Retiring IE11 support for Atlassian cloud, server, and data center products

[#1]

In 2015 Microsoft released Edge as the browser to supersede Internet Explorer (IE). Since then IE has not received major updates, or added support for many modern web standards. Microsoft recently discouraged the use of Internet Explorer as a default browser, and we’ve also seen a decrease in IE11 usage across our cloud, server, and data center products over time.

To allow us to continue to take advantage of modern web standards to deliver improved functionality and the best possible user experience across all of our products, we have decided to end support for IE11.

What does end of support for IE11 mean?

End of support means we will not fix bugs that are specific to IE11, and will begin to introduce features that aren't compatible with this browser.

When is this happening?

• For all Atlassian cloud products, support will end on 31 March 2020.

• For Atlassian server and data center products, the last version to support IE11 will be released between September 2019 and March 2020. Subsequent versions will not support IE11. We’ll provide plenty of information about this in the upgrade notes for each version. Please see the table below for confirmed versions and we will continue to update this table as we confirm more details.

Server and Data Center product	Last IE11-supported version	End-of-support dates
Jira Software	8.5 (Enterprise Release)	October 21, 2021
Jira Service Desk	4.5 (Enterprise Release)	October 21, 2021
Confluence	7.4 (Enterprise Release)	April 21, 2022
Bitbucket	6.10 (Enterprise Release)	January 14, 2022
Crowd	4.1	June 22, 2022
Bamboo	6.10	September 17, 2021
Fisheye	4.8	December 5, 2021
Crucible	4.8	December 5, 2021

• For Atlassian cloud, server, and data center apps such as Portfolio for Jira, Questions for Confluence, and Team Calendars for Confluence, apps will continue to support IE11 until 31 March 2020 (cloud apps), or until the last version of Jira or Confluence that supports IE11 has reached end of life (server and data center apps).

What this means for you

In preparation for the end of support dates, we recommend switching to one of our supported browsers, such as Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox.

Please comment below with any additional questions and a member of the Atlassian team will be sure to assist you.

[DPKJ]

I’m a developer for pas 10 year, and only thing I’ll say for this is, “Yippee”

[Bernhard Gruenewaldt]

:-) Finally. Goodbye polyfills my old friends.

[Tomáš Vrabec]

Yesterday was too late! Finally I will get much more easier job with debuging corporates exceptions with IE11. Thanks guys for that move!

[Minto Issac]

Ok, let's bury this browser for good and never talk about it again. Developers will thank you

[Albert Marashi]

Thank god.

[Matthias Berger]

Are you aware that Windows 10 LTSC versions do not have Edge? Also in environments where LTSC is typically used, rolling out some 3rd party browser like Chrome or Firefox is often very complicated and work-intensive, or downright impossible.

[Jeremy Simkins]

> rolling out some 3rd party browser like Chrome or Firefox is often very complicated and work-intensive, or downright impossible.

This is not  a reason to support IE11. The EoS is music to my ears, I also want to push my company to do the same.

Your statement sounds like someone without much experience or someone used to their routine. I have never had an issue with setting up corporate offices across countries with third-party browsers. Security should be the utmost importance when you are dealing with these setups (it's one of the main reasons they do this) so having IE in this setup is a bad idea to begin with. I see LTSC with FireFox all the time

The platforms that only support IE are realizing they need to update their system too. They don't want to but this is the life IT lives. 

If your system is setup that adding third-party apps is that difficult, perhaps the issue is the way it is setup. This mentality that it's too difficult so we shouldn't do it does not belong in the IT realm. To state it's "downright impossible" is only adding to the problem. This is simply not true.

[Niek Neuij]

> rolling out some 3rd party browser like Chrome or Firefox is often very complicated and work-intensive, or downright impossible.

You need to explain that one. Because you can roll out Firefox ESR (which has MSI's, zip files, and a chocolatey package available). Firefox ESR also has it's own ADMX files, so you can GPO the whole thing to your heart's content. You can even repackage and deploy Firefox ESR with any extension you like.

Here's some links to help you along:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/enterprise/

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox-enterprise/deploy-firefox-for-enterprise

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox-enterprise/policies-customization-enterprise

[Matthias Berger]

>> rolling out some 3rd party browser like Chrome or Firefox is often very complicated and work-intensive, or downright impossible.

> You need to explain that one.

There are not so much technical as organizational and/or legal issues. Basically there are two main situations:

1. You have systems which are not managed by your own organization, most often because they are part of a bigger envonmet which is as a whole supported by some 3rd party. And this 3rd party wont or sometimes cant roll out 3rd party software. Or you can manage these systems, but are not allowed to do so, because then you would loose support for the whole installation.

2. You have an environment which is certified by somebody like FDA (e.g. a Laboratory) and you are not allowed to change anything, or changing something requires such a big, convoluted and beaurocratic process that its practically impossible.

[Matthias Berger]

> This mentality that it's too difficult so we shouldn't do it does not belong in the IT realm.

I wholeheartedly agree, but unfortunately there are other "realms" out there than IT. 

Maybe one needs some experience to understand this.

[Niek Neuij]

@Matthias Berger

IT is an integral part of the business process.

Have you defined IT processes based on ITIL, ASL, and BISL? If you did, you can explain to management why a third-party browser created for an enterprise environment (such as Firefox ESR or Chrome Enterprise) is needed based on requirements by mission-critical third-party software (such as Atlassian or banking software).

[Richard Cross]

> There are not so much technical as organizational and/or legal issues. 

No there aren't.  If one of the largest global banks in the World can make Chrome and Firefox available to their staff, then anyone can.

[Sam A_ Horvath-Hunt]

Could someone from Atlassian confirm that IE11 support has now been dropped from cloud?

[Emily Chan]

Hi @Sam A_ Horvath-Hunt 

Yes, IE11 support has now been dropped from cloud. :) 

For most of our cloud products (Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, Opsgenie) there is a one-off warning shown to only IE11 users. In Jira and Confluence, it looks like this:

We're updating all our documentations (e.g. https://confluence.atlassian.com/cloud/supported-browsers-744721663.html) to reflect this really soon. 

[Albert Marashi]

Yay!

[Emily Chan]

Hello everyone!

Just wanted to update that the last IE11-supported versions for all our server and data center products have been released. The table in the post above details the confirmed versions for each server and data center product. 

Cheers,

Emily

[Tomáš Vrabec]

Sad decision. IE11 is deprecated even from their authors - Microsoft. You should definitely ban this browser. Because of security, compatibility and mainly because of developers and admin, who has to debug and workaround stuff, which is working in every other 21 century browsers. 

[Richard Cross]

It's particularly sad that these latest Enterprise releases don't already ban (or at least warn against) IE11, because the fact is:  many things do not work properly in IE11 yet they work in Chrome/Edge/Firefox, and it's your paying customers (admins and end users) who bear the brunt of this.

We're caught in a position where users come to us asking why something doesn't work in IE11, yet we find it works perfectly in another web browser... and the best we can hope for is Premier Support raising a bug for us that takes weeks/months/years to be resolved.  In the meantime, we cannot advise our customers to move away from IE11, because there's no official documentation from Atlassian to back us up.

[Daniel Barclay]

> we have decided to end support for IE11.

So why the heck did you completely block Mozilla SeaMonkey?

And did you do it with no warning? I began work today and suddenly found I can't even see the pages I was working on and reading yesterday.

[Mikhail Varian]

I'm also getting "Browser not Supported" since yesterday when I'm trying to open Confluence in Mozilla SeaMonkey. However Jira and Bitbucket are working ok. Any chance to get it fixed?

[Matt Arnold]

I'm getting the "Browser not Supported" error in Waterfox Classic as well!  Please sort this out - it's the only decent browser left!

[Niek Neuij]

A simple yellow/black coloured warning banner for untested browsers (like Seamonkey, Pale Moon, Falkon) would have been okay and enough.

"Browser not Supported" block pages are stupid. It reminds me of those "this website only works on Internet Explorer with ActiveX" messages decades ago. I very much hoped that disgusting attitude was left in the last decade.

[Woody Suwalski]

I am also by default on Seamonkey. Where is the "Got it, continue" button???

[Timofej E]

Hello. Same problem with Seamonkey. I can login and work in "Service Desk", but not in "Wiki" - "Browser not Supported".

[Mikhail Varian]

Can we expect any comments from Atlassian team members?