ProtonMail is dropping support for Internet Explorer 11(protonmail.com) |
ProtonMail is dropping support for Internet Explorer 11(protonmail.com) |
We launched a web application for construction companies in Switzerland a few months ago. And quickly learned the hard way that we have to improve the IE compatibility. The last 90 days IE11 was used for 36% of all traffic.
Too bad the new Edge isn't called IE12 and automatically deployed as a replacement through Windows Update :-)
I'm fairly sure Microsoft is not fan of IE either, but they will still be stuck with it for many years. The most they can probably do, is to not have it installed by default in future versions of Windows 10, but I have a feeling that it will stick around for longer than IE6.
Have you tried contacting their support team?
I would love to use CSS Grid without thinking whether it will work however it happens that IE11 has only partial (and buggy) support for it.
I believe that supporting IE11 blocks innovation.
So, what is the use case here really, what sort of features IE11 does not provide that you'd need to implement a web-based mail client?
(note that i'm not trying to promote IE11 here, i just do not understand why IE11 would block implementing any feature to the point of dropping it entirely)
A world where Blink has 80%+ marketshare (which is pretty much what we have or where we're headed) is one where a single group can dictate the standard for everyone else.
Webpack is a bundler.
Having said that, IE11 is still supported so it doesn't strike me as security risk. In fact, not updating a browser with features is likely going to improve security. A little-used browser is also less attractive to target for exploitation.
At my company we're in this weird spot where Chrome has overwhelming adoption but IE11 has more usage than some of the other modern browsers. For example, if we only went by usage (or even more so: conversion/$$$), we'd be dropping Firefox support before we drop IE11.
That obviously doesn't feel great. I don't want to be in a "This website is optimized for Chrome in 2560x1440 resolution and 32 bit colors!", reminiscent of the old Netscape vs IE days. But we're getting very close to it. Firefox's usage is dwindling. Safari is pretty bad at anything except saving battery. Chrome is good but Google is pretty sketchy with how they bully their feature requests into the standards. IE11 can go to hell, but I still want people to test across browsers. It's happening less and less.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/south-koreans-use-internet-exp...
Thanks for the correction.
That's not going to fool any competent fingerprinting scripts. Blink/webkit/gecko have different javascript implementations so it's easy to cross-check whether your user agent header matches your "real" user agent. The only thing you're really going to fool are server side logs for user agent. If anything, using user agent spoofer is an entropy source (makes you stick out more) because most people don't spoof their user agent.
https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?opt...
EDIT: This is on laptop/desktop. Without the device filter it's about 5%. But then again, I don't think it comes by default on any Mobile OS, so they have a disadvantage there. Plus non power users of their smartphone (like me) might not change the browser there.
No? Most browser share analysis put FF at #2 (9-10%), for desktop/laptops and at #3 (5-6%) for mobile.
Then you need to be careful to include enough polyfills because even what you assume would be there probably isn't, there's no Promises, no Array.prototype.includes, no arrow functions.
How about a consistent, reliable implementation of modern web standards? If you had to write a mail client in Java, would you rather target Java 1.5 or the most recent version?
Many small (and large) features together make a huge difference when it all adds up to providing an implementation of modern web standards that is consistent with other browsers and with modern standards. It's a huge burden to always be checking "is this supported in IE11 or is there a polyfill we can use" when wanting to use a native function or object (not to mention features that can't be polyfilled or transpiled, like ES6 proxies).
But honestly i'm not a fan of requiring the latest version of something just for developer convenience. It might have to do with growing up using outdated computers for years and seeing most programs not work or work slowly/badly, often without a good technical reason (outside programmer preference).
Browsers are basically an operating system now. For comparison, nobody cares that the Linux kernel isn't a standard. Nobody wants a "competing" Linux kernel implementation. The implementation itself is the standard and reference and that's totally fine.
The problem with looming IE dominance in the old days was that it was closed-source and proprietary, but that's not the case with modern day engines. In the FOSS world, competition isn't really a big driver. It just causes redundant work.
> A world where Blink has 80%+ marketshare (which is pretty much what we have or where we're headed) is one where a single group can dictate the standard for everyone else.
That's just not true. Any piece of software can be transformed into another piece of software. If <Upstream> really wants some feature I don't want, I can patch it out. If I publish some feature that <Upstream> thinks is good, they can just merge it.
Of course it would be good if <Upstream> was more like the LLVM-Foundation and not "literally Google", but the point is that having just one engine isn't the same as one party controlling the implementation. Microsoft obviously understands this, or they wouldn't choose Chromium as the new basis for Edge.
Except for the people working on the BSDs, Hurd, Minix, etc.
POSIX is the standard, Linux is the implementation (not completely accurate, but close enough). Apps built to the standard can usually run on BSD with minor changes, just like websites built to work with Chrome usually work well on Firefox with only a few minor changes.
I will be controversial and say that Linux's utter dominance in the post-UNIX space may have been detrimental to the development of the ecosystem as a whole, limiting radical experimentation and preventing a much-needed reimagining of core computing paradigms.
POSIX is more of a post-hoc thing, it doesn't really matter except for compliance - and then Linux isn't compliant. In practice you still need an abstraction layer.
If you want to use actual Linux features, you have to use Linux-specific interfaces. Of course a lot of applications don't do that, but that's besides the point.
The same is true for other UNIX (and non-UNIX) operating systems. They're not implementing new standards, they're implementing features to differentiate themselves.
> I will be controversial and say that Linux's utter dominance in the post-UNIX space may have been detrimental to the development of the ecosystem as a whole, limiting radical experimentation and preventing a much-needed reimagining of core computing paradigms.
Perhaps, but standards wouldn't help here - to the contrary.
Its true enough: it keeps happening. Patch it out or resist all you want, it doesn't matter if you have to acknowledge and deal with its existence, if only because of the amount of energy it takes to push back against it. If it doesn't have a feature you want because they disagree, you can add it to your browser of choice, but it doesn't matter because you still won't be able to use it.
It's exactly what we're seeing with firefox. They could implement feature XYZ, but it would be irrelevant because no one (web developers) could use it.
But with that premise, having a standard or not doesn't determine the outcome. Market share determines the outcome. The standards are just recommendations, nothing forces Google or anyone else to implement them.
> The standardization process takes a lot of time and just because something is a standard doesn't mean major players will implement it. Implementations always trump.
Yes, absolutely. Standards are driven by successful implementations. My point was that more, better implementations (leading to new and improved standards) are not a bad thing. The web stagnated during IE's dominance, and it may develop the same sort of stagnation under the dominance of Blink. Some degree of competition is good to keep things moving forward in ways that users want.
Let's just go with something simpler: Google having the control it has on the implementation (and thus, most everyone else because to make a useful browser you have to make it mostly compatible with Google's implementation that everyone will target) is bad.