I guess my general philosophy is that, for any browser with a decent market
share (>1% ish), it's my responsibility that the website *works*. It is not
my responsibility to make it look the same or run as fast in every browser,
which means IE 8 can get flat colors instead of gradients or a fallback if
it's not too time-intensive to write.

Google's web apps are dropping IE 8 support; visit Google Docs in IE 8 or
even an older Firefox and you'll see a warning. AFAIK, Google Search works
fine in almost any browser.

And the jQuery thing is true but the versions are off; 2.0 will drop oldIE
support, 1.9 will be the maintained branch that keeps IE support. See their
announcement:
http://blog.jquery.com/2013/01/15/jquery-1-9-final-jquery-2-0-beta-migrate-final-released/


Best,
Eric


On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 12:14 PM, Bill Dueber <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Keep in mind that many old-IE users are there because their corporate/gov
> entity requires it. Our entire univeristy health/hospital complex, for
> example, was on IE6 until...last year, maybe?... because they had several
> critical pieces of software written as active-x components that only ran in
> IE6. Which, sure, you can say that's dumb (because it is), but at the same
> time we couldn't have a setup that made it hard for the doctors
> and researchers use the library.
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 10:22 AM, Michael Schofield <[log in to unmask]
> >wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I'm having a change of heart.
> >
> > It is kind of sacrilegious, especially if you-like me-evangelize
> > mobile-first, progressively enhanced web design, to  throw alerts when
> > users hit your site using IE7 / IE8 that encourage upgrading or changing
> > browsers. Especially in libraries which are legally and morally mandated
> to
> > be the pinnacle of accessibility, your website should - er, ideally - be
> > functional in every browser. That's certainly what I say when I give a
> talk.
> >
> > But you know what? I'm kind of starting to not care. I understand that
> > patrons blah blah might not blah blah have access to anything but IE7 or
> > IE8 - but, you know, if they're on anything other than Windows 95 that
> > isn't true.
> >
> >
> > *         Using Old IE makes you REALLY vulnerable to malicious software.
> >
> > *         Spriting IEs that don't support gradients, background size, CSS
> > shapes, etc. and spinning-up IE friendly stylesheets (which, admittedly,
> is
> > REALLY easy to do with Modernizr and SASS) can be a time-sink, which I am
> > starting to think is more of a disservice to the tax- and tuition-payers
> > that pad my wallet.
> >
> > I ensure that web services are 100% functional for deprecated browsers,
> > and there is lingering pressure-especially from the public wing of our
> > institution (which I totally understand and, in the past, sympathized
> with)
> > to present identical experiences across browsers. But you know what I did
> > today? I sinned. From our global script, if modernizr detects that the
> > browser is lt-ie9, it appends just below the navbar a subtle notice: "Did
> > you know that your version of Internet Explorer is several years old? Why
> > not give Firefox, Google Chrome, or Safari a try?"*
> >
> > In most circles this is considered the most heinous practice. But, you
> > know, I can no longer passively stand by and see IE8 rank above the
> others
> > when I give the analytics report to our web committee. Nope. The first
> step
> > in this process was dropping all support for IE7 / Compatibility Mode a
> few
> > months ago. Now that Google, jQuery, and others will soon drop support
> for
> > IE8 - its time to politely join-in and make luddite patrons aware. IMHO,
> > anyway.
> >
> > Already, old IE users get the raw end of the bargain because just viewing
> > our website makes several additional server requests to pull additional
> CSS
> > and JS bloat, not to mention all the images graphics they don't support.
> > Thankfully, IE8 is cool with icon fonts, otherwise I'd be weeping at my
> > desk.
> >
> > Now, why haven't I extended this behavior to browsers with limited
> support
> > for, say, css gradients? That's trickier. A user might have the latest
> HTC
> > phone but opt to surf in Opera Mini. There are too many variables and too
> > many webkits (etc.). With old IE you can infer that a.) the user has a
> lap-
> > or desktop, and [more importantly] b.) that old IE will never be a phone.
> >
> > Anyway,
> >
> > This is a really small-potatoes rant / action, but in a culture of all
> > accessibility / never pressuring the user / whatever, it feels
> momentous. I
> > kind of feel stupid getting all high and mighty about it. What do you
> think?
> >
> > Michael | Front End Librarian | www.ns4lib.com
> >
> > * Why, you may ask, did I not suggest IE9? Well, IE9 isn't exactly the
> > experience we'd prefer them to have, but also according to our analytics
> > the huge majority of old IE users are on Windows XP - where 9 isn't an
> > option anyway. Eventually, down the road, we'll encourage IE9ers to
> upgrade
> > too (once things like flexbox become standard), and at least they should
> > have the option to try IE10.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Bill Dueber
> Library Systems Programmer
> University of Michigan Library
>