With our customers in mind, we have decided that as of November 15, 2013, DAISHO will no longer support Internet Explorer 8 or lower versions of the browser. We’ve created a detailed 10-point outline listed below, explaining the reasons behind our decision. We trust that as you read through each point, you’ll understand our reasoning and more importantly take action to protect your businesses.
Top 10 reasons why DAISHO no longer supports Internet Explorer 8:
- As of April 8, 2014, Windows will no longer provide any security protection updates for Windows XP. This means that as web designers and developers, we feel that it is our responsibility to discourage the use of outdated technology that can be harmful to our clients’ businesses.
- Google announced that as of December 15, 2013, its analytics features will no longer provide support for IE8. This means that tracking and reporting techniques will deteriorate rapidly for IE8.
- IE8 market share is dropping faster than IE7 or IE6. Only 4.6% of the world uses IE8 and a large portion of this percentage resides in China.
- Globally, JQuery is used for nearly half of all sites, and their 2.0 version will no longer support IE8 or any of its predecessors.
- Mobile use is increasing rapidly and new iOS devices are continuing to vary in size. This means that building a responsive website is becoming standard operating procedure. Unfortunately, IE8 is incompatible with many basic development technologies. For example:
- Modern, responsive websites require CSS media queries. With that, developers must implement old IE set of styles to lock responsive sites to a single resolution or write unorthodox JavaScript to circumvent possible issues.
- SVGs is a new technology needed to render smooth in high pixel density like iPads. This is not supported by IE8, which requires additional manual degradation techniques.
- Flash is not available on iOS video and HTML 5 is not supported by IE8 video as well. This means developers will have to go through great lengths to degrade between devices.
- Many modern and now commonly used aesthetic effects are not supported by IE8. Therefore, design is stifled by technology or lack thereof.
- CSS 3 canvas is not supported—meaning that many options are not available and developers are forced to depreciate modern features.
- Real-time style notifications are also not supported so developers need to literally hack things like long-polling—causing unforeseen issues.
- The large combination of issues caused by IE8 creates a great number of troubleshooting hours that ultimately increases frustration and cost.
Alex Freud from 4IT, one of the fastest growing IT companies in South Florida, confirmed companies that haven’t made the switch will find themselves in trouble come April 8, 2014. He added that these companies can expect to see an increase in security issues, little support from Windows and an overall low quality web experience.
DAISHO Creative Strategies values relationships with our clients. Although our team does not provide IT services, we would be happy to connect you with professionals who can make this change an easier transition. Please feel free to reach out to Frank Irias at 305.234.5617.
Sources
Troyhunt.com
http://www.troyhunt.com/2013/01/the-impending-crisis-that-is-windows-xp.html?m=1
Thinkdigit.com
http://www.thinkdigit.com/Software/Windows-XP-gets-more-outdated-no-more_18299.html#.UnkExo2xZjA
jQuery.com
http://blog.jquery.com/2012/06/28/jquery-core-version-1-9-and-beyond/
TNW: thenextweb.com
http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/09/16/google-analytics-to-drop-internet-explorer-8-support-at-the-end-of-2013/
w3schools.com
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_explorer.asp