limited graphic support…

…but full access to content

Old and obsolete browsers with limited capabilities with regard to web standards as they stand at present, get very little “design” on this site.

UPDATE: as of August 2016 IE8 and older versions will render pages on this site unstyled – stylesheets are disconnected.
Obviously that means info on this page about these old browsers, is outdated.

UPDATE: As Microsoft have announced that they will end support for IE11 and Edge legacy in 2021, support for all IE versions will of course ebb out here too.
As rendering in regularly updated Edge on Chromium is not expected to deviate sig­nifi­cantly from that of other browsers on that engine in the fore­see­able future, I see no point in checking it very often.

Main reason for “disgraceful degradation” in old browsers, is that few old browsers can be properly isolated from latest versions and styled on their own. This means old browsers put severe limitations on what can be done if given full access to design, and degrading design in latest browser versions for the sake of a few old ones is not an option.

As even very, very old and very obsolete browsers get access to all content they can make any use of – in line with the latest and greatest browsers released at any given time, I have no problem flagging an “any browser” banner here and there on this site even though pages appear far from identical in all browsers on earth.

any browser you like

texted: 'MINIMALLY SUPPORTED BROWSER'

If you see the “Minimally Supported” image on every page, you should not be in any doubt what it means. The browser is yours, and the support is minimal indeed.

For the life of me I cannot see why anyone is using crappy old browsers for anything but to test how crappy they are, but it isn't my business so … carry on.

Aha!

The fact that you can see these images at all – or read the equivalent text, here, on this page, is a big plus, because it means your browser has access. No closed doors around here, but also very few hacks and workarounds to help out old and weak browsers in the graphic design department.

the problem with old browsers

Browsers tend to mess up what they do not fully support, and old browser variants/​versions naturally are behind on web standards. Some tiny bit of unsupported or wrongly supported CSS can result in unreadable web pages in complex designs, and it is impossible to fix things browser version by browser version without introducing “version‐forking” based on browser detection – a very unreliable “solution” no matter how it is implemented.

I will not restrict my future design options, and “version‐forking” is not an option. Thus, either I let all old browsers render a mess, or I reduce the chance of old browsers getting access to design‐details they can mess up even if that means they also do not get access to design parts they can handle reasonably well. I chose the latter on this site, and the logical barrier became mediaqueries since those are used to tailor my responsive design anyway.

anyone can do better

That “everyone and their dog” who is ever so slightly involved in web design, can claim that they can do better than this for old and obsolete browsers, does not bother me one iota. Believe me, I can do too – much, much better.

However, creating and maintaining web sites where every little design and content detail has to be checked, maybe altered, rechecked, left out or workarounds included, because one of the hundreds of old browser versions won't play nice with something that is based on new standards the oldies do not support, is something I have spent far too much time on over the years.

The last Ford model “T” left the assembly line a very, very long time ago. Time to move on, leave nostalgic stupidity and obsolete browsers behind, and support what little progress there is across browser‐land.

sincerely  georg; sign

Weeki Wachee 04.may.2012
16.may.2012 - minor article revision and added screenshots in addendum
17.jul.2012 - page totally rewritten to reflect changes in site policy
19.jul.2012 - minor revision
27.feb.2013 - minor revision related to IE10
11.mar.2014 - minor revision
17.mar.2014 - added IE6 countdown in addendum
18.aug.2016 - UPDATE added - dropped IE8- support.
21.aug.2020 - added link in sidenote about MS dropping IE support 2021.
11.sep.2020 - updated with more loss of IE support notes.
last rev: 11.sep.2020


side notes.

IE6 and IE7 are definitely out

Older versions of Internet Explorer cause most problems, simply because so many of them are still in use. Old versions of other browsers still around, are so few they can be ignored.

IE6 was a slightly improved IE5.5, with extremely buggy support for web standards. Those who still use IE6 today, are not just living in the wrong decade but in my opinion also in the wrong century.

IE7 was more like a patch on a broken IE6. IE7 didn't have better support for web standards when it was released, than IE6 should've had in 2001 if Microsoft had been serious about developing their browser. IE7 should never have been released.

IE8 meant real progress from the MS camp back then, but by now it really shows its age and lack of HTML5/​CSS3 support.

IE9 sure wasn't bad when released, but it too is falling seriously behind by now.

All IE versions listed above cause support and maintenance challenges and added cost on web sites today, and phase‐out policies for old browsers means fewer and fewer sites actively test and support more than one or two versions back from the latest.
IE10 and IE11 are acceptable replacements for the time being, and there are of course other browsers…

why not “fix” those old browsers like you did before?

The simple answer is: why bother

As an example: when I designed and coded my first complete site, IE6 was on the rise to become the dominant browser with more than 70% market-share. Didn't matter that IE6 was/is an extremely weak and buggy browser. People used IE6, so we had no choice but to code for it. Over the years I became an expert at fixing IE, an “art” I still master better than most when it's called for (and someone pays well for my services).

Today things are very different. IE6, and its successor IE7, are known by all to be extremely weak and buggy browsers-versions, and no‐one with a choice and in their right mind will continue using those buggers today.

Thus, I do find it easy to focus entirely on more capable browsers, and leave IE and other equally weak and obsolete browser versions more or less out of the equation.

always keep up to date…

In the end there is only one way to secure trouble-free rendering on this and other web sites: use latest browser versions.


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