Remove support for all browsers older than IE11

[rnicholus]

Not associated with a milestone yet. At this point, this is simply a place where users can voice their opinion.

[akre54]

+1

we're IE8+, and it seems like most of the web is moving this way (jQuery particularly), will help keep filesize / shims down a huge amount.

[rnicholus]

The company I work for is also moving in this direction, which is why I brought it up. In the very near future, none of our products will support IE7 or earlier. Even if I keep IE7 support around a bit longer, which I may do, there are certain features that will not work in IE7. For example, I'm currently adding XSS/CORS support in 3.3. This will NOT work in IE7 and it's not worth anyone's time to make it work in IE7. IE9 and earlier are limited as well to some degree as far as CORS support is concerned (since they don't support pre-flighting requests), but I digress.

IE7 support for Fine Uploader may continue for a while, but its days are numbered, and there will start to be a feature parity gap between IE7 and IE8-9. I realize that some companies are still relying on IE7 due to an abundance of internal legacy tools, but this is a very bad place to be indeed.

[andrew-kzoo]

👍 At some point all versions of IE have made me 😢 However, I do have fond memories of IE 5.0 and its spiffy XMLHttpRequest object.

[rnicholus]

...via ActiveX. Yuck.

On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 2:43 PM, Andrew Collins notifications@github.comwrote:

[image: 👍] At some point all versions of IE have made me [image: 😢]However, I do have fond memories of IE 5.0 and its spiffy
XMLHttpRequest object.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/valums/file-uploader/issues/637#issuecomment-12856793.

[rnicholus]

IE10 appears to be decent, compared to older versions of IE (as far as
HTML5 support is concerned).

On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 2:53 PM, Ray Nicholus ray@garstasio.com wrote:

...via ActiveX. Yuck.

On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 2:43 PM, Andrew Collins notifications@github.comwrote:

[image: 👍] At some point all versions of IE have made me [image:
😢] However, I do have fond memories of IE 5.0 and its spiffy
XMLHttpRequest object.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/valums/file-uploader/issues/637#issuecomment-12856793.

[bs-thomas]

Please continue to support IE7. A lot of my clients from China still use that. I've already paid for a version, and willing to continue to pay with new features if IE7 can be supported.

Thomas

[rnicholus]

@thomas83 Hello there! Based on survey results, about 25% of those who responded
said IE7 support is important to them. It is likely that I will continue
support for a bit longer, but I will be taking another poll in the near
future to see if the user base has changed a bit. Even with IE7 support,
there is no way to guarantee future feature parity between IE7 and the rest
of the IE browsers, due to the lack fo HTM5 support in IE7.

On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 2:18 AM, thomas83 notifications@github.com wrote:

Please continue to support IE7. A lot of my clients from China still use
that. I've already paid for a version, and willing to continue to pay with
new features if IE7 can be supported.

Thomas

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/valums/file-uploader/issues/637#issuecomment-13026309.

[devmondo]

please support IE 7, our clients in corporate environments, and in third world countries still use IE 7 in mass

thanks in advanced.

[rnicholus]

I will take another poll during 3.5 development. For now, IE7 lives on. Support WILL be removed in the future at some point though, so start preparing your clients to upgrade to a modern browser.

[devmondo]

thanks for reply,
is it possible to keep support for IE 7 only for basic operation like the upload only, it is a good way to compromise.
of course as you said at some point IE 7 will die for real

[rnicholus]

Even after I "remove support" for IE7, I don't intend to start deleting code that will break FU in IE7. At some point, I might do that (to clean up the codebase) but certainly not immediately after I drop support for IE7). After I drop support for IE7 in the future, I'll just simply stop testing in IE7.

[devmondo]

thank you man, you are very reasonable, all the best on your work and thank you for offering us this library

[sebastiansulinski]

Hey - I couldn't agree more!
As long as we support all these outdated browsers - that long people will be using them - and it's a nightmare to all of us.

[rnicholus]

I agree with your statement, but, the fact is, I received a big response from IE7 users who also utilize Fine Uploader. By continuing support for IE7, I am prolonging the inevitable. More and more libraries and applications are dropping official support for IE7, and Fine Uploader will as well, at some point in the not-too-distant future. I described what this means, exactly, in one of my recent posts on this topic (in response to a concerned IE7 user). I just came across a new web-based app that only supports IE10 (actually IE9 to a limited degree), as far as IE goes. I like Jeff Atwood's style.

[ruud]

Unfortunately, we still need to support IE7

[barneycarroll]

@rnicholus what's the IE7 maintenance overhead? My understanding is that core functionality is already performing in IE7 — so is this a proposal to strip that out as a slimming down exercise, or is there new functionality you want to add that would be nightmarish to implement in IE7?

In any case, for my 2 cents, cross-browser support is the raison d'être for this plugin. The HTML5 File API polyfill is borderline trivial to implement single-handedly, whereas the appearance is something I'd overwrite anyway. Take out the difficult browsers and this just becomes a wrapper for the File API with a load of none-too-valuable bloat. Or am I missing something?

[rnicholus]

I would say you are grossly oversimplifying the work required to develop a good cross-browser uploading tool/library. My guess is you haven't attempted this yet, and you will be quite frustrated if you do.

My goal isn't to remove support for "difficult browsers". Cross-browser support is a big part fo this library, but that doesn't mean every browser since the beginning of time should be supported. It is prudent for libraries to push users to shed insecure and problematic browsers, such as IE7, IE6, Safari for Windows, etc. The future of web applications depends on it, in fact.

There is a good amount of overhead involved when supporting IE7, such as securing an environment with a real IE7 browser, and actually testing all features in IE7. Some features will never work in IE7, such as CORS support.

Also, I'm not sure what "bloat" you are referring to. Most, if not all features, have been heavily requested by users of this library. Perhaps you are also confusing bloat with code required to ensure everything works properly, cross-browser.

[barneycarroll]

@rnicholus sorry if my second paragraph implied a dismissive attitude to the work concerned — that's really not at all what I wanted to convey. Perhaps it'd be better to ignore that and go back to the first paragraph: isn't core functionality already present for IE7? Is it a case of removing it to strip out inconsistencies, or code that acts to the detriment of the other browsers; or is it that you have more work planned which is simply not cost-effective (or impossible) to implement in IE7?

Just to be absolutely clear: my interest in this project is precisely because of my appreciation of the work. I think it's wonderful and I'm only so involved in this topic because, as you guess, I have no intention of building a new library with this wide range of support myself: I have tried and found it immensely difficult — but the key point of difficulty was legacy browser support, which is why I would rather use file-uploader.

Perhaps you are also confusing bloat with code required to ensure everything works properly, cross-browser.

Exactly the opposite: I'm saying that this is precisely what makes file-uploader worthwhile. But I also believe that "Remove IE7 support" and "everything works properly, cross-browser" are somewhat contradictory aims.

[rnicholus]

I think I've already addressed your points previously in this thread. Should Fine Uploader support IE6, IE5, Netscape, and Mosaic as well? Certainly we have to draw the line somewhere. I can't support every browser since the beginning of time. Surely you don't take "cross-browser" to mean every browser ever created. IE7 is quickly falling into the same category as IE6. It is insecure, its market share is quite low, and, quite frankly, its becoming more trouble than its worth to support. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I don't plan on ripping out code that allows existing features to work in IE7 immediately after I drop IE7 support, but, at some point that may happen. Why? To keep the codebase clean.

[drsii]

+1

[behigh]

It is a good idea, as it will be less support the faster it disappears.

[FastieSystems]

I recommend an objective measure. I'd like to completely ignore IE6 and especially IE7 for the Web sites I build, but my decision has to be based on the actual traffic results experienced by my clients. My own threshold is 2%. IE6 is now under 1%, so I give that browser only a passing nod. IE7 is at about 3%, which is higher than the global share by half a percent and above my threshold.

In short, I still pay attention to IE7 whether I want to or not.

Here's another metric. Across the sites I've built about 20-25% of the visitors are using Windows XP. Microsoft support for XP ends 409 days from today. That should be the stake in IE6's heart and should go a long way to killing off IE7.

Consider tabling withdrawal of support for IE7 for one more year.

[rnicholus]

@FastieSystems Currently, one of my big concerns is time, and I have very little of it since I am the only resource on this project, and I am only able to work on Fine Uploader in my free time. However, that may change soon. If it does, I would expect a lot of big improvements to this library, including continuing support of IE7 along with support of additional browsers not currently supported.

[FastieSystems]

@rnicholus Don't get me wrong - I think dumping older browsers is a good idea. It's just a question of when. I know it will make your life easier when your code has fewer conditions to deal with, which will obviously save you time.

[raj-jkr687]

hi.

If u stop the support of ie7 it yucks n big headache for developers.Pls support until the ie11.

[JonoB]

Dump IE7 support as soon as possible. We don't allow any browsers older than IE8 in our apps.

[bs-thomas]

@JonoB what effect will you have if IE7 is still being supported? Maybe you should consider taking back what you say before developers who are required to still support this browser start challenging you.

[JonoB]

@thomas83 You can challenge me as much as you want, starting now if you wish. No need to threaten me.

As far as I am concerned, IE7 is a non-entity. In case you missed it, the first item in this issue clearly says: "voice your opinion". That's what I am doing. So yeah, I don't take back what I say.

I can totally understand @rnicholus frustration in writing code to support that piece of crap browser. As such, I fully support him if he wishes to dump support for IE7.

[devmondo]

@thomas83 this library is created by the developer and he has the freedom to do what ever he wants, what we should be grateful for at the first place is that he opened a topic to ask us our opinions and that is really kind of him, you can always pay him as you pay any developer to create custom functionality for you, but right now it is free product and we should accept it as it is and if the developer listens to us then that is more than enough.

[barneycarroll]

I think everybody's getting a bit carried away with this. It's Github — we're all free to fork file-uploader-legacy or somesuch and maintain as necessary, right? (for those who wish to keep legacy support going)

[rnicholus]

This is the first case up for development in the 6.0 release.

[rnicholus]

This appears to be complete and is currently being staged on the release/6.0.0 branch.

[rnicholus]

Changed to reflect my desire to remove support for all versions of IE older than IE11. This will mark the start of a move away from legacy support and towards support of modern browsers only. This will likely occur in 6.0 or a later major release.

[rnicholus]

New goal for 6.0 - remove support for all browsers older than IE11.