small refactorings

[JakeChampion]

This also bumps the minimum nodejs version from 12 to 18 which is the current LTS

• Use simpler assertion as this test compares strings not sets or arrays
• perf: only retrieve detect if we are attempting to wrap the polyfill in a feature-detect
• update a bunch of dev-deps to latest minor or patch versions

[romainmenke]

This change implies a new semver major release.

Should we skip 18 and go straight to 20?
20 will reach LTS in ±2 months which isn't that far out. Node 20 will be supported until 2026-04-30.

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Are there other things that should be changed before releasing this?
I started a list once but never did a sweep of the codebase to gather more items : #1206

[JakeChampion]

I do wonder if we should think about dropping support for IE 9 and possibly IE 10 -- However I don't have stats I can look at to help make that decision

[romainmenke]

Makes sense to me.

I can share some stats and can also take a look at the stuff the webdx group has been investigating. But I am fairly certain that anyone needing to support IE 9 / 10 can continue to use an older version of the library.

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We should do the same for old browser versions of other vendors.
IE 11 was released in 2013, maybe we can align around this?

Last release of Chrome in 2013 was 31, which is not that far from the current version which is 29.

[JakeChampion]

We should do the same for old browser versions of other vendors.
IE 11 was released in 2013, maybe we can align around this?

I like this a lot 👍

[romainmenke]

I'll move this to an issue somewhere tomorrow 👍

[romainmenke]

LGTM!