If you take a look at our Supported Browsers page, you'll see a fairly standard list of supported and tested browsers, covering 99% of commonly used browsers today, with one obvious omission: we do not support any version of Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer was the flagship browser for Microsoft's Windows operating system for over 20 years, but since the release of Windows 10 in 2015 (along with the new Edge Browser) it is no longer under active development. In the time since then, new standards and technologies have emerged which are not supported in Internet Explorer. Also the perceived value of personal information has increased to the point where it is paramount to do everything possible to ensure sensitive information remains protected.

There are a number of factors which have led to our decision not to support Internet Explorer.

Our intention is for SheepCRM to be the best product it can be. We regularly test against all modern browsers with a significant market share. Since 2016, market share for Internet Explorer has fallen from over 20% to below 3%. For such a small percentage of users, it is not in the best interests of us or our clients to spend time developing and testing against an obsolete browser. It is no longer possible to easily purchase and install an operating system with Internet Explorer as the default browser. With the release of Microsoft's Edge browser for Windows 7 and 8 we expect Internet Explorer's market share to dwindle further still.

We strive to make both SheepCRM, and the self-service SheepApp as compliant as possible with current standards.
HTML version 5, the latest standard for how the web is built, was formally introduced in October 2014.
CSS version 3, the standard for presentation on the web, has been formalised in sections beginning in 2012 and continuing up until the present day.
ECMAScript version 6, (commonly known as Javascript) which is used for advanced website features, was finalised in June 2015.
All modern browsers under active development support almost all the features as specified in these different web standards. However, Internet Explorer does not. It is possible to write in specific checks that would allow some of the modern functionality to work in older browsers, but this is time-consuming for developers and testers, and would also cause a delay to the 99% of our users already using a compliant browser while the additional code is loaded and the checks are performed.

While Microsoft has stated that Internet Explorer will be supported on Windows 10 for the foreseeable future, this does not mean that it is in active development. Microsoft recommends using Edge as your default browser, and recommends against using Internet Explorer. No significant new features have been added to Internet Explorer for several years. Microsoft's Security Chief has explicitly stated that "Internet Explorer is a compatibility solution. We’re not supporting new web standards for it"

NB: We are unable to support earlier version of iOS and Android browsers for similar reasons. These browsers also have very low usage.

SheepCRM is designed to hold sensitive information about your contacts and members. We put checks in place at all levels to ensure that your information is protected from data leaks and malicious attacks.

When Internet Explorer was developed, a much-touted feature was how tightly it would integrate with the Windows operating system, making it possible for applications on your PC to communicate directly with websites. In the early 2000s this was considered a phenomenal feature that made it much easier to quickly get data from web sources. However, this feature became a major attack vector for those attempting to access secure data by installing malware on a computer that would then be able to connect to the Internet. This is just one vulnerability that is specific to Internet Explorer. At the time of writing, there are over 200 reported vulnerabilities of varying degrees up to and including total system access associated with Internet Explorer 11.

NB: It is also worth noting that as of Wed 15 Jan 2020 Windows 7 is no longer a supported Microsoft operating system for standard users. Therefore there is no guarantee that any critical security vulnerabilities will be patched even if they are released for more modern versions of Windows.

In conclusion, supporting Internet Explorer would mean:

We have chosen not to go down this road. We strongly recommend you choose a different browser.