TLDR; We recognise that most of our customers are very web savvy and hence little of what is written here will come as a surprise, save that we’ve supported IE v11 for so long. The Internet Explorer browser is reaching end-of-life. As a result, Internet Explorer version 11 will no longer be supported by Majestic. We aim to maintain compatibility with a number of modern web browsers.

You may have heard that Microsoft is retiring the last version of the Internet Explorer series of Web browsers on June 15^th 2022. This post sets out to describe how this decision impacts users of Majestic.

As a part of its ongoing development and release cycle, Majestic tests site updates against a number of versions of web browsers.

Based on regular audits of user browser preferences, Majestic has maintained support for Internet Explorer version 11 to date. This is set to change due to two factors:

• The announcement by Microsoft that Internet Explorer has reached end of life,
• Analysis suggesting an extremely low proportion of visitors using Majestic can be attributed to Internet Explorer

As of June 15^th Majestic will phase out the testing of the Majestic SEO suite on Internet Explorer during development. We do not aim to pro-actively turn off support, but it is inevitable that at some point features will be introduced to the Majestic platform which will not be supported by this browser.

To help people who may use Internet Explorer by accident, we are adding a message to the top of the website which should only be visible to users of Internet Explorer. If you are using Internet Explorer, and it’s not by accident, please leave a comment at the end of this post. We would love to learn why.

About Internet Explorer

The retirement of Internet Explorer version 11 is not the first time the removal of support of a Microsoft Internet Explorer browser has been newsworthy.

Internet Explorer gained significant traction with Internet Explorer Version 6, known as IE6. IE6 was launched in 2001, integrated with the popular Windows XP Operating System. Unfortunately, the popularity of Windows XP and IE6 resulted in a substantial number of users who were slow to upgrade to later versions of the browser.

In the first decade of the new millennium, the web evolved quickly as it changed from a repository of documents and simple online tools to an experience more like we enjoy today. Unfortunately, this progress was hampered by the need to support IE6, which was still used by a large number of people. The need to support a large number of users on an outdated platform led to frustration for many web developers and internet businesses, for whom backward compatibility for IE6 resulted in substantial overhead. Worldwide campaigns were launched calling for the death of IE6. The notoriety of IE6 was not lost on Microsoft. The software giant launched a number of education and outreach programs to encourage people to upgrade, evidenced by a celebration of the fall in market share of IE6 to below 1% in 2012. IE6 was finally formally retired in 2014, 13 years after its launch.

Version 11, or IE11 is the last major version of Internet Explorer, released in 2013 with Windows 8.1. In December 2020 Microsoft announced support for Internet Explorer 11 would end in June 2022. Microsoft began phasing out support for IE11 on it’s own products from November 2020.

Coinciding with the release with the release of Windows 10, in 2015 the internet Explorer brand was superseded by “Microsoft Edge”. Like Internet Explorer, there have been multiple versions of Microsoft Edge. Microsoft ended support for the original version of Microsoft Edge in March 2021 and now refer to this version as “Microsoft Edge Legacy”.

The latest web browser from Microsoft is called “New Microsoft Edge”, released January 2020. New Microsoft Edge is designed to run on a number of platforms, boasting downloads for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.

It is worth noting that it is normal for companies to release updates to their web browsing software. By way of example, the June 9^th 2022 release of Mozilla Firefox is version 101.0.1. 

What Browsers does Majestic Support?

Cross browser compatibility is becoming less of a concern as the industry matures. We anticipate that ending support Internet Explorer will reduce development overhead, and help us bring you a richer experience when interacting with our backlink data.

We aim to support recent versions of a range of popular browsers. However, this process is made difficult by the vast array of subtle differences between different browsers on different versions of different operating systems across different platforms. When browser plugins and other configuration differences are considered, it is unlikely that anyone can offer a guarantee that a complex site will run in every users browser.

We do test releases of site on the following browsers on a number of platforms. We welcome reports of any errors or inconsistencies that may be due to incompatibility between the browser and our web toolset for the following platforms:

• “New Microsoft Edge” – Windows
• Mozilla FireFox – Windows and Mac
• Google Chrome – Windows and Mac
• Apple Safari – Mobile and Desktop platforms

If you experience a problem using Majestic on one of these platforms, please send a screenshot of the problem, the version and make of the operating system you are using, the platform ( PC / Mac / iPhone etc ) and the browser to our customer support team at support@majestic.com.

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