Hacker News Reader

Comment by michael_dorfman | Hacker News Reader

IE6 is still the browser of choice in some rigid, older enterprises, and if your target audience consists largely of Enterprisey folks, you've got to support it. Their reasons for refusing to upgrade vary, but are largely irrelevant-- it's a reality that has to be faced, for whatever reason.

If, on the other hand, you are after the consumer market, I'd suggest you forget IE6 altogether. Any home user still using an un-upgraded copy of WindowsXP is not going to want to spend money for software anyway, so forget them.

The point is: it doesn't matter if IE6 has 11% of the global market share. The important question is: what percentage of your target audience do they own?

View on HN

Good point. But if enterprise developers continue to support IE6, then there will continue to be a lack of pressure to upgrade, which will perpetuate the need for IE6 support. How can we break out of this vicious circle?

Just as an example, Google has stopped supported IE6 in most of its major web apps and other big names have started doing it also. If Google is doing it, I have no shame dropping IE6 support altogether and spending all the time I save on debugging real problems and developping new features.

How can we break out of this vicious circle?

Decide you don't want the money the Enterprisey folks represent. Or, be so important to their business that they'd rather upgrade than do without you.

The way I see it, a lot of corporate people shop from work. If you're LL Bean or Amazon, support it.

If you're selling something people aren't going to purchase from or for their enterprise cubicle(s), forget it.

Oops. I forgot to add research. A family member needs their site to remain usable/attractive to the significant corporate population in this area who will visit it while researching options from work. A lot of big, stuffy businesses whose employees are potential customers for this local business.

Simple. Charge customers who insist on IE6 for the extra development work required to support it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com