Threshold to stop supporting Internet Explorer

Question

Possible Duplicates:
Should we support IE6 anymore?
IE6: To support or not to support.

I always wondered what people generally thought about IE support for web sites and applications. Currently, I believe that it is dependent on the audience.

In my opinion, a traditional company website targeted at general people should employ some effort to sufficiently work in Internet Explorer, but perfection is not required.

For a 'modern' web app aimed at smart people, Internet Explorer support is not something I care about.

Either way, as a developer I don't strive for IE support at all. I am happy to make the content readable and sufficiently workable where the audience is needed, though.

Apart from the fact that some things just aren't supported at all, and there are no efficient workarounds, the most important reason for my current position is that supporting Internet Explorer continues the vicious cycle where users don't move away from the browser purely because their web apps work.

What would you recommend?

Answer 1

This is a highly subjective question. For my personal website, I don't aim for compatibility with IE at all. For my company's web application, we must have complete compatibility with IE 7. But that's due to our client's requirements. Another company might have to maintain compatibility with IE 4 (god forbid). Ask yourself if the IE crowd is one you wish to count among your audience. After that, the answer of whether to support it comes easily.