[Freddy]

Not as dramatic as it sounds.

I'll support minor fixes, but IE is out dated when it comes to new features.

For example, I'm trying to code an avatar to run on the home page. It works in other browsers but not in IE. I've spent hours trying to fix it so it works in IE, but I have just about had enough.

So folks this is a poll to see if you really want me to labour away for days trying to get advanced stuff to work in IE.

I am not for one moment going to have the site held back because MS cannot update it's product more often and get things ship shape. Other developers can do it fine it seems.

So cast your votes please

[Art]

Done!

[Data]

I have to use IE to test sites with, it still has something like 20% share of the market.

Don't blame me 

[Freddy]

I don't blame you Data, I blame Microsoft.

Last night I installed the IE Developer Build. Jumped through a few hoops, finally got it installed. Then I try to start it and it tells me its been abandoned. So why did MS have the download on their site when it no longer works ?

I then tried the new way of doing it using the Azure remote app. That actually worked but IE 12 is painfully slow. I tested some CSS in it and it still cannot handle it. It's useless to a developer because it will not work with localhost, it seems to be online sites only. So it's useless to me.

So I had enough of that and decided to uninstall the first abandoned version. Turns out it would not uninstall. I looked on the MS site for help. I found support tickets declaring that they know about it but 'will not fix'.

So now I have a crappy version of IE 12 and an abandoned developer version that I can't get rid of.

Thanks a lot M$.

And today I have spent another four hours on the avatar in IE. I'm trying to get the audio to work (voice). I'm using MP3. IE plays one volley okay, but it will not sync like the other browsers, so that's no good. Then after the first volley it complains about MIME type and will not play the sound, despite playing it the first time with no problem. I've spent hours checking everything and it's just IE that does this.

My TTS service generates WAV files originally. I added a WAV to MP3 converter called LAME, just so IE can play the audio, because guess what IE does not support WAV in HTML 5 audio. That's another great decision MS.

So I've had it with IE for this project. I tried my best. We're only as good as our tools.

 

[8pla.net]

My comments are not meant to disparage Microsoft in any way.   
For the purpose of constructive criticism only, our discussion
here reminds me of a saying I heard used in other businesses, 
"There's more money in failure."

[ranch vermin]

As soon as IE started me off on the stupid BING! page,  i went BING! and i never used it ever again.
I just use chrome.

[Ultron]

I am surprised to learn that you would spend hours on a fix for IE... Were you under a dare or something?

20% share on the market... Not sure about the math in that (even less sure in the economic aspect) but I don't think anybody uses IE frequently except web builders and that is only for the sole purpose of debugging a website (or whatever the fancy term is).

[Data]

A major headache browser compatibility can be for web developers.

I feel for you Freddy.

Here is a recent market share.
http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php

IE comes in second to Chrome but still ahead of Firefox and Safari.

Chrome has 43% of the total market, impressive but not unanimous.

[ivan.moony]

I've had also problems with IE. Layout of my site works in Chrome and Firefox, but it is messed up with IE. With me the problem is in relative table cell sizes.

[Freddy]

To be fair the headache here is only caused by IE.

I'm not convinced by that 20% to be honest. I would wager that a lot of those IE 'users' are actually bots.

On Dreams apart from our good Mr Data, most IE hits are from bots and spiders. I keep an eye on these things.

Today we had someone/thing using Netscape Navigator 4.

But I digress. So far as Dreams is concerned IE makes up just 6% of visits. FF & Chrome beat it hands down.

[Freddy]

I am surprised to learn that you would spend hours on a fix for IE... Were you under a dare or something?

If only. I'm just trying to be professional about it and code things so they work in different browsers. There's a lot of movement away from IE now, so either hopefully they will finally drop it or update things more regularly.

Don't get me wrong though, IE can be fine for standard web fare but if you want to do more modern things it just isn't there.

[Data]

Have you tested your project on tablet and phone browsers yet ?

According to the stats I get from sites their usage is increasing rapidly.

I also see quite a lot of genuine IE users both on my sites and customers I visit.     

[Freddy]

Nope I have not tried it on mobiles yet. I'm not looking forward to that !

But yes, there are IE users out there of course, but I don't think there are as many as we might be led to believe.

With MS moving to this development channel maybe IE will get updates more often. That's what I read they were planning.

[Data]

We live in hope 

[Ultron]

With MS moving to this development channel maybe IE will get updates more often. That's what I read they were planning.

There were in fact some 'leaked' snapshots from Windows 10 which included images of a 'refined' IE, however the only conclusion one can derive from images is only about the looks. It may be a solid browser update or just a new makeup.