5 ms·

Facebook no longer supports IE7

138 points by fosk 15y ago

twerth 15y ago
I'm only supporting IE8 and above now. The numbers for IE6 and IE7 are too small to care about anymore. At least for my demographic.
- navs 15y ago
  I believe Google has dropped support for IE6 and IE7. That's my excuse.
synae 15y ago
Funny how the news is expressed as "use the old, unsupported version of the site with an old, unsupported version of a browser".
0x0 15y ago
What's the point of writing that developer toolbar user-agent switch comment? Does setting the UA to IE7 cause the glitches? Because it surely won't change Safari's webkit engine into any sort of IE7 compatibility mode. So are FB conditionally sending broken CSS to IE7?
- johnbender 15y ago
  It appears that FB is using UA sniffing (server side or otherwise) and not conditional comments, or something else rendering engine specific, to alter the page.
mzarate06 15y ago
Not a very accurate title. It looks like most of Facebook still works fine w/IE 7, it's just the Timeline that's affected. For example, I can login, view a friend's profile, view my news feed, like something, make a wall post, play a game ... all fine in IE 7. And, the experience is very similar, if not entirely, to that of doing the same in Firefox 9. Should it have been entirely true, this would have been a great step for the web, even if only a small one.
- jonursenbach 15y ago
  I think you're confusing "supports" with "works". Facebook may work under IE7, but they aren't supporting it anymore. Any new stuff that they do, don't expect it to work in IE7.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
suyash 15y ago
I didn't even knew how the author changed User Agent to be IE 7 from Safari..wonder how accurate it is to real IE 7.
- bryanh 15y ago
  Not at all, webkit still renders everything. Presumably Facebook is delivering different html/css based on the spoofed user agent.
joseacta 15y ago
Wouldn't make sense to place a message saying IE7 is no longer supported and a link to upgrade? I think most Facebook users won't know what's wrong with their computers.
LocalPCGuy 15y ago
It's a horrible article and misleading title. Sending different CSS based on the browser UA doesn't equal not supporting a browser. In fact, just the fact they are doing that shows that they are still supporting IE7 by not pushing features that would be broken to it. That being said, I would guess that bug fixing and the like for IE7 are probably prioritized lower, hence things like the busted layout shown in the article picture. I'll wait for the official announcement from Facebook, just like they announced when they would stop supporting IE6.
- RandallBrown 15y ago
  It's not a bug for IE7. It's just that when you switch the user agent to IE7 it's using the IE7 CSS to render the page on Safari. Obviously that stuff isn't going to work.
  - LocalPCGuy 15y ago
    It doesn't say the screenshot is from Safari, and I have seen that whitespace when I've testing things in IE7. Funny thing I found earlier when I went there in IE9 in IE7 emulation mode - Facebook crashed the tab every time I tried to click on an individual's profile (Timeline enabled or not.) Didn't bother to actually load a VM to test a true instance of IE7.
- human_error 15y ago
  It pretty much means not supporting the browser since new features won't work and they don't even fix the issues.
g3orge 15y ago
Facebook can easily help the random user to upgrade their browser. And it has to.
tsiokos 15y ago
It seems that facebook white space "quirk" happens when document mode is set to IE8/IE9 standards. I think IE7 users shouldn't have a problem. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/60164/Forum%20Posts/facebook.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/60164/Forum%20Posts/facebook.png

138 points by fosk 15y ago

I'm only supporting IE8 and above now. The numbers for IE6 and IE7 are too small to care about anymore. At least for my demographic.

navs 15y ago
I believe Google has dropped support for IE6 and IE7. That's my excuse.

synae 15y ago

Funny how the news is expressed as "use the old, unsupported version of the site with an old, unsupported version of a browser".

0x0 15y ago

What's the point of writing that developer toolbar user-agent switch comment? Does setting the UA to IE7 cause the glitches? Because it surely won't change Safari's webkit engine into any sort of IE7 compatibility mode. So are FB conditionally sending broken CSS to IE7?

johnbender 15y ago
It appears that FB is using UA sniffing (server side or otherwise) and not conditional comments, or something else rendering engine specific, to alter the page.

mzarate06 15y ago

Not a very accurate title. It looks like most of Facebook still works fine w/IE 7, it's just the Timeline that's affected. For example, I can login, view a friend's profile, view my news feed, like something, make a wall post, play a game ... all fine in IE 7. And, the experience is very similar, if not entirely, to that of doing the same in Firefox 9. Should it have been entirely true, this would have been a great step for the web, even if only a small one.

jonursenbach 15y ago
I think you're confusing "supports" with "works". Facebook may work under IE7, but they aren't supporting it anymore. Any new stuff that they do, don't expect it to work in IE7.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

suyash 15y ago

I didn't even knew how the author changed User Agent to be IE 7 from Safari..wonder how accurate it is to real IE 7.

bryanh 15y ago
Not at all, webkit still renders everything. Presumably Facebook is delivering different html/css based on the spoofed user agent.

joseacta 15y ago

Wouldn't make sense to place a message saying IE7 is no longer supported and a link to upgrade? I think most Facebook users won't know what's wrong with their computers.

LocalPCGuy 15y ago

It's a horrible article and misleading title. Sending different CSS based on the browser UA doesn't equal not supporting a browser. In fact, just the fact they are doing that shows that they are still supporting IE7 by not pushing features that would be broken to it. That being said, I would guess that bug fixing and the like for IE7 are probably prioritized lower, hence things like the busted layout shown in the article picture. I'll wait for the official announcement from Facebook, just like they announced when they would stop supporting IE6.

RandallBrown 15y ago
It's not a bug for IE7. It's just that when you switch the user agent to IE7 it's using the IE7 CSS to render the page on Safari. Obviously that stuff isn't going to work.
- LocalPCGuy 15y ago
  It doesn't say the screenshot is from Safari, and I have seen that whitespace when I've testing things in IE7. Funny thing I found earlier when I went there in IE9 in IE7 emulation mode - Facebook crashed the tab every time I tried to click on an individual's profile (Timeline enabled or not.) Didn't bother to actually load a VM to test a true instance of IE7.
human_error 15y ago
It pretty much means not supporting the browser since new features won't work and they don't even fix the issues.

g3orge 15y ago

Facebook can easily help the random user to upgrade their browser. And it has to.

tsiokos 15y ago

It seems that facebook white space "quirk" happens when document mode is set to IE8/IE9 standards. I think IE7 users shouldn't have a problem. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/60164/Forum%20Posts/facebook.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/60164/Forum%20Posts/facebook.png