Hasty Treat - Should You Support IE11?

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: The episode argues that support for Internet Explorer 11 should be a data-driven business decision, not an emotional one. Scott and Wes explain how to evaluate actual traffic, customer value, and conversion impact before deciding to drop IE11, and they outline practical techniques for partial support, progressive enhancement, polyfills, and testing in virtual machines when legacy support is still required.

Main Topics: Whether to support IE11 at all: The hosts frame IE11 support as a strategic choice based on real usage and revenue impact rather than internet sentiment or developer annoyance. Using analytics and business value to decide: They emphasize comparing IE11 visitor counts and customer-paying behavior to the time cost of support, especially for stakeholders who need justification. What modern web features become available after dropping IE11: They discuss Flexbox, CSS Grid, CSS variables, and other modern capabilities that become much easier or fully usable once IE11 is no longer a target. Strategies for partial IE11 support: The episode covers progressive enhancement, graceful degradation, polyfills, and fallback patterns for selectively supporting only essential functionality. Testing legacy browsers efficiently: They recommend VirtualBox/modern.ie images and note BrowserStack as another option, focusing on low-cost ways to test IE11 when needed. Historical context and the burden of legacy testing: The hosts reflect on older days of testing IE7/IE on dedicated machines to show how much easier legacy testing is now, even though it still consumes effort.

Key Arguments: IE11 support should be based on your own analytics, not global browser stats, because your audience may differ significantly from the web at large. If IE11 users are not customers, or their share is tiny, the cost of support may outweigh any benefit. Decision-makers respond to revenue impact and usage data, not complaints that 'IE sucks.' Dropping IE11 unlocks modern CSS and layout tools like Grid and full-featured Flexbox, which can speed development and simplify code. Partial support is still possible via polyfills, fallbacks, progressive enhancement, or a reduced one-column experience. For small teams, free local virtualization can be the most practical way to test IE11 without paying for a service.

Data Points: IE11 global usage (caniuse.com): 0.44% - Used as a rough reference point, but the hosts caution against using global numbers alone to decide support. Alternative IE11 usage figure mentioned: 1% - Scott references another usage estimate while discussing declining support and adoption. Westboss.com IE11 usage: 0.06% - Used to justify not supporting IE11 on his personal site because the audience does not meaningfully use it. IE11 age: almost 7 years old - The hosts note IE11 is very old in web terms, reinforcing the argument for dropping it. Windows 10 end of life: October 14, 2025 - Mentioned as part of the broader timeline for IE11/legacy support, though the exact relationship was described as somewhat unclear. Sentry promo offer: 2 months free - Advertisement using coupon code 'tasty treat'. Error resolution improvement: from 5 hours to 5 minutes - Sentry official copy cited during the sponsorship segment. VirtualBox IE11 image size: 7 gigabytes - They recommend downloading the modern.ie VM image for testing IE11 locally. VirtualBox storage requirement: 15 gigs of free space - Minimum practical disk space suggested for the VM workflow. VM image validity: 30 days - They advise taking a snapshot of the clean image so it can be reverted after the time limit.

Pivotal Quotes: "do your homework, stop complaining on the internet, and make a wise, informed decision" — Scott Tolinski: Closing summary of the episode’s core philosophy for deciding whether to support IE11 or any contentious browser/platform choice. "I just don't support IE11" — Scott Tolinski: Scott explains his choice for his personal site, based on low user share and low business value. "If the money is coming in, who cares what browser they're using at the end of the day?" — Wes Bos: Wes argues that revenue impact should outweigh browser preference when deciding support policies.

Implications: For developers and product teams, legacy browser support should be a measured business decision. Dropping IE11 can reduce maintenance and unlock modern CSS/layout features, but essential flows may still warrant partial support or testing.