Exactly four years ago today, back on March 19th 2009, Microsoft first released Internet Explorer 8. In today’s fast changing web browser landscape that’s now very old indeed!
To allow us to continue to develop new and exciting features for MIDAS, occasionally it becomes necessary for us to “phase out” support for older browsers. This is when a browser’s market share drops very low, and it becomes too difficult and time-consuming to maintain compatibility with, limiting the capabilities of our scheduling software – which relies on your web browser.
For example, if you’re still running MIDAS in IE8 you’re already missing out on some features. This includes the ability to quickly drag-and-drop bookings around the booking grid to instantly reschedule them! We’ve not purposefully held this feature back from IE8 – the browser itself simply doesn’t support it!
| Chrome 25 | 89% |
| Firefox 19 | 80% |
| Safari 6 | 78% |
| IE10 | 74% |
| Opera 12.1 | 73% |
| IE9 | 43% |
| IE8 | 20% |
Source: caniuse.com
We have previously dropped support for Internet Explorer 6, back in 2010. Two years later in early 2012 we also dropped support for Internet Explorer 7.
Back in November 2012, we first indicated that in the near future we would be dropping support for Internet Explorer 8.
At the start of this year, we gave further notice that IE8 support would likely be dropped “during the course of 2013“. At the same time we introduced a new feature to help notify users if their browser is too old:
Major companies such as Google have already discontinued support for Internet Explorer 8. Google took the decision in September 2012 to drop IE8 support across their range of services (including YouTube, Gmail, Docs, Drive, Blogger, etc) with effect from 15th November 2012.
Microsoft’s 10th and latest incarnation of Internet Explorer was first introduced with Windows 8. Last month, IE10 also became available to Windows 7 users.
Given the global availability now of Internet Explorer 10, it is highly likely that we will be dropping IE8 support for our room scheduling software before the end of the year. (We’ve already seen a noticeable 4.6% drop in IE8 usage from our “hosted” clients alone so far in 2013!)
What does this mean?
Firstly, once we no longer support IE8, we won’t simply “block” MIDAS from being accessed via Internet Explorer 8! It may well be that subsequent updates to our browser-based scheduling software continue to function to some extent in IE8 after we officially drop IE8 support.
However, it does mean that we will no longer “test” MIDAS in IE8. Therefore, should you use IE8 and contact our support team with any issues, you will be advised in the first instance to update your browser.
Internet Explorer 9 and 10 continue to be supported at this time, along with recent versions of all other major browsers. A full list of supported browsers can be found at https://mid.as/browsers
…but I currently use Internet Explorer 8 – what should I do?
If you’re a Windows 7 user accessing MIDAS though Internet Explorer, you can update your browser to IE10. This won’t apply if you’re running Windows 8, which already comes with IE10!
Alternatively, if you’re a Windows Vista user and use Internet Explorer, although you won’t be able to update up to IE10, you can still update Internet Explorer as far as version 9.
Our decision to drop support for IE8 will only impact a very limited number of MIDAS users; specifically those who presently use MIDAS in Internet Explorer on Windows XP. Unfortunately, the highest version of Internet Explorer that can be installed on Windows XP systems is IE8.
If you fall into this category, the good news is that MIDAS is also supported in recent versions of all other major browsers too. This includes Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari. All of these can be installed on Windows XP to allow you to continue using MIDAS! However, given that Microsoft themselves will cease all support for their XP operating system in 2014, perhaps now’s the time to be thinking about updating your 12-year old operating system anyway!?
So we apologize in advance if you are one of the small handful of users this decision may affect later this year. It’s never an easy decision for us to drop support for a browser – but we hope you’ll understand our reasons behind this move, to allow us to continue to develop a world-class web based scheduling solution that’s at the forefront of today’s new web technologies and standards!
By giving plenty of advanced notice again now – and with the introduction at the start of the year of notifications if your browser is too old – we hope you’ll take the opportunity to update your browser before our support for IE8 ends later this year!