Remove Internet Explorer by default

[nickmccurdy]

Now that Microsoft is already redirecting Internet Explorer to Edge automatically, I'd argue it's already dying, and will be dead once support ends on June 15th.

[ai]

Agree. Let's wait a week-two for everyone to update and then will add it to dead.

[ntwb]

Hey,

Thinking of the corporate and enterprise markets, does anyone know more details on this auto-redirection policy, I’m wondering if this market might be using MSFT Group Policy to prevent those redirects.

I’ve got clients in Asia & Africa that still have IE requirements unfortunately and am thinking about how to continue supporting this in some way until they are in a position to remove that IE support

[ai]

@ntwb why custom Browserslist is not a solution for these clients?

You can add Browserslist config without not dead query. Or use not dead, ie 11.

[ntwb]

Thanks @ai, yes, this should work, I will test it now

[zloirock]

I hope that it will be a major bump of browserslist version.

[ai]

@zloirock why it should be major bump? Major bump is public API changes. Our “public API” is the meaning of queries, not the browsers inside queries (up to date quires updates it is core selling point of Browserslist).

We didn’t change the meaning of dead query. We change browsers in all queries (like last 2 version or > 1%) without major bump.

[zloirock]

Removing IE from defaults will be unexpected for many users. Even if it's no longer maintained by MS, too many companies are forced to maintain it for many different reasons, the most of them do not specify IE directly and use defaults. If it will be updated without a major bump, it will break their products.

[ai]

Even if it's no longer maintained by MS, too many companies are forced to maintain it for many different reasons, the most of them do not specify IE directly and use defaults.

If they need to support IE 11, they should explicitly explain it in Browserslist config by adding ie 11.

If we do not add IE 11 to dead query it will be breaking changes, since our contract with users was that dead will be actual.

(Also if we will add IE 11 to dead in major bump it will lead to big problems in ecosystem since different tools will have different target browsers for the same Browserslist config)

[zloirock]

It's your choice. I just said that without it you will break too many products. And this breakage can be a more significant problem than updating the ecosystem.

[RiZKiT]

Alright, now I know why our transpilation did not worked anymore as expected, we had "> 0.5%, ie 11, not dead", which worked before, instead of "> 0.5%, not dead, ie 11" which works now. 🙄

This was unexpected and "nicely" hidden, because browserslist is just a transitive dependency in our project.