

How about a unified alliance of websites refusing to support old browsers? - hoodoof

Strength in numbers.  All websites can signup to a common message that refuses visitors with old browsers.
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Paul_S
I'm fine with you not supporting my browser but if you use a whitelist and
block me from the website just based on my user agent string then I'll spoof
it. Some websites already do that and it pisses me off when the website turns
out to be working fine and it's just the webmaster pushing their agenda.

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jfaucett
I've thought about this a lot jwdunne hits the problem on the head, most
developers build sites for companies - not themselves - and those companies
want increased revenues, users, etc. which is all lost if you just ignore
people using old browsers. What I think might work, would be a simple snippet
that developers could implement on their personal sites that refused to
display the content to old crappy browsers. Personally, If I could I would
just have chrome as the only browser anyone could use... but that's just
dreaming.

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kaolinite
"I would just have chrome as the only browser anyone could use"

Comments like this sadden me, especially as I know so many feel the same way.
Chrome is closed-source (though few people realise it) and gives far, far too
much control to a company that only cares about the web so long as it can make
money from it. If you want to use it, fine, but it's a shame that we're
returning to an age where it's acceptable for websites to be designed (or
'optimised') for a specific browser.

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jwdunne
I don't think this is practical, especially for what I do. The websites I
build are intended to generate new business for my clients. We don't support
IE6 but we do support IE7-8 because, between them, they are the most commonly
used browsers to our sites (supported by stats) and turning those people away
would lead to a massive loss in potential business.

Perhaps your web apps and websites are targeted at the type of people who
always stay up to date with their browsers bug I can't see that being the case
at all for what I build based on the data we've collected.

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bbrown
Perhaps not a "unified alliance" type atmosphere exactly, but more of a "Group
for better Standards". Yes perhaps a non-profit; no biased allowed type
coalition. Our creed could be "for better standards, to uplift the end users
web experience by large" or some other drivel... perhaps.

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Mz
Er, why?

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hoodoof
Because having to support a lowest common denominator of slow and feature poor
browsers is a nightmare.

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Mz
That "nightmare" you are bitching about is called either "your audience" or
"your customers".

I am not that all that web savvy, but I try to keep things accessible, both in
terms of systems used and in terms of physical limitations. My two main
websites are aimed at folks who tend to have physical limitations and thus
also financial limitations, which means they rarely have the latest, greatest
tech. So perhaps my view is slightly biased, but I just cannot understand
intentionally barring groups wholesale as a policy because it makes your job
more convenient.

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bmelton
More specifically, the 'nightmare' is likely less than 1 percent of their
'customers'.

Building a website allows for little in the way of excuses as to why you
shouldn't be able to support almost every single user in every single browser.

Building a web _application_ allows for a much greater variety of excuses.
Writing modern code that allows for dynamic interaction and 'save as you type'
type of functionality is extremely difficult to support for older browsers or
browsers that don't do a very good job of conforming to web specifications.

You've mentioned previously that you aren't a 'developer', so I thought it
merited mention. Simply put, it's a lot harder than you think.

If your app is in a competitive space, or one where 'cutting edge' is
expected, it's an extremely easy decision to throw away less than 1% of your
audience in favor of being able to iterate faster, release new features
earlier than your competition, or dramatically increase the speed in which the
other 99.7% of users interact with your application (and make them happier
customers.)

I generally agree with the notion of 'supporting everybody you can', but
having built 'new-school' applications, I understand that it is in fact _very_
hard, and not _always_ worth it.

~~~
Mz
Thanks.

