Update on Twitter for Websites IE7 and IE8 browser support

[benward]

Hi everyone,

This post is to let you know about our plan to fully drop widgets support for IE7 imminently, and a proposal to drop support for IE8 in January 2015. Please read on for details and caveats.

About 18 months ago we updated our browser support for Twitter for Websites widgets-js to drop IE6 and move IE7 into a “partially support” state (https://blog.twitter.com/2013/tfw-ie6-ie7-support). I’m updating today to let you know that we’re considering the next round of browser support updates.

Critically, we’ll be dropping full support for IE7 imminently: Usage across the web has now dropped well below a 1% level. This will happen some time next week (after Thanksgiving.) Just as when we dropped support for IE6, you’ll see widget embed codes remain in your pages, functioning as links and HTML quotes.

We’ve traditionally taken a conservative approach to our browser support: We don’t want to be the forcing factor on any of your own browser support decisions. But the make-up of the web has changed and is now made up of a much more diverse array of physical devices. Thus we are also strongly considering dropping support for Internet Explorer 8 much sooner: Doing so will allow us to make widgets-js smaller, which is important for performance in general, while also freeing up much needed development time to better support widgets on Android browsers and mobile in general, which is rapidly approaching 50% of all web usage.

The proposal is that we’ll stop rendering widgets in IE8 at the beginning of 2015; some time in January. As above, IE8 will continue to render the links and HTML quotes that are present in your pages. No content will disappear! However, we’re aware that this is a shift, so if this would cause a problem for you, or if you think a more aggressive deprecation strategy like this will conflict with your work, please let us know here.

I would say that we’re pretty adamant we’ll go ahead dropping IE8 (usage is also not high), but I’m keen to listen out for general cases that we should consider delaying for.

Thanks,

Ben

[andypiper]

[stevefounds]

Thanks for your response

[andypiper]

Hi, I believe @benward was pretty clear that he was referring to IE7 as “well below a 1% level”, not IE as a whole. The reference to “50% of all web usage” was to Android browsers and all mobile devices. There is no intention to cease support for non-mobile users, just to reduce effort supporting older browsers like IE7 and IE8 (which themselves are going to become unsupported by Microsoft by early 2016).

If you have a specific concern about the proposal not to render widgets, but continue to post links and HTML quotes, in IE8 in January 2015, we’re listening.

[stevefounds]

OH. So hopefully I read that wrong. So just to be clear it is OK to use the Widget to embed in my website as long as I use a later version of IE… say 10 or 11. If that is the case I stand corrected and appreciate this support

[andypiper]

Absolutely! this is a statement of our intent not to use development resources on IE7 and IE8 support specifically. All other browsers we currently support will continue to be covered!

[stevefounds]

Ok thanks for allowing me my moment of despair… the world looks better now…

[benward]

Hi everyone. Thanks for your patience on this, we’ve now gone ahead and completed the change. widgets-js now exits early for IE7 and IE8 browsers. As explained in the post, users of those browsers will continue to see the raw embed codes (links and blockquotes); article content is always be preserved.

We and the team are now going to rush around gleefully tearing out our pre-ECMAScript 5 polyfills and other roundabout nonsense, so you might even see some small performance improvements too.

Thanks,

Ben

[niall]

[andypiper]