Web development is an ever-evolving industry; there are always new technologies and methods being introduced that increase efficiency and/or users’ enjoyment of a website. In order for us to remain at the forefront of these new technologies we have decided to abandon support for Internet Explorer 8 from the release of our February 2014 template.
There are many factors that influenced this decision. First and foremost of these were the issues inherent to IE8’s structure and compatibility; many of our customers encountered errors with IE8, and large amounts of development time were spent fixing bugs that were exclusively associated with this browser due to its lack of support for modern developmental processes.
Secondly, the usage of IE8 worldwide has decreased dramatically, with fewer than 10% of internet users currently running it. In addition, Microsoft have officially announced that support for IE8 will end in April 2014, which means that any further developments in web technology will not be compatible with IE8.
By removing IE8 from our list of supported browsers we will be able to free up considerable amounts of development time, allowing our team to spend more time on what’s important for our customers. Our focus may now be on updates, bug-fixes and feature development for our existing and upcoming Joomla! templates and WordPress themes.
We do apologize for any inconvenience this transition may cause, and hope that the time saved with regards to development, as well as the additional features that future development will bring when freed from the constraints of outdated technology, will outweigh any negative consequences arising from this decision.
Thank you very much for your support, and we look forward to continuing to deliver the very best in Joomla! templates and WordPress themes for our members in 2014 and beyond.