What version of Internet Explorer (IE) should my web app support [closed]

Answer 1

None.

Seriously. You should not support any version of IE. It is absolutely horrible.

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Edit: since I originally wrote this answer, Internet Explorer 9 has been released. IE9 offers significant improvements over its predecessors and is a much more worthy competitor in the browser market.

Having said that, it still has a long way to go before I would consider using it over Chrome (my default browser of choice). Since I use Ubuntu, Microsoft would need to release a Linux version of their browser - and because Halley's comet will return long before that happens, I am staying away from IE.

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Further edit: this does not apply to Edge.

Answer 2

Our web app which is sold as a product to be installed on enterprise intranets suppoerts IE 7+. We dropped IE 6 recently and nobody complained thus far. Of course we also support Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome, but that's boring: my testing algorithm is as follows:

• develop in Firefox
• frequently test and fix on IE8 in compatibility mode
• frequently test and fix on IE8 regular mode
• sometimes test real IE 7 (so far IE8 in comp. mode has been 100% correct emulating IE7)
• before release confirm that Opera, Safari and Chrome are still correct. These 3 are almost always correct provided Firefox works.

Answer 3

Depends on the audience.

• If you're Amazon.com, Ebay or Google, you're probably going to have to support every browser under the sun except perhaps Netscape 4.7 on Intel Solaris (Note I have actually used this combination while I did my B.Sc, but that was more than a decade ago).

• If you're aiming at a broad web audience, IE7+, FF, Safari, Chrome and maybe Opera

• If you're expecting users on corporate intranets, you may well have to support IE6+.

• If you're aiming at mobile users, Opera and various mobile browsers.

Answer 4

It depends on whether you need to make it work for as many people as possible. I can only speak for the website I've got Google Analytics on, but about 20% of the visits are IE6, another 15% are IE7. If you can afford to drop a potential 35% of your audience, go for it.

(Here's a wikipedia article on browser share, with a breakdown of IE usage. The official stats are strikingly similar to those I cited above.)

Answer 5

You should follow "progressive enhancement" -- provide the core features of the site to most if not all users; then, for the A-Grade browsers, provide the additional eye candy and features. With IE6 still being used by anywhere from 10 - 20% of web users, we can't ignore it completely.

However, we can follow the pattern of Youtube and Google: display a message telling the user to upgrade. If you go to YouTube on IE6, you can't even view any videos anymore. This is what you'll see:

YouTube

And here's Google Docs on IE6:

Google Docs

Answer 6

IE 7+.

Unless it's a legacy app and needs to target IE6 users. In any case, you should not support anything below IE5. But you should try to at least look good on IE4, even if you don't have full functionality.

Or just stick with IE7+.