On Windows platforms, Microsoft recommends using Microsoft Edge as your default browser and provide support IE 11 for backwards compatibility issues only.
What does that mean exactly?
This means that if you have functionality that is not supported on current versions of Edge, you should use IE 11 for that functionality. No modern web project built today by our agency has these requirements, so it’s not an issue for us or our customers. If it runs in a modern browser, then that’s what we support and build for.
What this doesn’t mean is we will make your website work in IE 11. Most of the time it will work ok, but sometimes certain things might not work as expected. Investing significant development time, is not worth it for our customers. This is the current reality of the web for IE 11, and not something we shy away from.
We also believe in progressing the modern web. Continuing to support outdated technologies does not benefit this end, and is actually worse for all of us. Sometimes less, is more we like to think. A commitment to providing the best experience for our customers, and theirs, means keeping pace with current technology. On the web, the core of this technology stack is the web browser.
We’ve come to this decision through our experience, and the benefits for customers come in development cost, both upfront and ongoing and the availability of modern front-end web frameworks and technologies. We can build better, faster, for less.
Browser support decisions have always been tricky, there’s always a balance to be had in terms of modern feature support and install base. This ship has long sailed for IE 11. Microsoft’s own advice is to use Edge, and that’s ours too.
But what if you want to pay extra to support IE11?
Well, we think you’ll come around but you’re welcome to discuss it further.
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