Drop IE8 support

[alrra]

Microsoft is ending the extended support for Windows XP on April 8, 2014. Since IE8 is mostly a Windows XP browser, and it's market share is slowly but steadily going down¹ , I think we should start the discussion on dropping IE8 support.

¹ Some current estimates (feel free to share your own/other):

• 6.15% - StatCounter (March 2014)
• 4.24% - W3Counter (February 2014)
• 5.29% - Clicky (most recent)
• 6.93% - 8.73% - Wikipedia (as of September 2013)

Changes involved with dropping IE8 support:

• Remove IE8 related code
• Switch to jQuery 2.x.x
• Update conditional comments for "browse happy" prompt
• Remove html5shiv?
• Update documentation
• Other (which?)

[RiZKiT]

I would suggest to wait at least until summer and check the stats then.
But we can discuss the percentage when we/you want to drop it.

[roblarsen]

Not arguing for or against IE8 with the following, but I do think dealing with percentages can mask the discussion a bit...

Using the estimated number of internet user as an analog, 5% of the web is something like 120,000,000, which is roughly equivalent to the population of Japan.

[sarukuku]

I'm in favor of dropping the support from boilerplate after Microsofts support for XP has ended. It would be nice to see stats about IE8 usage a few months after the end of XP support just to see if it had any noticeable effect to global usage statistics.

What ever we might choose for the actual version / date for dropping IE8 support isn't important yet (I think). What is important now is if we can agree to start the process for dropping the support in near future.

Though even a 5% global usage is a lot in numbers of people I still think this is a good & gentle way to push the web forward.

[QWp6t]

IE9 and up cannot be installed on Windows XP. Dropping IE 8 support is effectively the same as dropping Windows XP support for MSIE users. On the other hand, we could also reason that this is Microsoft's fault, and if Microsoft wants to make IE 9 and up available on XP, it is free to do so. Neither Chrome nor Firefox have dropped XP compatibility, so it's bizarre that IE 9 would.

I'm not making an argument either way. I just wanted everyone to know that the reason XP users are on IE 8 is because Microsoft won't let them upgrade to IE 9. Not all of these users are able to use alternative browsers (which is why Chrome Frame was such an awesome product), in particular for certain enterprise environments.

If h5bp drops IE 8 support, there should be documentation or something letting developers know what steps to take to add back support for IE 8.

I personally follow Google's "last 2 versions" strategy, which means no support for IE 8 or 9. https://support.google.com/a/answer/33864

[roblarsen]

I'm not making an argument either way. I just wanted everyone to know that the reason XP users are on IE 8 is because Microsoft won't let them upgrade to IE 9. Not all of these users are able to use alternative browsers (which is why Chrome Frame was such an awesome product), in particular for certain enterprise environments.

As the guy who spends a lot of time in those environments, I am happy to report that I've started to see real movement on IE9+ adoption in financial services at least.

[alrra]

I would suggest to wait at least until summer and check the stats then.

@RiZKiT It will take quite some time until we actually drop IE8 (see #1050 for comparison). For now, we are mostly interested in seeing how people feel about this change.

dealing with percentages can mask the discussion a bit...

@roblarsen I agree, but we have to start the discussion from somewhere. Also, it would be interesting to see (as @sarukuku pointed out) how IE8's market share evolves in the next few months.

[jonathantneal]

From the higher-ed / university side, @chapmanu supports IE9+. Our own audience statistics have validated this move, and the University has been internally upgrading XP stragglers over the last year, in anticipation of XP’s final retirement.

After reviewing our analytics, I report with confidence that our fall semester was the beginning of the end for IE8, as usage dropped from a steady 6% to just under 3%.

[mushtat]

Mainly I think that dropping IE8 support is good idea.
But I agree with @RiZKiT that we would wait some time and check the statistics then - just to know when is the best time to drop support for IE8 becouse it is included with Windows 7 by default. So there are lot of users who actually can use it on Win 7 after Win XP support will ended by Microsoft.

[roblarsen]

@roblarsen I agree, but we have to start the discussion from somewhere. Also, it would be interesting to see (as @sarukuku pointed out) how IE8's market share evolves in the next few months.

@alrra For sure. We have to see where the actual numbers go. I just like to set the scale of what we're talking about. 5% seems small, but "as big as Japan" seems a bit bigger.

Hopefully we'll see a big drop-off with the sunsetting of XP and this decision will be easy.

[passy]

👍 for dropping. Google's policy for supported browsers is very interesting:

We support the current and previous major releases of Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari on a rolling basis. Each time a new version is released, we begin supporting that version and stop supporting the third most recent version.

https://support.google.com/a/answer/33864?hl=en

At Google, we’re committed to developing web applications that go beyond the limits of traditional software. Our engineering teams make use of new capabilities available in modern, up-to-date browsers. That’s why we made the decision last year to support only modern browsers, which also provide improved security and performance.

I think we should support this sentiment as a community.

[roblarsen]

I think we should support this sentiment as a community.

The support table that would sway me 100% from Google is not from Apps, it's from search. If Google stopped supporting IE8 in search we'd have a pretty strong case to drop it here.

The punchline to that comment is I bet Google supports Netscape 3 in search and they probably make more money in IE6-8 searches than they do in every other line of business outside of Adwords

[passy]

@roblarsen Basic search works and at Google's scale even 1% is a massive absolute number, but I don't think that's relevant to any project you start today. Google Apps are interesting because they target the enterprise which is notoriously bad at updating.

[roblarsen]

True, they are interesting and the sentiment is instructive, but I'm less swayed by it (at least in terms of dropping IE8 right now) than I would be if it actually mattered to their bottom line.

[happiefire]

I'd give you guys a heads up with 3 figures to show what life is like behind the great wall.
Share of Win xp = 63%, IE 8 = 35%, IE 8+6 = 45%
Completely different world huh?

[sitepodmatt]

Im all for completely dropping IE8, the popularity of html 5 boilerplate in itself making this tough decision will be an accelerator in itself. However given the resistence, how about as a interim compromise just change the browser happy warning from [if lt IE 8] to [if lt IE 9] on Tuesday 8th April 2014. Then review the numbers in three to six months for the more significant changes.

[jonyo]

+1 to the idea of at least changing browsehappy to show for ie8 on the 8th when support for XP is dropping.

[kiaking]

+1 to drop IE8. Let's destroy it.

[swashcap]

👍 Haven’t heard a client mention IE8 for over a year, if that means anything.

[daniel-kehorne]

Is it perhaps worth considering that in the first 3 estimates of usage, IE8 is the second most used version of IE?

[roblarsen]

Is it perhaps worth considering that in the first 3 estimates of usage, IE8 is the second most used version of IE?

And the fourth most used single browser "version"

I just had to grab these numbers last week (from statcounter, which skews towards the USA):

Browser	Market Share %
Chrome(all)	43.66
Firefox 5+	18.27
IE 11.0	8.27
IE 8.0	6.2
Safari iPad	5.19
IE 10.0	3.83
IE 9.0	3.5
Safari 7.0	1.76
Android	1.18
Safari 5.1	1.05
Safari 6.1	0.89
360 Safe Browser 0	0.84
Opera 15+	0.69
Other	4.66
===============

[QWp6t]

@daniel-kehorne

That's because IE8 is the most recent version of IE that is available to Windows XP users.

Now that Microsoft has dropped support for Windows XP, we can probably expect that number to shrink, but it will be the #2 most used version of IE for the foreseeable future (basically until XP dies or until Microsoft makes a newer version of IE available for XP).

[lhwparis]

please do not drop IE8 at the moment! about 5% is huge wait until its about 1-2% i know a lot companies using IE8 and no NOT with XP but with windows7 because IE8 is the default browser coming with windows7 and some companies do not upgrade the default browser!

[patrickkettner]

@timo are there many features that would come out that would make a future non-ie8 version of boilerplate untenable for the people still developing for IE8 sites? I am not sure why they wouldn't continue to use the legacy boilerplate for the legacy browsers.

On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 10:06 AM, Timo notifications@github.com wrote:

please do not drop IE8 at the moment! about 5% is huge wait until its about 1-2% i know a lot companies using IE8 and no NOT with XP but with windows7 because IE8 is the default browser coming with windows7 and some companies do not upgrade the default browser!

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
#1524 (comment)

[lhwparis]

for example the normalize.css 3.0 was a bigger one or remove of conditional html tags. i and many others has to develop for IE8 but we dont want to keep out future improvements on boilerplate so what i have to do in the future if IE8 support is killed, is to backport all that featrues.
question other way around: which IE8 things disturb you in h5bp? in my oppinion h5bp should be a starting point for all web projects and when IE8 is a significant part of the web it has to deal with it. its the wrong way to think when h5bp kills IE8 support its usage will drop faster.

[jpdevries]

@timo what about just not updating to the next major version of h5bp for IE8 projects? —
Sent from Mailbox

On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 3:01 AM, Timo notifications@github.com wrote:

for example the normalize.css 3.0 was a bigger one or remove of conditional html tags. i and many others has to develop for IE8 but we dont want to keep out future improvements on boilerplate so what i have to do in the future if IE8 support is killed, is to backport all that featrues.

question other way around: which IE8 things disturb you in h5bp?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
#1524 (comment)

[lhwparis]

like i said i dont want to miss new h5bp features only because i have to support ie8 thats odd. my projects are not IE8 only so i want to develope state of the art with newest boilerplate for modern browsers.

[stevemao]

👍

[benfurfie]

As others have explained earlier on, corporate adoption of newer operating systems and browsers has little to do with the cost and more to do compatibility and change management. The reality is that updating a browser within a corporate environment isn't as simple as updating 1,000+ machines. They need to test every plugin, piece of custom software and service that is used on a daily basis. If the new browser fails on any one of those tests, it isn't implemented.

Forcing these companies to upgrade isn't even as simple as EOL'ing the version of Windows they are using. I have a client who is runs an IT support company. He has two clients who are still running at least one DOS computer because the software they rely on to run their business was never updated.

The cost of moving from that system to another isn't worth the cost, both in terms of financial outlay and lost productivity/sales.

I'm not saying I don't agree with dropping support for IE8. I actually charge my clients double if they want IE8 support. And I also recognise that we're part of the problem – while we keep developing websites that are compatible with IE8, we keep allowing them to continue to use IE8.

However, the reality is that we're just one small piece of the puzzle. As for Microsoft making Windows 10 a subscriptions service? That doesn't even factor into the equation.

[clarkdemvher]

On Jun 16, 2015 1:56 PM, "Ben Furfie" notifications@github.com wrote:

As others have explained earlier on, corporate adoption of newer
operating systems and browsers has little to do with the cost and more to
do compatibility and change management. The reality is that updating a
browser within a corporate environment isn't as simple as updating 1,000+
machines. They need to test every plugin, piece of custom software and
service that is used on a daily basis. If the new browser fails on any one
of those tests, it isn't implemented.

Forcing these companies to upgrade isn't even as simple as EOL'ing the
version of Windows they are using. I have a client who is runs an IT
support company. He has two clients who are still running at least one DOS
computer because the software they rely on to run their business was never
updated.

The cost of moving from that system to another isn't worth the cost, both
in terms of financial outlay and lost productivity/sales.

I'm not saying I don't agree with dropping support for IE8. I actually
charge my clients double if they want IE8 support. And I also recognise
that we're part of the problem – while we keep developing websites that are
compatible with IE8, we keep allowing them to continue to use IE8.

However, the reality is that we're just one small piece of the puzzle. As
for Microsoft making Windows 10 a subscriptions service? That doesn't even
factor into the equation.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[jdalton]

👍 for dropping support for future releases.

Devs wanting IE8 support can always use an older version.

jQuery, Lodash, and possibly others are planning to
drop IE8 support as part of their next major version bumps.

[QWp6t]

sauce	marketshare	methodology publicly available?	notes
clicky.com	0.3%	nah
w3counter.com	0.5%	nah
analytics.usa.gov	0.4%	maybe?	raw data is available, uses google analytics for data
wikimedia.org	0.67%	unknown	uses piwik to gather data
statcounter.com	0.97%	yep
net marketshare	6.55%	yep	weights data by country, counts unique visitors instead of pageviews

[roblarsen]

Not surprisingly, nine months later, things have clarified.

[roblarsen]

So, I opened a PR #1892
Two things

• Is the PR missing anything (other than a shiv-less Modernizr, which I'll add shortly)?
• Should we remove the browsehappy block (the PR as it stands) or pull in the new version from Tell users that IE 8 and 9 are outdated #1748 Thinking about it, I think pulling in Tell users that IE 8 and 9 are outdated #1748 is a good idea, but I could be convinced otherwise (since my original inclination was to do away with it altogether.)

[JohnnyWalkerDigital]

Personally I'd feel more comfortable keeping BrowseHappy in. It has zero overhead and covers for any old IE users you may encounter. But maybe IE8/9 have so small a marketshare it's not worth it?

If we ARE dropping IE8/9 support, why not IE10, too? It's actually the least popular of the three and there's no versions of Windows that support IE10 that aren't upgradable to IE11 (which is probably why it's the least popular of the three).

Dropping support would also mean we could drop X-UA-Compatible which actually DOES have an overhead attached to it. See: http://stackoverflow.com/a/26348511/199700

[timmarinin]

@roblarsen: README still says that H5BP is IE8+

[JohnnyWalkerDigital]

@roblarsen The IE comment also still says lt 8 instead of lt 9 (or lte 9).

[roblarsen]

@marinintim Thanks for the heads up

[roblarsen]

@JohnnyWalkerDesign That's coming in as a separate PR.