Tuesday, 14 November 2006 at 03:30
In an annoucement to it’s users today, eBay has decided that they will be cutting the number of officially supported browsers to their service. From now on, the only browsers with the eBay stamp of approval will be Internet Explorer 6 or higher on PC, Firefox 1.5 or higher on Mac and PC, and Safari 2 or higher on Mac.
So what does that mean for us, the web-going public? Well, for 95% of us (according to eBay’s statistics), absolutely nothing. The majority of eBay users are reportedly already surfing with these browsers, so they should notice no changes. It’s the remaining 5% that will need to watch their step.
On the whole, I think this is a welcome move. For far too long there has been the requirement to support software from the far-gone days of the first browser wars, which has arguably lead to nothing more than a slow-down in the improvement of internet content. But there is something important to be noted here.
...the remaining 5% are still using out-of-date or uncommon browsers.
The eBay.co.uk Team :: Link
The out-of-date bit is great. Sure, drop support for the IE4/5 and Netscape 4. Be my guest! But uncommon browsers? To my mind, there needs to be a degree of guaranteed support here.
Now this support doesn’t need to be flashy. It certainly doesn’t need to hold back whatever fancy new developments that eBay has in store. But it should provide the basic functionality of the site to people using technology that no doubt falls into eBay’s ‘uncommon’ list; such as those using screenreaders, or browsing on alternative operating systems.
So long as they don’t do something fishy and start blocking browsers that don’t meet their spec (and they keep their code and their styling seperated out) there’s no reason they can’t offer an accessible verison to these ‘uncommon’ variations that can’t display the new stuff.
That way we can enjoy whatever Web 2.0 goodness they’re going to come up with, while nobody needs to lose touch.