Browser Support, Fall 2014

From time to time we update our browser support policy. While you can always find the latest version of our browser support matrix in our Frontend Handbook, what's not there is why we made each decision.

Here's a look behind the curtains: what we mean by “support”, what data we gathered and analyzed, and the changes we made to our support matrix.

“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

The definition of “support” can be slippery. In essence, we mean “it works well”. Not “it looks the same”, or “it works the same way”. What’s appropriate for a mouse-and-window PC is not neccessarily appropriate for a finger-and-fullscreen phone. And that’s okay.

We more fully articulate this in our Frontend Handbook:

Philosophy

• We produce semantic, HTML5-compliant markup, CSS, and scripts.
• We believe users should be able to consume as much visual and interactive richness as their browser can support.
• We test against a specific whitelist of mainstream desktop and mobile browsers.
• We ensure our sites function correctly and look as good as possible on these browsers.
• We recognize that not every browser functions in the same way and requiring an identical experience imposes false limitations on users with modern more capable browsers.
• We do not require an identical experience. Instead we strive for an optimal experience for each user’s environment.
• We recognize that some browsers are incapable of properly rendering standards compliant code. We do not code to support these browsers unless explicitly requested and specified for the poject.

Current Trends in Browsers

We make our decisions based on data, and we have a number of sources. For macro trends, we refer to StatCounter.

When looking at mobile devices, the Android Developer Dashboard provides active device versions, and the Apple AppStore Dasboard does the same for iOS devices. (Both use data from their respective platforms’ app stores.)

For views into specific industries or demographics, Google Analytics offers great value. Quite a few of our clients’ sites have very focused demographics, ranging from accounting and insurance professionals, to security and technology. Others provide a broad consumer survey. We draw from these to better understand and refine the high-level data drawn from other sources.

Android Phones and Tablets

Looking backward, Android 2.x devices are becoming pretty darn scarce. While Google reports that about 10% of Android worldwide devices are running 2.x, our data in the US puts that number closer to 4%. With Android accounting for, at most, 18% of traffic to consumer web properties (and just a third to a quarter of that at tech and professional sites), then at best Android 2.x represents 0.7% of traffic to our clients’ sites.

Android 4 is the most broadly deployed version, so we concentrate our testing on Android Browser (on Android 4.1–4.2) and Google Chrome for Android (on Android 4.3–4.4).

Looking forward, Android 5.0 (sometimes called “Android L”) is around the corner. Aside from Google’s Nexus devices, it typically takes a few months before major new Android versions start arriving at stores, and can be up to a year before there’s significant uptake. We’ll be watching Android 5, but we don’t start formal support until you can walk into a store and buy a phone with it.

The real trend of note in Android is steadily larger screen sizes:

Not even 1% of Android devices we saw in our broad consumer data last month had screens under 4".

iPhones and iPads

As usual this fall, Apple introduced new iPhones, a new version of iOS, and quietly dropped support for older devices.

Safari on iOS 8 changes how it treats viewports, and we had to update a few sites to allow for this. Aside from this, compatibility is pretty good. The new larger iPhones require a look, but since we already test on 4–5" Android phones, we haven’t had any real surprises here.

Past experience tells us that a third of iPhone users are very slow to update to the latest OS, so we will be monitoring iOS 7 use rates and continue supporting it for the coming year. iOS 6 is effectively gone, though, so we’ve dropped it from our standard matrix.

PCs and Macs

We haven’t changed our Windows Internet Explorer support policy lately. Although Windows 10 has been announced, it’s not yet a factor.

On Mac, we’re adding support for Safari 8 on Mac OS X 10.10 “Yosemite”, and Safari 7.1 on 10.9 “Mavericks”. We’re dropping support for Safari 6, as it’s dropped to just 1.1% of total web use-share:

(This table combines Yosemite and Mavericks Web Use Share from GoSquared with earlier pre-Yosemite data from Chitika. The figures for versions 10.8 and earlier are somewhat speculative; salt to taste. To calculate share of total, we use the 16.55% Mac web share from StatCounter’s August data.)

Current Support Matrix

Desktop Browsers

We dropped Safari 6 and Mac OS X 10.8, added Safari 8 and Mac OS X 10.10. No recent changes to IE, Chrome or Firefox.

Mobile Browsers

We added Apple's iOS8 on all supported devices, and dropped iOS6 devices. (This means no more non-Retina iPhones—high-res all the way!) On the Android size, we dropped Android 2.x, added 4.4, and set a minimum screen size of 4". We've also simplified the table for ease of reading.

You can always find the latest version of our browser support matrix at http://handbook.imarc.net/frontend

Comments or questions? Give us a shout on Twitter @imarcagency or on our Facebook page!