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Comment by tartoran

1 day ago

Backwards compatibility. Apparently there are still some people stuck on IE11. It's nice that jQuery still supports those users and the products that they are still running.

33 comments

tartoran

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kstrauser  21 hours ago

This is the part that I find the strangest:

> We also dropped support for other very old browsers, including Edge Legacy, iOS versions earlier than the last 3, Firefox versions earlier than the last 2 (aside from Firefox ESR), and Android Browser.

Safari from iOS 16, released in 2022, is more modern in every conceivable way than MSIE 11. I'd also bet there are more people stuck with iOS 16- than those who can only use IE 11, except maybe at companies with horrid IT departments, in which case I kind of see this as enabling them to continue to suck.

I'd vote to rip the bandaid off. MSIE is dead tech, deader than some of the other browsers they're deprecating. Let it fade into ignomony as soon as possible.

  • sebazzz  20 hours ago

    “Support” here probably means “we’re testing jQuery for compatibility on those web browsers” - likely Safari from iOS 16 still runs this version of jQuery just fine. However, running automated test suites or support bugfixing for those clients is a lot harder than spinning up some Microsoft-provided VM with IE11 on it.

  • layer8  15 hours ago

    There are a lot of intranet web applications that require IE, and IE is still in support by Microsoft. Even on Windows 11 Edge still has IE Mode for that reason. IPhones stuck on older iOS version by definition aren’t supported by Apple anymore.

    • kstrauser  13 hours ago

      Use those browsers for the internal undead apps, but a modern browser for the Internet.

      Those phones are still supported. The most recent iOS 16 update was in September 2025.

  • croes  19 hours ago

    It’s rarely a horrid IT department but some special or legacy software without modern replacement

    • voxic11  14 hours ago

      But is this horrid legacy software really going to be pulling in a new major version of jQuery?

  • troupo  20 hours ago

    > Safari from iOS 16, released in 2022, is more modern in every conceivable way than MSIE 11.

    There are likely millions if not tens of millions of computers still running MSIE11. There are likely to be no devices running iOS 16

    • Strom  19 hours ago

      > There are likely to be no devices running iOS 16

      My iPhone X is stuck on iOS 16 with no way to upgrade.

      However, the phone is still working well. Despite being in daily use for 8 years it still has 81% battery capacity, has never been dropped, has a great OLED screen, can record 4K@60 video. It is far more responsive than a brand new 2025 $200 Android phone from e.g. Xiaomi. It still gets security patches from Apple. The only real shortcoming compared to a modern iPhone is the low light camera performance. That and some app developers don't support iOS 16 anymore, so e.g. I can't use the ChatGPT app and have to use it via the browser, but the Gemini app works fine.

jbullock35  1 day ago

Who is still stuck on IE 11---and why?

  • flomo  21 hours ago

    There are some really retrograde government and bigcorps, running ten year old infrastructure. And if that is your customer-base? You do it. Plus I worked on a consumer launch site for something you might remember, and we got the late requirement for IE7 support, because that's what the executives in Japan had. No customers cared, but yeah it worked in IE7.

  • epolanski  12 hours ago

    One of my clients in the past had, as of 2020, noticeable traffic from IE8, 9 and IE11. When I say noticeable I mean 10%+ out of million users.

    It followed the 8-17 monday-friday pattern.

    Essentially it was people at their work machines (posts, banks, etc) running corporate computers where modern browsers were not installed.

    We had a computer for manually testing every release on IE8 and 9.

    If somebody is looking for our products from those computers, we aren't gonna lose them.

    But as far as I know, that client dropped support for IE8 and IE9 in 2024 with IE11 planned to be dropped this year.

  • ddtaylor  1 day ago

    I think anything still using ActiveX like stuff or "native" things. Sure, it should all be dead and gone, but some might not be and there is no path forward with any of that AFAIK.

  • simondotau  20 hours ago

    Surely by this point someone has written a 0-day for MSIE 11 which gets root and silently installs an Internet Explorer skinned Chromium. If not, someone should get onto that. —Signed, everyone