Should we bother about IE < 8?

Question

It might look like philosophical question, however it really bother me. We\'re expecting HTML 5, we\'re using JS, Ajax, Flex, all this stuff, but when older browsers were develo

Answer 1

Your English is much better than any other language I try to speak. (good post!)

It depends on who your users are. I've worked in America for the government and for large companies, and both are still using IE6. They've probably got another year or two left on it; IE6 will last as long as Windows XP does in those environments.

If I were targeting people at any other businesses or at home, I'd ignore IE6, and follow Google/Youtube's example of telling users with IE6 that they may have a less-good experience.

In other words; if the customers you're aiming for want IE6, give them IE6. If they don't, forget IE6, but absolutely support IE7/8 and Firefox 3.x.

Answer 2

How many people use IE6 now?

As of March 2010, about 18% of general web users, according to Net Applications, still use IE6. Another 13% are using IE7, so not worrying about "IE < 8" means not worrying (potentially) about nearly a third of general users out there. In theory, see below.

Should we bother about IE < 8?

That is a much more interesting question. You should worry about your user base. I've heard it said regularly that "most IE6 users are corporate users" (I haven't seen the data to back that up, but I'm not saying it's not true). So if your site is mostly going to be of interest to home users, maybe the numbers are different.

The best thing to do is find out what percentage of your user base uses IE6 or IE7. The best way is to examine your web server logs and see what user agents requests are coming from (user agent strings can be spoofed, but usually aren't).

If your user base is very much like that measured by Net Applications, I would say, no, you can't ignore IE6 and IE7. But if your user base is hardcore web developers, of course you can. :-) Measure first, then work from there.

Answer 3

Don't forget two things.

IE8 can emulate IE7.

More importantly, although various browser have their own implementation of HTML5, it's real due date is... 2023!!! They expect to be finished to write the requirements in about 2 years.

Answer 4

On our most popular dutch site, (about 300.000 visitors per month, mixture of home and office visitors), the following numbers for IE (% of total visits):

IE6 - 7%
IE7 - 19%
IE8 - 46%

So it would be wrong to assume that hardly anyone still uses the browsers.

Answer 5

Even youtube has discontinued support for IE6, I say it's time to drop support for IE6 once and for all to force an upgrade.

IE7 isn't that hard to support once you learn a few tricks, I say support IE7+ for now.

Answer 6

Depends on how technologically backwards you expect your target audience to be. IE6 should be supported only if it is specifically expected to work there. In IE7, a site should be functional, but I do not spend extra time on it. Also, suggested is a message for IE7 users with a link to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/worldwide-sites.aspx

On the other hand, these days it's good to check if your site is at least functional on newer phones.