Google has announced today that Analytics will ditch support for Internet Explorer 8 by the end of this year. This policy change only affects Microsoft’s browser, those Google Analytics users who still want to use the service through Redmond’s browser would have to opt for IE9, IE10 or IE11. Google hasn’t said exactly when IE8 support will be axed, but it says in a blogpost that it wants to give users more than three months to prepare for this change and minimize the “disruption to Google Analytics usage for you and your business.”
To be absolutely clear, this announcement doesn’t mean that webmasters will no longer be able to view traffic on their websites that comes through Internet Explorer 8. Google Analytics will continue to monitor all such traffic. The change for webmasters is that they won’t be able to use Analytics on IE8 to sift through traffic reports and statistics. Google says that its taking this step to accelerate “the pace at which we can innovate new product features.” Those who’re using latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome or Safari need to worry about this change. Internet Explorer 8 is the most popular web browser in the world, given the fact that Windows XP users can’t upgrade to a later version of IE.
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