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Let's say I outsource the development of an HTML/JS/CSS/AJAX web app targeting ONLY modern browsers. If it matters, assume there are 20 unique templates used in creating the application (to give an idea of the size of this application). My understanding is that much time/money is spent hand tweaking the code to make it consistent among browsers. I'm interested in ways to minimize this expense.

As of June 2011, Google Chrome Frame is advertised to not require administrator privileges for the user to download and install for IE 6-9, which essentially runs Chrome as a plug-in inside IE to avoid browser incompatibility issues with IE (substituting potential compatibility problems with Chrome, which should be much less than IE).

If I were to direct the developers to target only modern browsers minus IE, requiring all IE users to download Chrome Frame instead, would this path translate into any significant development cost/time savings? (My users are engineers and may be willing to accept this tradeoff since this application is not offered elsewhere.) I just don't have a feel for how much effort is made for IE versus other (modern) browsers, and wondered if anyone with experience could comment whether this makes cents (pun intended) or is simply crazy.

Also, any downside to doing this?

ggkmath
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3 Answers3

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You will save time and money. I have done something similar for our in-house application. The site runs only on webkit browsers (chrome and safary).

We save a log of time, because the css and JavaScript can be more efficient, and most importantly, we do not have to test every change on 6 different browsers. This is very liberating.

If your users allow you to exclude IE, i recommend it.

Emil
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  • By "exclude IE", do you really mean use IE with Chrome-Frame? – ggkmath Aug 06 '11 at 02:37
  • Yes. When using Chrome Frame IE renders the page as if you are using Chrome. It should not matter if your users use Chrome, or IE with Chrome Frame. – Emil Aug 06 '11 at 02:49
  • Good to know. I'd probably want to include just Webkit and Gecko (e.g. Firefox), then leave IE users to download Chrome-Frame. Should still expect to see savings though, right? – ggkmath Aug 06 '11 at 02:53
  • If you support both Webkit and Gecko, you should be able to support IE9 and the upcoming IE10. They are pretty good. Not supporting IE8 or less will save you a lot of time. – Emil Aug 06 '11 at 02:57
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  1. It all depends on your application and developers. With enough knowledge it's possible to write code without even checking in IE until the end but only keeping it in mind and have 99% of things as expected in ie8-9, 80% in ie6-7.

  2. If your users are engineers I can hardly imagine them using ie in the first place and even if so definitely not ie6/7.

  3. Even if you don't go with Chrome-frame, given above points, if you're willing to go with slight to mild visual design degradation you can get away without specifically targeting ie...

Here's a little ie9 promo for ya :)
http://varonasf.com/ie69/
(only works in decent browsers)

Zhenya
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This is the design decision behind Google Frame. You always have the choice of either designing for the lowest common denominator, i.e. IE6, and having a limited function site, or designing for a reasonable HTML 5 standard and forcing users to upgrade.

...allowing users to access modern web technologies like HTML5 on legacy browsers.

http://blog.chromium.org/2010/09/google-chrome-frame-stable-and-speedy.html

Steve-o
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