How important is maintaining older browsers?

Question

Just read an interesting article by yahoo Nicholas K. Zakas: What is a web browser?

What is the best way to balance the introduction of new technologies such as HTML5 and CSS3 while supporting browser support such as ie 6, is this a practical approach to everyday web development where deadlines must be met?

Answer 1

I think it really depends on the type of site you are building, as well as the type of intended end users. If you create a site for a group, they usually use a lot of flash / silverlight to make the interaction “cool” and more fluid. This will be an example of when you need to struggle to use HTML5 and use the canvas to perform some of the same effects. It’s obvious that IE6 will not work, but as more and more large companies refuse to support IE6 (Google is enabled for gmail), over time there are less and less problems.

If you need to develop a site where people will continue to make heavy use of IE6, you may need to avoid using the latest technology. The pain that you could have gone through to get you working might not be worth it in the end, especially if the deadlines are tight, and if you are not an expert.

Then there are cases in the middle, and here I think you need to think long and long if you want to support IE6 support. I know a group of people who have refused support, and it has become much easier to balance between CSS3 and HTML5 with other browsers. It is still not perfect, but it is much easier to work with it.

Answer 2

It depends on your traffic and who is spending money on your site. We need to continue to support IE6 because these users spend a non-negligible amount of money, and we cannot get them to update. (If they spend time updating, they are not wasting time.)

If your site is not commercial, you should have much greater freedom in determining the minimum requirements for the browser.

Answer 3

On the one hand, the market is not ready for HTML5 and CSS3 sites. However, on the other hand, if at least a little is possible, support for IE6 and older should be avoided (see IE6-no-more for inspiration), because it is good for the industry and the average Internet population to get rid of obsolete and problematic technologies.

Answer 4

If you want to create a modern HTML5 IE website, I would recommend that you take a look at http://html5boilerplate.com/ If you look at this template, you will notice that they use the modernizr JavaScript File to support HTML5 for older browsers.

I also highly recommend that you read Aaron Gustafson Understanding Progressive Improvement The idea of ​​progressive improvement is to make your site look better if you look at it with a browser that supports modern CSS / HTML5 selector / functions, while providing basic levels for legacy browsers. There is the following article for Progressive Enhancements, which is also worth reading http://www.alistapart.com/articles/progressiveenhancementwithcss

Answer 5

It depends on your audience, since HTML5 and CSS3 are pretty much acceptable only if you are sure that your users will only use modern browsers. (never been so lucky)

For now, you can only consider them for progressive improvements. That is, you make the site work fine in IE6, and then add features such as round borders / shadows, the <video> or speed up the site using local storage as a bonus for more intelligent users.

I am launching a large project in a few weeks, and all I can do is make it HTML5 ready using the correct doctype, new tags and a few javascript lines that will make it compatible with older browsers, but will not use any interesting yet function.