Many people ask why we don't continue to support older web browsers when it comes to email or website development. The answer is simple. You can't live in the past forever.
Our webmail is supported in the following browsers, but even the list below can be challenging when you have multiple tool-bars and plugins installed. These all can effect how your email and websites run within the browser.
- Windows—Internet Explorer 7+, Firefox 3.6+, Google Chrome
- Mac OSX—Safari 4+, Firefox 3.6+, Google Chrome
As newer technologies become available that allow us to develop sites for mobile, or add fancy slide shows without the use of flash there will always be older technologies that just don't know what to do with the new code. In these cases we make calculated decisions based on whether the time and cost associated with building for multiple platforms and versions of browsers makes sense, or does prompting users to upgrade become a better alternative.
For Website development we use the latest industry standards for browser support. The Compatibility View feature in Internet Explorer is not supported.
We make our best effort given our clients budget to support older browsers to a certain degree, such as Internet Explorer 8. Often the best way to deal with issues arising from older browsers is to tell the browser to disable the feature, such as shadow borders and opt for a solid outline. Of course, given enough resources and time we can try to account for every nuance of a browser, however many of our clients do not have the budget associated with firms such as Amazon, Microsoft or CNN so instead we make calculated decisions and compromises to get the best value for our clients.
This is not a new idea, it has been going on since computers began. The difference now is it more obvious to the average users because the speed of changes in technology happens so quickly. Only a year ago Facebook allowed pages without SSL and now that is no longer possible. You now require SSL for any custom pages.
An example of some other site standards are at: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/56161/which-browsers-are-officially-supported-and-what-else-do-i-need
We are not the only company either, Microsoft will be ending support for Windows XP in the upcoming year. Salesforce.com does not support older web browsers for most of their system functionality. Even if a company can support multiple browsers the support might be feature specific such as Adobe lists.