As any of our clients, that we’ve built a website for, can tell you we follow an extensive testing process prior to and after launching a new website. Testing is performed for quality assurance. We want to ensure the website we built meets all the search engine requirements, works with all the browsers, and renders appropriately on mobile devices. Our Cross-browser compatibility testing has always included IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome. Cross-browser compatibility can prove to be difficult at times when working with older browsers such as Internet Explorer but we always follow through to the best of our abilities.
In all honesty, we have to admit our sigh of relief when we read about the latest news release from WordPress. They recently stated that they “are officially ending support for Internet Explorer [IE] versions 8, 9, and 10, starting with WordPress 4.8.” We, at Web Strategies, will be following in suit. As we continue to manage websites with the latest updates, we will not be supporting Internet Explorer versions 8, 9, and 10. “Microsoft officially discontinued supporting these browsers in January 2016, and attempting to continue supporting them ourselves has gotten to the point where it’s holding back development. I [Matt Mullenweg] realize that folks still running these browsers are probably stuck with them because of something out of their control, like being at a library or something. Depending on how you count it, those browsers combined are either around 3% or under 1% of total users, but either way they’ve fallen below the threshold where it’s helpful for WordPress to continue testing and developing against.”
This is not stating that WordPress websites or admin dashboards will not work in Internet Explorer. It will continue to work however, as WordPress continues to provide updated versions there may be limitations to the functionality that IE can support. What does this mean? It simply means that we will continue to perform all the appropriate testing that is available. We will continue to create a quality website that meets all the requirements. However, if you have users who are still using IE they could experience minor differences when navigating your site, differing from if they were to use the more popular browsers such as Chrome and Firefox.