I Just Can’t Support You any Longer, Internet Explorer 8.

Posted on March 10th, 2013 in Articles

If you are viewing this page, there is a good chance that you are using an outdated version of Internet Explorer. If you try to leave this page, and you just get sent back here time and time again, this posting is written for you. And, I am sorry to say that I just cannot try to support your outdated version of Internet Explorer any longer.

So, I (professionally) suggest that you (please) update to a newer version of Internet Explorer or switch to using Firefox or Chrome. (Please!)

See Also: Dear Web User: Please Upgrade Your Browser | Smashing Magazine

You may be asking yourself, why has this guy finally given up on supporting Internet Explorer 8? Well, simply put, I just updated my site to be a responsive design which required me to use multiple backgrounds with CSS3. And, unfortunately, Internet Explorer 8 does not support CSS3.

As of this writing, my usage statistics for Internet Explorer 8 are at only 2.41%. So, I confidently feel that it is just no longer worth my time to create all of the workarounds that Internet Explorer 8 demands for this limited viewer audience.

See Also: Old Browsers Are Holding Back The Web | Smashing Magazine

Plus, Microsoft never pays the invoices that I’ve been sending them all these years for all of the extra work it takes to get my websites working for their older browsers. Therefore, instead of spending many, many more of my limited amount of hours bitterly and resentfully creating the workarounds, this time I have opted to write this informational posting (which was much quicker and much more fun, I might add) for all 2.41% of you.

For all of the students of mine (that are laughing pretty hard right now) and any other developers that are reading this and want to know how I did the redirect for Internet Explorer versions lower than IE 9… It’s pretty easy.

I simply used a JavaScript redirect on page load inside of an IE Conditional statement:

<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<script type="text/javascript">
    window.onload = function() {
        window.location = "../?p=1455"
    };
</script>
<![endif]-->

If Bob was your Uncle, I bet he wouldn’t use Internet Explorer.

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