Time to drop IE7 support in v15.1?

In the next major release of DevExpress (v15.1), we are going to drop support for Internet Explorer 7 (IE7).

Here's why...

Legacy browsers like IE7 are a headache for web developers to support. This includes control and framework developers like DevExpress. The older browsers prevent us from moving forward.

We have a lot of code that supports IE7 and IE7 only, be that code HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or C#. Dropping support for IE7 means that we no longer have to carry that code forward and we no longer have to provide support for that browser version in the new controls and features we will be releasing this year.

And there are other reasons to drop IE7 now...

Less than 1% Usage

Worldwide usage of IE7 is less than 1%.

For less than 1 in 100 browsers, providing support is no longer cost-effective, whether that is DevExpress maintaining support for its range of older and newer controls, or you as developer of a web application.

How long will Microsoft support IE7?

ZDNet reports that Microsoft is about to drastically limit which IE versions it will support in its operating systems. In essence, only the latest browser version for a given OS version:

Starting January 12, 2016, Microsoft is changing its list of supported Windows configurations. Effective that date, the company said in an announcement today, “only the most recent version of Internet Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive technical support and security updates.” - Ed Bott, ZDNet

Feedback

I would love to hear your feedback on this decision. How will this affect you?

Are you still supporting IE7? If you still have to for the indefinite future, you can use v14.2 of our ASP.NET controls, but my advice is to move forward. Once IE security updates are no longer available, your risk window will start to expand.

Leave me a comment below or email me directly: mharry@devexpress.com

Thanks!