WordPress plans to drop support for IE 11

The most well-known and most popular blogging platform in the world, WordPress is considering abandoning support for Internet Explorer 11 because the browser’s usage rate has fallen below 1%.

WordPress used multiple dimensions to determine the number of people still using IE 11 and finally found that its cumulative usage rate was less than 1%. The number of users of IE 11 is similar to the situation when WordPress dropped support for Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 in 2017.

Due to such a low number of users and the high cost of maintaining the browser, WordPress plans to withdraw support for Internet Explorer 11 in the future.

WordPress explained in a blog post last week: “In terms of the current WordPress user experience, a flag was added to not recommend IE in BrowseHappy about 13 months ago, so by now, most WordPress users should be aware. Tied to this, the experience overall is not optimal in IE11 with a high cost of maintenance for developers.”

In order to formulate a specific abandonment plan, WordPress requires users and organizations still using the IE 11 browser to provide feedback before March 18.

WordPress is not the only company that has given up support for IE 11. As early as August 2020, Microsoft announced that they will no longer support the Microsoft Teams application on the IE 11 browser, and starting August 17, 2021, Microsoft 365 will no longer support IE 11.