support it.
- dasil003 15y ago
  The problem is this is piss poor client relations. When you make a declaration like this you seem arrogant. Effectively you are saying that your knowledge of web development trumps any concerns they may have to the point that you don't even need to know about it. Instead you have to take the time to understand why they are requesting it and then communicate the tradeoffs to them at the appropriate technical level for their expertise.
  - elektronaut 15y ago
    I'm usually less brash and assertive when I'm not making inebriated offhand comments on the internet. Honesty and confidence can go a long way in building trust if backed with demonstrated knowledge, though. In my experience, clients are usually pretty good at providing rationale for their requests, so my implied scenario is a bit of hyperbole. Often when the topic of legacy browsers comes up, it's because the client has been in the process of having a website made before, and is relieved to discover that the technology has moved forward since then.

digamber_kamat 15y ago

If any client demands IE6.0 support then I demand 100% more. the reason is not just that involves near 100% more work but also the skills required to do that job will be worthless in future.

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
That's not unreasonable but the key thing is to break that out in the quote. They need to understand what that support is costing them to allow them to make the choice as to how much they need it.

rhplus 15y ago

The article mentioned "graceful degradation" but what is really described should coming from the the other direction as "progressive enhancement". As the author mentions, only enable each version of scripts and styles to browsers that support them. For those that don't, the content remains. Here's an old article that gets the message across in a client-friendly way: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/understandingprogressiveenhancement http://www.alistapart.com/articles/understandingprogressivee...

Tloewald 15y ago

Then use chrome frame ;-)

jswinghammer 15y ago

I usually take a much different approach with this issue. I had to support IE 6 for years after anyone could reasonably have been asked to do that. I did it because our customers used it a lot and asking them to upgrade wasn't in the cards for us. We could have lost 30% of our business or just not do all the cool things we wanted to do. I realize it's not cool but we chose to just not do all those things. IE 6 does support a lot of what you need to do and once you figure that out it becomes easier to make it work without having to go back and fix it later. I'm pretty good at it now so I don't really complain if someone asks me to make something work in IE 6. It's not a huge deal if you know what the issues are.

deleted 15y ago
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mattmanser 15y ago
IE7 only came out 5 years ago, IE8 2 years ago. Making sure IE6 was supported was still commonplace even last year. You're not as unique a snowflake as you think you are, we've all been having to do it. It's only becoming viable now to suggest otherwise.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  "You're not as unique a snowflake as you think you are" That's unnecessary. The point, without the invective, please.

WayneDB 15y ago

"We have a responsibility to ourselves and to the Web to follow the principle of universality." Not feeling that at all, so speak for yourself. If I want to target a specific browser or device, I do it when it makes sense. Screw universality. The users install what I tell them to or they don't get the privilege of using my site or product. (Do you think Steve Jobs would disagree?)

SoftwareMaven 15y ago
Given how much he trumpeted HTML5 and the nixing of Flash from its, yes, I think he would disagree seriously. People begged Apple for the ability to create real apps. The original plan was to build HTML apps, but comparing a web app to a native app was no comparison at all (and it still isn't; I hate almost all web view"apps").
politician 15y ago
This attitude leads to fragmentation which causes more headache e.g. the web browser market.
awj 15y ago
That sounds like a great recipe to start justifying shaving off fractions of your market until you're down to only reaching 40%. Not saying that's what you're doing, but any kind of "Screw X, I will tell the users what they want" decisions have to be made carefully. It's a lot easier to think you've made a Steve Jobs kind of product than it is to actually make one.
jiggy2011 15y ago
I would think so, if you are talking about websites at least rather than an entire computing platform. The entire point of a website at it's core is to send and display pages of information, this isn't really a problem that should require specific versions of special software to solve. With the exception of requiring quicktime for the videos the apple website has always rendered fine for me on pretty much any browser I have viewed it with.

gte910h 15y ago

IE6 Support is currently handled here via a second, reduced functionality site as a standard practice (and charge accordingly).

draegtun 15y ago

Unfortunately IE6 is still very popular in the corporate world of Europe. I'm currently running an internal websurvey for a large car rental company and looking at this weeks http logs shows that IE6 is still getting 61% :(

toumhi 15y ago
my logs (for a file sharing solution for businesses in France) show 5.5% for IE6. Maybe because there are more early adopters at the moment? I for sure hope I won't need to spend hundreds of hours supporting IE6...
- thibaut_barrere 15y ago
  hi Tommy! My guess is that most "IE6 only" corporations would not allow using a file-sharing site anyway :) I still maintain one site which is around 70% IE6 (internal stuff in insurance). But one day it will change all at once, for political reasons :) I'm not sure you will see more than what you currently see on the long run...
  - toumhi 15y ago
    oh hi Thibaut :-) good point, I'm not targeting big corporations anyways. I guess the problem could be that even 5% could be a problem, as people sharing files would complain their 5% customers cannot see the files... well, we'll see, no complaints so far ;-)
mattmanser 15y ago
Large car rental companies are not exactly cutting edge on IT. They tend to have a lot of small locations that's not exactly easy to start upgrading because of the cost of sending people out to do it all. My local branches look like they had their last refurb in the late 90s for example. One example does not a sample make.
- draegtun 15y ago
  ... They tend to have a lot of small locations ... These aren't the rental outlets but their main business offices in UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal & Bulgaria! NB. The Bulgarian results shows 71% using IE6 in their main office(s). One example does not a sample make At no point did I say it was relevant outside my sample :)

avb 15y ago

Let me preface this with saying I long for the day IE6 is completely irrelevant. The fact is, when doing client work I have a responsibility to design the site in a way that when their customer visits they get the information they need. If the website is broken, for whatever reason, that looks badly on my client and on me. When I do a site I code and design for modern browsers. However, I make sure even IE6 users can get the information they need or order products or whatever the case is with the website. True, the IE6 users are small in number, however in some cases they can make up an older or important demographic to a client.

bmccormack 15y ago

This seems like a relatively simple business proposition to a client. "X% of users on the internet today use IE6. I will be happy to provide pixel perfect support for Y dollars." Adjust Y up and down based on your ability and desire to continue to support web applications that use IE6.

mcantor 15y ago

Somehow I had managed to completely miss the term "polyfill" until just now. Handy!

chrisjsmithuk 15y ago

To be honest, I say fuck them. I'd rather lose the work than have to support IE6 as it's a time and therefore money sink. You have to be pragmatic with respect to such things. Even most European corporate clients I've worked with have dumped IE6, most going straight to IE9.

libria 15y ago

It's interesting that despite all the investment that Google is making in Plus and their desire for a foothold in this market, they flat out refuse IE6: http://i.imgur.com/ONRK4.png http://i.imgur.com/ONRK4.png

mixmastamyk 15y ago
Good for them. There is a trade off to be made, better/quicker features delivered at the expense of supporting an obsolete browser.
tikhonj 15y ago
I love how it says "Google+ no longer supports your browser" when (as far as I know) it never supported it.

drKarl 15y ago

It all depends on the kind of site you are building and the technologies involved. On some sites it may be ok to deliver a "less beautiful" web but with all the contents, in others it won't. Oftentimes nowadays you'll face a complete rewrite. In some recent projects I even worked hard to convince the client that it wasn't worth supporting IE8. It's not only that it loads faster with modern techniques (as CSS3 allows awesome effects that would need images/javascript with CSS2), but some functionality built around HTML5 would need a COMPLETE rewrite in Flash. Of course that means that if they insist on supporting older browsers not only that would mean a 30%-100% increase in price but new features the want afterwards will be more expensive as well (because you're supporting two different projects).

deleted 15y ago

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gte910h 15y ago
>A line item like "IE6 support" is how to generate negative feedback from clients. Not at all. The few clients I've had who've said anything at all have been overwhelmingly positive about knowing exactly how much IE6 support would cost vs not. That's one of the reasons we started implementing it as a second, simpler site, much cheaper, allows that number to go down even more.

joshuacc 15y ago

Previously submitted here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3192237 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3192237 What I find curious is that the de-duper apparently doesn't check for case differences in the URL encoded characters. http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/03/%E2%80%9Cbut-the-client-wants-ie-6-support%E2%80%9D/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/03/%E2%80%9Cbut-the-... http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/03/%e2%80%9cbut-the-client-wants-ie-6-support%e2%80%9d/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/03/%e2%80%9cbut-the-...

j45 15y ago

Fight opinion with facts. Ask your customers if they got IE6 support as advice from someone. Show how many people use it now and what that sliver of IE6 users now see with gracefully deprecating css libraries.

moreorless 15y ago

Isn't this just like about anything else? There are still plenty of people who use VCR's. There is still good money to make for people who are willing to support older technology. If you don't do it, someone else will.

shinratdr 15y ago
Except we stopped making new standalone VCRs years ago, and new movies haven't been published on tape for years as well. The interesting part of the IE6 debacle isn't the fact that a legacy program is sticking around longer than we had hoped, it's how ridiculously strong the longevity of it is. Most likely IE6 marketshare will stay in the double digits in many countries long after the world has completely forgotten about VCRs.

snorkel 15y ago

IE6 support can be made reasonable for most apps as long the client understands that the IE6 support will be usable, decent looking, but not 100% the same look and experience as with more modern browsers. You just need to explain to the client that they don't want to blow their budget wrestling with nit picky white space inconsistencies.

njharman 15y ago

"Do what the client needs, not what they want." Great advice I got once.

Isofarro 15y ago
In the context of IE6 what's best for the client is the one that best serves their business objectives in regard to their customers. If their target market contains a significant-enough element that uses IE6 then what's best for the client is a website that supports those business objectives with that customer.

docgnome 15y ago

"Even if they don’t care about accessibility, my responsibility is to make the website somewhat accessible." I'm unclear on who the legal requirements for accessibility fall on exactly so I may not understand properly... but I'd think this is a legal requirement to make your website accessible (at least in the US under Section... 508?)

Isofarro 15y ago
Section 508 only applies to US government organisations and businesses/agencies providing services to those government organisations. US legal requirements for public sites are probably covered in ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), under the provision of reasonable accommodations. So far legal rulings are varied and vague, swinging one way then the other about whether ADA applies to websites (despite a DOJ opinion that they do/should). Some states have their own legislation, like California's Unruh Civil Rights Act which was used against Amazon (Target settled and agreed to make their website accessible).

chacham15 15y ago

Maybe I'm missing something, but recently there has been a lot of work in graceful degradation. Such examples include Modernizr (based upon yep-nope) which allow detection of features and asynchronous loading of polyfils for missing functionality. Missing css3 support for IE6-8 comes in a 10 second fix called CSS3PIE. To use it you add 1 css line to apply the htc to the necessary classes (or all with the * selector) and there you have curved corners in IE6-8 with no additional work.

iamben 15y ago

We tried to drop IE6 support for an ecommerce client recently. But looking at analytics, IE6 customers are still doing 5 figures a month in revenue. The client just can't risk the potential lack of conversion in a site with a 'graceful degradation'. The testing that's gone into making it convert as it has must apply across all the major browsers from which they get traffic. Shame, it's a complete pig to develop for. edit: They must look and behave more or less the same. Personally I have no qualms about the IE users not seeing rounded corners on some boxes. As long as they're in the same place and the same colour, etc.

jwallaceparker 15y ago

We explicitly don't support IE on our heavy JavaScript web app. Users get an alert saying, "Use Firefox or Chrome. If you want to use IE and are upset that you can't, let us know." Nobody has said anything about it. I think so much depends on your audience. Our audience is writers using their own computer. They're happy to use Firefox and Chrome. I only see IE6 support as a problem for people on corporate machines who don't control their own software.

jdavid 15y ago

Who are these clients and why are you not firing them? You run a business, they run a business, and everyone is trying to make money. How much money do you think an IE6 user has? the browser is like a decade old. It's why we target iPhone and not Android in the mobile world. ( because iPhone users out spend android users. ) Tell your client the truth, tell them that you keep up to date on the latest trends and if they want to use someone else let them, and then tell them exactly what your work will do. I would not even offer to support IE6 anymore. Maybe IE7. There are a few reasons. #1 you can't download IE6 legally any more #2 you can't install it legally on linux or mac systems to test. #3 IE7 in quirks mode does not work exactly the same as IE6. #4 web development for legacy browsers is less about building things, and more about working around problems. and i just don't find that fun. It is your duty as a web professional to turn down this work. Microsoft does not even support his browser anymore.

Isofarro 15y ago
"Microsoft does not even support his browser anymore." http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/08/microsoft-dropping-support-for-ie6-is-not-an-option.ars http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/08/microsoft-drop... Which documents Microsoft's commitment to support IE6 until April 2014.
Isofarro 15y ago
"How much money do you think an IE6 user has? the browser is like a decade old. It's why we target iPhone and not Android in the mobile world. ( because iPhone users out spend android users. )" So your solution to the IE6 problem is to ignore it and to repeat the same mistake again for developers to have to deal with again in the future? We have the IE6 problem because that's where the money was back in it's day. It was the winner of the browser war, and thus became the interface to the substantial source of profit. Very much like your perception of the iPhone. What you need to consider is not just what's profitable right now, but what will be profitable tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and next decade. IE6 won the browser war; the iPhone browser is nowhere near that dominant in the mobile world.
jdavid 15y ago
when i was running the site http://unity3d.com http://unity3d.com less than 1% of our visitors could not properly render an html5 doctype.

pacomerh 15y ago

I don't offer IE6 support, offering IE6 support keeps the browser alive, and it has to be killed collectively. I'm guessing that an example of a client that would ask for IE6 support would be Car Mechanic shops that have CRT monitors and super old computers. And probably a corporation that can't upgrade all people at once and their secretaries don't know what a browser is.

ypcxz 15y ago

well those clients, my dear, can go FUCK themselves. money is not that important to me. (so what, I am passionate about this. IE6 is like installing a trojan on your computer.) btw. why is Hacker News so badly slow?