Dropped IE support for Instapaper

http://www.marco.org/82950480

by atestu • 17 years ago

138 79 17 years ago

cschep• 17 years ago

I love this. If everyone did this, then Microsoft would lose the power to do whatever it wanted. Standards compliance would not be optional for them anymore. I hope this is a trend that continues.

adnymarc• 17 years ago

I agree and think this is especially relevant for sites and apps that target tech-savvy users - as a group they will most likely already be using a browser other than IE and even if they do will be more likely to understand the reason for lack of total cross browser compatibility. If this became a trend it would begin to do one of two things - either cause Microsoft to consider adopting web standards compliance or cause users to adopt alternate browsers. Both options should be equally as welcome in the web development field and help to reduce the time wasted on needless hacks and workarounds to accommodate one product.

lacker• 17 years ago

Unfortunately a lot of users are already adopting alternate browsers, but it doesn't reduce the pain of web development until IE6 becomes a negligible part of the market. What could help more than anything is if Microsoft took a stronger stance on forcing users to upgrade from IE6 to IE7. Once IE6 drops below perhaps 5-10% of the market it becomes ignorable. But for IE as a whole to become negligible - I wish I could but I don't see that day any time soon.

StrawberryFrog• 17 years ago

It's not quite so black and white, but yes, if you look at IE8, IE8 is more standards compliant because Microsoft has less leverage over the browser market any more.

Nevertheless, it has been blindsided by the sudden appearance of much faster Javascript in chrome and other browsers. It's too late in the dev cycle for IE8 to get that. It will have to wait for IE9 or 8.1 or whatever.

known• 17 years ago

67.44% use IE http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qp...

sh1mmer2• 17 years ago

But not on his site.

bkbleikamp• 17 years ago

Using statistic based on all internet users to determine which browsers are most important for a given site is not a good idea.

sh1mmer2• 17 years ago

I think the key point is that he was only potentially alienating < 4% of his audience.

While I agree it was awesome it's only appropriate if you don't lobby Microsoft by shafting your users.

earl• 17 years ago

Love it. Please oh please oh please oh please let more web devs do this.

amix• 17 years ago

I would not recommend this if you want your product to hit the average user - IE has the biggest market share (still :(). But of course, for Instpaper it's perfectly right to do so since the market is power-users and they mostly us FF (as the author notes).

eli2• 17 years ago

I can tell you with some authority that if you're targeting corporate users, about 2/3 of the traffic is internet explorer. Worse is that about 40% of that IE traffic is IE6.

SystemOut4• 17 years ago

Did you read the post? He said less than 10% of his traffic is IE6. I'd say he is making the right call based on those demographics. When you look at resource decisions you have to look at the target market...and somehow I don't think it's corporate. If he was targeting corporate users he'd probably also build a Crackberry app.

And your 40% is just way off base unless you're writing salesforce.com apps or something like that. We see about 20% of our IE traffic at IE6 still and dropping fast. 18 months ago that was still at 50%.

dcurtis2• 17 years ago

For those who are curious, here's the browser makeup of Hacker News traffic to all of my articles that have been on the front page here:

http://dustincurtis.com/screenshots/Browsers_-_Google_Analyt...

ciscoriordan• 17 years ago

Does iPhone's Safari get categorized under Safari in that chart? If yes, you might want to separate it.

noblethrasher4• 17 years ago

The ironic thing is that Internet Explorer + HTML Applications (HTAs) is a much, much better desktop platform than a web browser. In fact, it’s probably one of the best client side platforms for Windows. You can extend it with any ActiveX control (including the .NET framework) and code it with almost any language (including, apparently, Haskell - http://www.haskell.org/haskellscript/). Some time ago I decided to start building all of my organization’s internal apps using HTAs + jQuery. It’s the bees knees (for Windows). It still accounts for most of my profanity usage when having to build actual websites.

kirse• 17 years ago

I despise websites that do this because I have to use IE7 at work. This is probably the second fastest way for me to banish your website from memory besides being spam.

Everyone on here talks about making the sign-up process as easy as possible, and requiring someone to download and install an entirely new application is about as complex and uninviting as one can get. Us "technical" people are still people, and the more you annoy me with the signup process the less likely I am to complete it. Even starting up a new browser and copying your URL is a nuisance.

Secondly, I've never really had a Safari/FF->IE7 bug that didn't take about 30 minutes of Googling or simply making a sneaky workaround. There might be some cursing in between but it simply has to get done otherwise it's ignoring a big audience.

Edit to Clarify: I am in full support of dropping IE6 as most of you have noted, seeing as how the user base has dropped and the majority of people with IE6 have been "auto-updated" to IE7.

noblethrasher4• 17 years ago

Yes, but it's not usually one bug. A bug here and a bug there and pretty soon you're talking about real money. IE7 isn't so bad but I'm seriously contemplating dropping support for IE6 very soon.

mrtron• 17 years ago

The 'fixes' aka hacks aren't that difficult.

The problem is it makes everything so brittle and people tend to do things the shitty route just to support IE.

Maybe it was the last changes to fix IE6...but I actually looked up browser percentages and considered dropping support.

feverishaaron3• 17 years ago

I estimate that supporting IE6 has added more than 30% of the interface development costs to the complex projects I have worked on that use a combination of sophisticated CSS and JS to get the job done. This is a HUGE cost for start-ups and for clients to swallow, once the true cost is explained to them.

Just supporting the way various sub-versions of IE6 inconsistently handle cookies is a nightmare, and in many cases lead to unsolvable issues. This costed a client of mine real $$$$ to discover, and less than 20% of their audience used IE6. Less than 15 people actually complained about the issue.

IE 7 isn't quite as bad, but it still adds a measure of time to front-end development efforts. I would estimate it in the range of 10-20%, depending on how complex the interface is.

On two recent projects, we dropped IE6 support, with virtually no push-back from a general-use audience. IE6 is almost 8 years old. Most people don't keep their cars that long, and can understand that an old crusty browser is not going to perform as well.

The only place where I would be hesitant to drop IE6 support is on marketing sites (where you need to entice someone to a call-to-action within the first 30sec-1min) and on e-commerce sites, where every dollar counts.

ken2• 17 years ago

And it's not just bugs, but lack of features. For example, I have requirements for simple 2D graphics with client-side interactivity. If we only had to support Firefox/Safari/Opera/Chrome, we could use SVG, but for users with IE (which has neither SVG or Canvas), that means Flash. Doing simple graphics with Flash is well over 10x more work than just splatting some XML inline into your page (which I've also done for personal side projects).

Consider, for example, that Flash/IE is a completely different plugin than Flash/all-other-browsers. We've definitely had Flash compatibility bugs between major versions, between minor versions, and even between the "same version" on different browsers. I can think of a few that took many of us more than 30 minutes just to trace through, much less come up with a workaround. And all of this only because IE (even IE8, AFAICT) doesn't natively support any kind of client-side graphics.

I don't know where the 30% overhead estimate for IE came from -- maybe a simple site? That sounds really, really low to me. I would put it at least 100% overhead for the kinds of things I do.

billroberts• 17 years ago

I agree totally. We decided a while back that we wouldn't attempt to support IE6 - life is too short. We do support IE7, but still spend a lot of time on fixes and workarounds for minor incompatibilities. If our stuff works on Firefox, it generally works on Safari too, with no extra effort, but an oft-repeated phrase in our company is an exasperated "f*^&&ing IE!"

thesethings• 17 years ago

Can I ask you (and others in a similar boat) a question about your work environment? When you say "I have to use IE at work," do you mean at the exclusion of other browsers? I too have to have IE6 at work (many old business apps require it), but I can also run Firefox, Chrome, Flock, Safari, etc. And I don't mind having multiple browsers open, in fact, I just usually do naturally, without any impetus. Does you workplace lock it down so you have only one browser?

alecthomas• 17 years ago

At my two previous employers, that's exactly what they do. All machines are completely locked-down. I suspect this is not unusual at large, more traditional corporations.

oneplusone• 17 years ago

I have done extensive front-end coding on a variety of projects and have come to a single conclusion: professional programmers don't get CSS. CSS is not "rational" like a regular programming language. Often the way CSS properties interact with each otehr has to be learned through trial and error. For example, if you set a object to display as a block and float it to the left it is not actually a block element any more, it is an inline-block. Doesn't matter if firebug tells you it is a block level element. This causes lots of pain and misery when it comes to understanding CSS.

However, once you do understand CSS browser discrepancies really become a minor annoyance at most. You code pixel perfection in one browser, and ensure all the other browsers don't go too far off course. The only exception is IE6, and for that you can use something like http://code.google.com/p/ie7-js/ to "upgrade" it.

There is really only one feature I wish Microsoft would add. The CSS property Opacity should apply to form fields as well.

rm9992• 17 years ago

This article seems like an excuse to criticize IE. "Instapaper is severely degraded in this browser" is fine. "... because IE does not support basic web standards" comes off as catty.

I understand the frustration that IE isn't fully compatible, but as engineers it's not our job to change the world to suit our own needs; we shouldn't be converting users to a different architecture or web browser.

IMO, 10% is a lot of users - perhaps, silently degrading the experience is better than potentially offending people that have to use IE for whatever reason. When I have to use IE, the last thing I want is an application or webpage rubbing it in my face.

nostrademons• 17 years ago

Perhaps I'm just bitter because I've been doing mostly IE compatibility stuff at work lately, but "because IE does not support basic web standards" does not seem all that inaccurate to me.

rm9992• 17 years ago

Of course it's true, but why would joe six pack user care? It's not user friendly.

sprsquish2• 17 years ago

It absolutely is our job as engineers to change the world. We're the experts. We've done the research and have the evidence to support our positions. From there it's our duty to show the rest of the world the best solution for the problem. In this case I think the problem is number of developer cycles that go into IE compatibility. Imagine if all that time went to the actual product.

Often rubbing something in someone's face is the only way to evoke change. To degrade the experience and let the user know why it's been degraded gives them a clearer understanding of the problem. Being struck with the same problem enough times tends to get someone to act to solve it.

vaksel• 17 years ago

It seems like most of IE is installed on corporate machines. Now answer me this, what kind of IT Administrator doesn't realize the advantages to installing firefox?

JacobAldridge• 17 years ago

"You don't get fired buying IBM"

Keeping / installing IE is the default option for most corporates. Change is difficult. IT Admins struggle for respect in many cases, and know that fighting over IE or FF means wasting ammunition they need on more important projects.

emilis_info• 17 years ago

Well...

Keeping Firefox/Safari is the default option for most web developers. Change is difficult. Web developers struggle to make a living in many cases and know that fighting for pixel-perfect view in IE means wasting ammunition they need on more important projects.

... couldn't hold myself. Sorry :-)

CalmQuiet• 17 years ago

The common, everyday grade of IT admin. Who also is overworked. and reports too a technophobe adminstrator. ...a grade of IT admin which I encounter way too often, unfortunately.

jhy• 17 years ago

That all makes good sense for an app built by a single developer and a specific demographic. He's cutting 10% of his potential market and probably saving 80% of front-end dev time. Seems like a good tradeoff.

jwilliams• 17 years ago

I don't know - his examples were rounded corners, a float that he fixed and an unrelated-to-IE font issue. Are they worth cutting of 10% of your users?

Quite often it's worthwhile maintaining a bare-bones version of your site. For more than just compatability - there is also accessibility, printing, slow connections, etc, etc. Surely it's a better user experience to just downgrade them to that?

pj4• 17 years ago

The web is a public good and as such, we should have /one/ standards compliant browser that works on any device that can access it. Fund it with taxes, just like roads, bridges, and the new electric grid Obama is going to buy us...

Microsoft should just stop working on IE and concentrate on the OS. We don't need Opera, Chrome, Safari, IE, Firefox, etc... They're /all/ free. Take the best of them all and build /one/.

dualogy2• 17 years ago

I don't like this, but yeah, go ahead, do it. Only, kill them by being better, not by governmental decree.

dualogy2• 17 years ago

But that was trolling anyway, wasn't it...

swombat• 17 years ago

"build /one/" has proven time and again to be a failing strategy if you want that /one/ to be any good.

pj4• 17 years ago

Not true. We have /one/ interstate system. We have /one/ electric grid. We have /one/ internet. Most people have one water/sewer system. These things have worked fine for many years.

Just extrapolate the situation from what it is to where it would be if there were 100 browsers and they all worked differently. /Then/ how productive would developers be?

Look at the recent post from instapaper not supporting IE anymore. Look at how much time and energy is lost due to browser incompatibilities that would be solved if all content looked the same in all of them.

Imagine some new electricity company coming on board saying, "Yeah, but we want to pump DC into the grid."

It would never happen, yet, because no one setting policy understands the internets, they don't understand how much productivity is being lost due to competition in the browser market.

Competition is not always good. Almost assuredly not in cases of public infrastructure. Look around the world at privatizations of water systems, utilities, etc in poor countries around the world. Costs almost /always/ go up.

Competition is good in some areas and bad in other areas and when we /all/ need to be on the same page, collaboration is better than competition.

sam_in_nyc5• 17 years ago

I'm under the impression that this site doesn't do all that much. Ok... you store URLs, then mark them as "read" and "unread." Not necessarily a good or bad thing.. I'm sure it's incredibly useful. That's not my point.

My point is, how can a 2 page website drop support for a whole browser? Just seems like laziness to me.

brk• 17 years ago

I think he did a pretty good job explaining why he made the choice to drop support for IE in TFA.

sam_in_nyc5• 17 years ago

I read: author wanted to make his website pretty, but IE was making it hard, especially since he was developing on a Mac which made it harder to test, so author dropped support for IE. Author then explains less than 10% of his users use IE, anyway, so it doesn't really matter. Sparks browser war.

While I admit, IE really blows, and I hate developing for it, it's really not that bad. It's manageable if you test on it often, which author failed to do. Is it hard to make a 9 cell table to get rounded corners? Or how about learning "hasLayout" which fixes virtually every IE6+ css rendering bug?

greyman• 17 years ago

Exactly my thought, it's a simple bookmarking application. And I can't run it on IE7 because author must use rounded corners and at the same time doesn't want to go through the hassle to implement them under IE. ;-)

SystemOut4• 17 years ago

You guys are missing the point. This guy is doing this by himself. It's hard to be good at both server backend AND well versed at front-end work to be able to work around IE6/7 problems quickly. And he's making the right call if his browser demographics are correct (which I'm assuming they are). You have to determine what to allocate resources to on a daily basis in this business. There's always more work and not enough people to go around.

I'm pretty close to pulling the trigger on dropping IE6 support on the sites I run. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask our users to upgrade to a better browser. And believe me, my company is NOT targeting the corporate user at all. :) The amount of time I spend fixing IE6 issues is just insane. I could be doing so much more that helps other users and if I can get them to upgrade to a better browser in the first place then so much the better.

I will close with this: It wouldn't suck as much to fix issues on IE6/7 if it just had decent development tools such as Firebug, Tamper Data, and Web Developer.

dant• 17 years ago

I'm not surprise this is happening, I expect that it will happen more in future. Windows and IE may have only lost a few percentage points of market share over the past few years, but those few percentage points represent a generation of technology enthusiasts who will, I suspect, have a big impact on the way the internet evolves.

When someone who doesn't run Windows or IE builds a site for their peers who predominately don't run Windows or IE either, then finds that they have to jump through some hoops to support IE, is it any wonder they decide to pass?

josefresco• 17 years ago

And somewhere in a quiet village half-way across the world, some kid is launching an app/website/thingy that will welcome these shunned IE users.

I think I'd rather be him.

MarcoArment• 17 years ago

Thanks for all of the discussion, everyone. To help clarify my argument, I've published Instapaper's browser usage stats from February as reported by Google Analytics:

http://www.marco.org/83217369

Internet Explorer was used for 3.63% of visits to the site during the month before I made this change.

avocade• 17 years ago

This is what every sane web designer should do. I made this decision many years ago for a web based task manager I built with Ruby on Rails (43actions.com), and have never looked back.

Sure I got _a lot_ of negative comments for it (and still do), but in this particular case I definitely put my own sanity way ahead of the larger (but dwindling) market share.

Sorry to now be a bit inflammatory (this single question is one that boils my blood every time), but put simply IE sucks ass! IT SUCKS ASS! I _HATE_ IE. MICROSOFT HAS _ZERO TASTE_ (thanks Steve Jobs for that very early insight). Ok, enough said. Sorry.

zmimon• 17 years ago

This comes off as petty to me, and a bit stupid.

Maybe only 3.7% of his users are IE users because they get a whole lot of attitude when they visit his site? Or because a lot of IE users either don't have the choice (corporate) or the desire or the skill (grandma) to upgrade their web browsers. Perhaps CEOs of major corporations visit his site every day curious about whether they might deploy his service across their whole company (ok, fantasy), and then leave because he says he doesn't want to support them. Perhaps his business could be 20 times bigger if he wasn't so obsessed with this issue. Perhaps that isn't the case now but it might be down the track.

There are lots of great frameworks out there that nearly completely remove the cross platform issues in coding for browsers these days for all but the most unusual requirements. This is not the issue it once was.

lazyant• 17 years ago

So this is a one-man project that offers it for free and someone has the balls to complain because it doesn't support (for valid reasons or whatever) his particular (broken) browser?

If it's so important to "business types" to support IE here's an idea: make them pay a fee so it covers the extra development costs (this is not outrageous in general; there are open source projects that cost money for the Windows version).

This is not a government site or an Amazon that has to please everybody. I bet none of the people complaining have ever suffered trying to code around the IE compatibility problems.

Dropped IE support for Instapaper

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