Why we don't support IE11

The case for not supporting Internet Explorer 11

At Pulley, we have long believed that our websites should be accessible and usable by the largest audience we can support. In the past, this has meant supporting legacy versions of Internet Explorer in the interest of maintaining this vision. In 2019, the landscape has changed.

Microsoft has made some dramatic business decisions regarding IE support and development, starting with the discontinuation of support for IE10 and below in 2016. This pivotal move reframed the development for legacy browsers as a security risk, rather than an altruistic attempt at global support. Following this decision, Microsoft has continued to release statements that posit the use of Internet Explorer as an inherently dangerous decision.

In software, known security flaws exist that provide malicious parties the opportunity to exploit users who haven’t patched them. This, in essence, makes Internet Explorer a huge target. By supporting Internet Explorer, we are also supporting the vulnerabilities that come with it—this is a non-negotiable tradeoff that we have assessed carefully as an organization.

We are putting your business and your users at risk by providing this support. In the same way a mechanic will respectfully inform you when a car is no longer safe to be used anymore, we are declaring that the development and support of these browsers is a dangerous and potentially reckless decision.

In addition to safety, the usage statistics have dramatically shifted in recent years. When the Internet Explorer market share correlated with a large opportunity for profit, the argument could easily be made to support these users.

Again, this is no longer the case. Since January 2015, the market share of Internet Explorer has steadily declined from over 20% to under 6%, and this is only an assessment of desktop browsers. As mobile traffic continues to dwarf desktop traffic—and because the development of the software has ceased entirely—this trend will continue twofold.

This downward trend thus ends up affecting business. Taking the numbers into account, we anticipate that by subtracting the development and maintenance costs incurred by you as a client from the revenue earned from users in this 6% demographic, we will observe a negative number. In other words, your maintenance costs to support Internet Explorer exceed the profit obtained from these users. This simple math is reason enough to halt this practice.

Going further, the support for this 6% can end up punishing the other 94%. In order to fully support Internet Explorer, our team needs to compile modern code into legacy spaghetti, and this bundle is served to everyone. There are hacks and makeshift solutions implemented to mimic the experience of newer browsers. The time that we are spending guaranteeing support for Internet Explorer can be better spent offering you new features and quality improvement for the other 94%.

We understand that with the current landscape of technology, the continued use of Internet Explorer is often not a personal choice, but instead a forced one—one that is propagated by the cost prohibitive resistance of updating corporate IT applications.

This is why we will not shut out users of these browsers entirely—it is likely not their fault. We will simply provide a fallback experience that assures that the core content and messaging is visible, but features are selective. This provides us with a solution that does not punish this demographic of users, but instead provides a well-intentioned incentive to make a change.

In conclusion, there are pragmatic, financial, and security concerns associated with this decision, all that have now outweighed the case for providing Internet Explorer support. This trend has been emerging for years, and the internet has hit the threshold at which these factors become impossible to ignore. The decision has been evaluated as a win-win for client and business, and we appreciate the understanding.

If you have any questions, please contact us.

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Because of the increasing incurred costs of providing legacy Internet Explorer support and the associated QA, we charge a premium if the client requires it. This forces a reconsideration of the line item, rather than having it included by default. We trust our clients will take these words to heart, and understand our decision, while appreciating the concerns associated with this level of premium support. This is a business issue, not a development one.