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Ask HN: Should I care to support IE6?
According to the latest browser statistics (link below), the IE6 has a 17.1 market share. How many of those folks may care about the Web2.0 platform we are writing? May be about a fifth? So overall for those 2-3% of the entire market, is it worth spending your valuable cycle, which you would rather spend on features of your site. (also save on Tylenol expenses)
- satyajit 17y agoBrowser statistics link: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
- juliend2 17y agoFrom w3schools : "our data, collected from W3Schools' log-files" And as they say : "W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user."
- pclark 17y agoYou have no idea if a fifth of IE6 users will use your products: for all you know they could all use it. My advice: support IE6 entirely, launch, iterate, then once you have users (= market) then make the choice to scale back IE6 development. As a young startup you'll have plenty of reasons why users won't stick - don't make browser support (eg, something you can fix and are aware of) another reason.
- morpheism 17y agoGood advice. I would suggest that the OP also encourage users running IE6 to upgrade. You might want to take a look at the IE6 Update code (http://ie6update.com/ http://ie6update.com/) for ideas.
- mcav 17y agoIf it's easy, dedicate a little code to give them a reasonable experience. But any substantial effort in that arena would be a waste of time: Focus instead on creating a great product that will bring forth a few more people who use updated browsers.
- twohey 17y agoAs a data point, we see 53% of our traffic from some flavor of IE with a breakdown (for IE) of: IE-6 / IE-7 / IE-8 39% / 55% / 6% For us, this sadly means that supporting IE-6 is mandatory.