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| ▲ | londons_explore 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| There are plenty of people with old android phones with no free disk space using ancient browsers. There are plenty of people still using windows 10 with updates turned off or wedged for whatever reason. These people just use the sites that work. They aren't computer experts, and might not even realise why half the internet doesn't work - they just think that's the way things are. |
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| ▲ | Macha 7 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Eventually you are making things worse for your vast majority of users when you have to e.g. make them install a native app for a video call or use a TLS version that is broken to support those Gingerbread Android phones | |
| ▲ | ben_w 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | While I agree with your general gist and definitely your final paragraph, > There are plenty of people with old android phones with no free disk space using ancient browsers. How many people have 10 year old phones? I've got an 8 year old iPhone XR which I keep around as a backup/travel device because it's not worth selling, and the battery is… not happy even in airplane mode. For me to have a 10 year old mobile browser, I'd have to have kept the iPhone SE 1 (or was it a 5c?) that I bought second hand in 2018, and not upgraded it since I bought it. I got rid of it because the battery wouldn't hold a charge for 10 minutes. | |
| ▲ | alternatex an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I've a Xiaomi Mi 6 phone (2017 model) that I still use as a fridge-mounted shopping list and it's using the latest version of Chrome. I think it would be quite the stretch to find a user using a 10 year old browser. | |
| ▲ | lukasbm 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I am an expert and half the internet does not work. That's just the way things are | |
| ▲ | zarzavat 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's fine to support such configurations by accident, but you shouldn't try to support them intentionally. You will end up dropping support eventually regardless but the skeletons will live on in your codebase as tech debt. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. | |
| ▲ | mattmatheus an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm not sure this is a realistic use case to try and support. A 10 year old android phone likely has a battery life measured in 10s of minutes, and really isn't something we need to worry about. | | |
| ▲ | swiftcoder 40 minutes ago | parent [-] | | You get the guy at the mall to swap in a new battery for $50 in most parts of the world. Its cheaper to do that every few years than buy a new phone, and I have several family members who refuse to upgrade on principle, because modern phones grew too large for their hands/pockets | | |
| ▲ | londons_explore 10 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Usually you get a guy at the mall to swap in a new battery for $10. For $50 you can buy a whole new phone (refurb that is 4 yrs old from some other country) |
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| ▲ | compiler-guy 26 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I support a bevy of older people with older computers, senior-citizen types. Upgrades are expensive. Monetarily, but also in retraining. These folks don't want the latest UI, they want what is familiar, and retraining is super annoying. Computers that were EOL a few years ago, running ten-year-old browsers, are absolutely routine. |
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| ▲ | jollyllama 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That's a choice by the people who make websites and browsers that forces the average person to buy a new computer. If we all cared about letting people use old computers, this wouldn't be the case. |
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| ▲ | esrauch 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I wouldn't conflate old computers and old browsers. I still use an over 10 year old laptop and it still has a latest browser. | | |
| ▲ | anoneng an hour ago | parent [-] | | Right. That problem is bloat, not lack of legacy support. Adding (already bloated) legacy support to already bloated software just makes bloat worse. |
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| ▲ | mananaysiempre 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There’s also being poor, or working for an organization that’s poor. In both cases the obsolete(?) software might be various degrees of intentional, but the alternative is usually worse anyway. |
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| ▲ | intrasight 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I doubt that for the hackernews audience that the age of the browsers is an issue. I would say in practice that 90% is nowhere near what is achieved - that it's closer to 90% and amongst the hackernews audience probably lucky if it gets to 50% because of our use of anti-tracking and ad blockers. |
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| ▲ | swiftcoder 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Respectfully, you may live in a bubble of fairly tech-savvy folks. Most of my extended family run 10+ year old laptops as their daily drivers. Their phones are often on the second or third battery replacement. They don't install updates very often (if at all). For the most part they are still more proficient with tech than many of their peers. |
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| ▲ | troupo 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Or use a smart TV (most apps on TVs are web apps. Enjoy: https://developer.samsung.com/smarttv/develop/specifications... |
