vBulletin Solutions has announced that they are going to drop support for IE 6 and 7 with the launch of vBulletin 4.2 in the coming months.

Internet Explorer 6 & 7 would continue to get supported till the end of the 4.1.x releases.

The company said:

After extensive deliberation and an in-depth analysis of global browser trends, we have decided to drop support for both Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and 7 with the release of vBulletin 4.2.

Given their rapid decline in market share over the past year, Microsoft’s recent decision to follow Chrome and Firefox with the implementation of silent updates, and the numerous hacks/kludges we’ve implemented in vB4 specifically for IE 6 & 7, we’ve concluded that continuing support will rapidly become untenable over the coming year.

This has been a difficult decision for the vBulletin team. While we respect the needs of all of our customers, dropping support for IE 6 & 7 will allow us to improve user experience for the vast majority of license holders, more effectively leverage our development resources, and enable us to move forward with exciting new vB4 projects.

We will support IE 6 & 7 in the upcoming release of vBulletin 4.1.11, and any additional 4.1.x release that may follow. This change will only go into effect with the 4.2.x series.