Ask HN: Should I care to support IE6?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=594444

by satyajit • 17 years ago

4 6 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

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• 17 years ago

Browser statistics link: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

juliend2• 17 years ago

From 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• 17 years ago

You 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• 17 years ago

Good 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/) for ideas.

mcav• 17 years ago

If 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• 17 years ago

As 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.

Ask HN: Should I care to support IE6?

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