At Passenger, we’re constantly striving to make the most of the web as an accessible platform for delivering timely information to those that need it.
Fast, secure websites should be the norm rather than the exception. Our blog post from last year explains our initial plans to stop supporting Internet Explorer.
We will stop supporting Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge Legacy browsers from August 17th, 2021 – and we’ll start informing users of this change from February 1st. Read on to learn more about our plans for this phase out.
From 18th September 2020 to 27th October 2020 we displayed a new banner on operator websites for all Internet Explorer and Legacy MS Edge (version 45 or below) users.
This banner encouraged users to update to the latest Microsoft Edge. Additionally, they were prompted to fill out a survey to help us understand their situation.
We’ve reviewed the submissions from the survey and reviewed analytics data to determine the best path forward for removing support for Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) and Legacy MS Edge versions.
Who’s affected
The overwhelming majority of IE11 users are on operating systems that can use the latest version of Microsoft Edge – or any other mainstream browser. In our survey results we saw 77% of people had access to alternate browsers already – and of the 23% that didn’t, 70% had devices that could install Edge and/or use an alternative device.
When we drop our support for older browsers, these users will be directed to use a different browser if they haven’t already switched.
Usage of Legacy Edge is quickly declining as Microsoft encourages users to update. By the end of 2021, Legacy Edge usage will be negligible.
Approximately 0.04% of all users are on platforms that cannot update their browser. These fall into two camps:
- Windows Phone users (0.03%)
- Xbox users (0.01%)
Windows Phone users
Microsoft dropped support entirely for the Windows Phone platform on December 10th, 2019. Microsoft’s advice as of that date is “we recommend that customers move to a supported Android or iOS device.”
Some users are also on the even older Windows Phone 8, which was removed from Microsoft’s support on July 11th, 2017.
Unfortunately, users on Windows Phone are stuck with Internet Explorer 11. Downloading a different app, such as ‘Firefox’, still uses IE under the hood. A number of users responded to our survey explaining that they were not using IE11 – but unbeknownst to them, they were.
Once we remove support for IE11, users without access to another device will have to upgrade to a newer phone. While a modern, capable smartphone can be bought for under £150 these days, we understand that it may be a difficult prospect for some passengers to change with little notice.
With that in mind, we plan to give lots of warning to these users to give them time to move to a modern, supported mobile OS such as Android or iOS.
Xbox users
Xbox users are stuck on an older version of Microsoft Edge. Even the brand new Xbox Series X doesn’t ship with the new version of Edge.
We expect that Microsoft will bring the Xbox platform into line with the desktop versions of Edge in August 2021, which will be pushed out as an automatic update to every Xbox One and Series X|S device.
Based on our survey, users on Xbox will also already have access to another supported device.
What’s happening, and when
We will stop supporting Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge Legacy browsers from August 17th, 2021. This mirrors Microsoft’s announcement dropping Microsoft 365 apps support for Internet Explorer on the same day.
From August 17th, 2021, Internet Explorer 11 (Desktop and Windows Phone) users, and Legacy Edge (version 45 or older) will have a degraded experience using websites. Some features may continue to work, and some may not work at all. No fixes will be made.
Both sets of users will be directed to switch to a new browser.
From February 1st 2021, we’ll start displaying banners to users letting them know of the change of support in August. We expect this will give users enough time to react and determine their next steps.
If you have any questions, please do get in touch.