I take the 80/20 approach to supporting ie6: If 80% of the features and layout work well in ie6 and 20% not so well then that's acceptable. I have no interest in wasting time writing exceptions for a broken browser. True to their oblivious nature ie6 users don't seem to notice or even care that the looks different in ie6.

I also take the 80/20 approach but slightly different. If my site works on 80% of browsers then that's good enough... Which is why I don't bother supporting safari... even though I started using it on windows a few days ago and DAMN it is fast... but i am way invested in firfox to switch.

80/20 is the reason most software companies don't release a mac version of their software.

You don't want to address 30% of the market because they're using technology you don't feel like supporting?

I'll take them. Thanks.

It's not that developers don't want these users. It's not that developers don't respect these users. It's that supporting IE 6 takes a lot of time. That's time I'd rather spend making features to help ALL users. Is that asking too much?

Whenever I work in IE compatibility I always think 'how much further on would the internet be if these hours were spent on making progress'.

Having said that I won't be installing the code to popup that window because users don't want to see this. They won't understand the intricate development reasoning behind it. We've made our bed (as developers) and we shall be in for some time to come.

Who says they're 30% of your market?

We're talking about people who either don't care about staying current or who intentionally refuse to upgrade (surely Windows prompts people to upgrade to IE7).

Is it worth spending many extra hours on your project – and shelving one feature or dev shortcut after another – in order to tap that market?

The answer can be no.

Do movies studios still put out VHS tapes?

"Who says they're 30% of your market?"

I do.

In fact, that's exactly what I said, "I'll take them."

I have absolutely no problem whatsoever pursuing these prospects. I have figured out how to do it without undue limitations on the rest of my business, and I'm glad to have them.

Frankly, I'm a little pleasantly surprised there are so many who would abandon them. Less competition for me. You're obviously one of those who doesn't care about them (why else would you insult them?), so why do you mind if I pursue them?

I don't see where I insulted IE6 users. I think you're referring to where I said they don't care about having the current version, but that wasn't meant as an insult.

I was making the implication that maybe they aren't as concerned about having the latest greatest in other aspects of technology as well, which would make them a more difficult market to encourage to try your latest greatest.

And in the first place you insulted IE6-wary developers by implying their reasons boil down to laziness. I was offering up what I think are legitimate reasons for ignoring IE6: the huge amount of dev time you save, and the freedom you gain to make use of dev shortcuts.

I think my VHS analogy is apt: you could spend extra time and money publishing new releases to VHS as well as DVD. You would probably even make money from it. But if you research who still primarily uses VHS players I don't think you'll find movie buffs who buy a couple movies every month.

And ultimately I don't see the big deal: I'm not suggesting a developer block IE6 users out of spite and then sit on his ass: I'm saying a developer can choose to ignore IE6 and then have loads of time to devote to making an amazing product.

I would rather support 70% of the market and let the 30% download the upgrade. By supporting 30% of the market, you're neglecting the other 70% to a certain extent.

If 30% of the market still ran Windows 95, would you support them too? I don't think so. There is a time to say a product is obsolete, and IE6 is qualified and should be left out to pasture.

Your answer makes me wonder if you would say the same thing for 25%, or 20%. What about 15%? Or 10% where do you draw the line?

I have a computer that I use for surfing with a microsoft OS that I errhm got really cheap off the intertubes and it won't let me upgrade to ie7 because of it. Guess you don't want me as a customer. Along with the roughly 30 million people with money in their wallets that have the same problem.

I'm confused by your comment. Are you saying I'm silly for not spending time and money trying to accommodate people who run cracked software?

Well, that's not exactly how I would put it :-)

What I'm saying is that if 30% of the users who go to your site (the number is grabbed out of thin air btw.) use IE6 then your site should deal with it. Everything else is like stopping 30% of your customers at the door telling them that they can't spend their money here and will have to go over to you competitor.

I'm addressing them. They can still view HTML, and submit forms, and even click my (few) ECMAscript controls. I'm just not going to spend any extra time making sure everything lines up perfectly. I'll spend my time on actual functionality, not glitz.

If you want to enter my market just to handle the IE6 users, more power to you! You'll validate our business model, and we'll hire somebody to make our site look pretty in IE6. I suspect that will be a lot easier than it will be for you to reproduce all of our back-end work.

"I suspect that will be a lot easier than it will be for you to reproduce all of our back-end work."

If you're my competitor, that's exactly what I want you to think.

Welcome to web development, where you WILL support any and all browsers in use. End of story.

Depends on whom you work for and what you do for them.

Safari is easy.

Firefox isnt perfect, but a lot better than ie6 or ie7. I think most developers should aim to support IE6+7,firefox 2, safari.. that should cover 95%+ of the market.