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Comment by onion2k | Hacker News Reader

Unless Microsoft ports Edge to Windows 7/8...

Support for Windows 8 ends in a month[1]. There's extended support for some users for a further 5 years, but if you're doing client work rather than writing bespoke software for a specific user then IE, and Windows versions less than 10, are effectively dead and gone.

It's perfectly reasonable to use web technologies that aren't supported by IE. Ideally you should have a bare HTML server-side alternative for those users, but that's true for everything that a user might not have (or have turned off, eg JS).

[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/13853/windows-lifec...

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> Windows versions less than 10, are effectively dead and gone.

Ha! Don't we all wish. Here's the marketshare numbers from this month [1].

- Windows 7: 43%

- Windows 10: 30%

- Windows XP: 6%

- Windows 8: 5%

And companies are going to be buying extended support for 7 no different than XP so you'll have to wait out that 5 years.

[1] https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share...

My point is that once Microsoft no longer supports any version of Windows that runs IE as it's default there's a very valid reason to stop supporting it as a 'mainstream browser', and using it to avoid technologies that aren't supported by it is somewhat dubious reasoning.

If users with IE6 and users with IE11 get a boring HTML-only-but-still-basically-functional website, and users with Edge 15 get the fancy WASM enhanced website, then that's fine in my opinion.

> IE as it's default

So even though Windows 10 still ships IE the fact that it's not a default is enough to not support it? Bad news for Firefox and Chrome then.

> If users with IE6...

Sure, albeit a bit extreme, that's more or less progressive enhancement.

So even though Windows 10 still ships IE the fact that it's not a default is enough to not support it? Bad news for Firefox and Chrome then.

Using Firefox or Chrome is a step sideways to use an alternative browser. That's great. The more up-to-date browsers people use the better in my opinion.

Using IE is a step backwards usually to support a specific technology that isn't supported by other browsers (and IE is often used along side another browser if that's the case), or because the user is looking for a particular experience. I don't see either of those reasons to avoid using WASM on a new website so long as there's also a fallback to support browsers without it, even if that's a limited version of the site.

Windows 7 support doesn't end until 2020 and as someone pointed out on HN this a few days ago, Windows 10 IoT and LTSB don't come with Edge, they do come with IE11. Those aren't meant for desktop use but some people do use LTSB there and they could be used for browser-based digital signage, kiosks, etc.

I agree that older browsers can get basically functional while others can get a progressively enhanced experience but a lot developers hate the idea of making something twice. Also, for what WASM is best suited for, I don't know that there's a point to making a basic, HTML-only version.

Edit: I wasn't thinking about WASM support through polyfill, I don't know what the performance difference is typically like.

https://www.netmarketshare.com is biased towards US corporate market but doesn't represents the real world. Check wikipedia stats for more generic stats worldwide. What really matters though is the stats of your web site, not the rest. eg. debian.org does not have the same stats as msdn.com.

Having worked for the federal government, let me assure you, Windows 7 will be around for a long time. But let me give a better example: Samsung mobile devices. Since Samsung was so clever in naming their default browser "The Internet", there are a metric ton of folks who will be using that browser on their Galaxy S5s for a few more years. I think many underestimate those two groups, the ones that won't upgrade due to simply misunderstanding the whole mechanism, and the ones that are locked in by government infrastructure.

Those are reasons to offer fallbacks and alternatives for users who don't have access to an up-to-date browser. They're not reasons to ignore modern web technologies that are a good fit for the problem you're solving.

> Windows versions less than 10, are effectively dead and gone

That is not how this works.

There are certain industries where these numbers are highly skewed toward Windows 7. Healthcare, hospitals in particular, are especially bad.

End of patch support of Windows 7 is 2020, of Windows 8 is 2023, of Windows 10 Mobile is 2020, of rest of Windows 10 is 2025. No one cares about your PR speak.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13853/windows-lifec...

So, is Windows 10 not really the last major release? Or do they have an end of service date for it just as a formality, and it'll probably get extended repeatedly?

"rest of Windows 10 is 2025" is not quite right.

There are different versions/branches of Windows 10 that come out every 6 months or so.

Some of the branches/versions are "Long term servicing branches" (LTSB) for enterprise environments, supported for 10 years. There are already two of those. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10#Updates_and_support

For everyone else, the branches are supported for 18 months. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-info.asp...

In reality Microsoft can stop supporting your computer's _hardware_ much earlier than that, if your device maker stops supporting it (reminds me of Andriod phones):

> A device may not be able to receive updates if the device hardware is incompatible, lacking current drivers, or otherwise outside of the Original Equipment Manufacturer’s (“OEM”) support period. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13853/windows-lifec...

And they've already stopped supporting some devices: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3216005/microsoft-wind...

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