Almost all new browsers now automatically update themselves regularly. This affect has been tremendous as old versions of FireFox, Safari and Chrome account for very small amounts of traffic on our site. This allows us to develop content optimized for modern browsers much more reliably.

Internet explorer continues to be the exception to this rule. While there is hope that this will change with version 10, we’re still stuck with manual updates for all the old versions. And updating has been a slow process. However recently Internet Explorer 7 has dropped to less than 3% of our overall traffic. And as we continue to use newer features, supporting Internet Explorer 7 is becoming a greater and greater headache.

We are considering flagging IE7 as an outdated browser. This would provide a warning to all visitors across the site that their browser needs upgraded. See my Out-of-date Browser Warnings post for an example. However we know that this change will have support implications across the university.

Let us know in the comments what you think. Should we discontinue support for IE7 and flag it as an out-of-date browser?