just so you all know, the Newsblur settings button also disappeared for those accessing the site using IE8, so those who want to download or save their account here for use at another reader will have to use another browser just to do that…
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Ah, that explains my problem 
Why do I feel like NewsBlur just treated me exactly the same way that Google did when they announced the closure of Reader. Nope, worse: at least Google let me know in advance. And, to reiterate, some of us don’t get to choose what browser we use at work.
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You can access settings in the top right of the dashboard.
If you’re logged you should be able to just visit the following URL to download the XML file
Maybe I am just blind, but as it might help others: I can’t see anything like settings in the top right just "Welcome, " and nothing is a link or menu.
as i tried to explain, the settings button and most of the dashboard is dead to those using IE8 - all you can access is feedback
@Timothy Ruppel So Nintendo should still be supporting the Game Cube? and Microsoft the original Xbox? (both released at the same time as Windows XP). Does Apple still support the original iPhone?
Versions of old browsers will always be dropped. That’s part of progression. Old things are forgotten and newer things replace them. I highly doubt that Chrome v2 is supported either (also released in 2009, Chrome is now up to v27), or Firefox 3.
I’m pretty sure that Samuel’s reputation is fine. He’s built an amazing product that is great to use. He did an amazing job when the influx of new users came onboard and he’s offering everyone that’s having issue with this a refund.
i had to use chrome to view the settings button…but i cant use chrome for what i do, and what i need a reader for - i’m set up to work on a customized IE 8 browser 50 to 70 hours a week, and only use chrome to view a few pages that IE 8 wont display…
@Samuel Clay: Your response to someone’s concern that your program stopped working was “It lived a long life, but it’s time.” I read that as both condescending and insulting. Someone like me asked you for help because your product stopped working and you basically told them “get a life”.
The only “threat” I made in my comment was a statement that I will be telling my friends not to use NewBlur because they cannot count on support for their browsers, should you ever on a whim decide that they should get with the program. Had you warned us, had you said that IE8 was going to stop working in a month or so, I might be less upset. Instead, it’s there, and then it’s not, and you just say “it’s time.”
And @A, I’ve never owned a GameCube, but if Nintendo came into my house and busted GameCube games because they’ve got a new system, I’d be angry too. His “amazing product” is useless to me now since he crippled it and refused to consider fixing it.
@Samuel Clay: you dropped IE8 support because jQuery 2 doesn’t support it, but there’s absolutely no reason for you to upgrade to jQuery 2! jQuery 2 doesn’t offer ANY new features, only speed improvements for non-IE8 users. Furthermore, jQuery 1.10 will make the 1.x and 2.x branches equivalent.
I don’t see why you need to jump the gun and drop IE8 users and gain no features in the process. As you might notice, I’m not an IE8 user, but I know that in the corporate world, IE8 is the standard, and the users do not have a choice to install anything else, including ChromeFrame. I’m hoping to recommend NewsBlur to be a full blown Google Reader replacement, and you’re really not making it easy for me to recommend this to the average schmuck who doesn’t have their own configuration at work.
I’m **not** an IE8 user, but I just cannot comprehend how you do not see the frustration you just caused for your [albeit minority group of] users for ABSOLUTELY NO GAIN IN FEATURES, for no reason what-so-ever!! jQuery 2.0 is utterly unnecessary, you know this!!
Also, a year ago, you mentioned that you’d let people remap the up/down arrow back to the original function, and you still haven’t done this. I’m willing to bet that most people are more used to have up/down mapped to scrolling rather than changing articles. You keep mentioning that YOU personally like something, but shouldn’t you take your users’ preferences into consideration?
Again, none of the above issues bother me personally – I’m an admin of my work machine (and installed an illegal copy of Firefox). I’ve also installed a GreaseMonkey script to restore the default up/down key behavior in Newsblur – but what about your less technically inclined users??
Newsblur is no longer your pet project – you should start thinking about running this as a serious business, and please take your users’ needs into consideration. The way you’ve responded thus far to users basically reads like this: “if you’re not using the latest browser and don’t have a nice trackpad nice my Macbook Pro, well, tough luck, welcome to the 21st century! I don’t care if I break things for you for no additional benefit to anyone else, because I like it that way!”
Dude, just go back to the 1.x branch of jQuery – jQuery 2 doesn’t even offer any new features yet as it’s a clean-up release.
@ravenel - the reason why IE8 doesn’t work anymore is because he switched to jQuery 2.0. There’s absolutely no reason for him to do so, as jQuery 1.9 and 2 are feature equivalent. jQuery 2 is slightly faster on modern browsers… He gained nothing from dropping IE8 at this moment. As for testing - Samuel can simply state that he will not actively test on IE8, and if something serious pops up, he will look at it when time permits. The issue is that Samuel broke something that works for no feature gains.
Assuming that jQuery support is in fact the reason he dropped support–and it may not be–that’s still his decision. It could be that he needed that performance, or that some other part of the substantial Javascript stack required jQuery 2. There are any number of reasons why he may have changed that, and just saying “But they have feature parity!” doesn’t change a thing. We don’t know the reasons why he changed it, but telling him how to write his code isn’t doing anyone any good.
The good news is it’s open source, so If it’s that big of a deal to you, fork the code and change it.
It’s a question of resources, and he made the decision that supporting an old version of IE8 was not worth the extra work required to maintain that support. That’s his decision to make.
We know exactly why he changed support, because he tweeted that jQuery is the reason! jQuery 1.x and 2.x branch promises to be in feature parity for the foreseeable future.
There’s a huge difference between actively maintaining and breaking something for no gain.
There’s performance gains and future compatibility. I no longer have to maintain IE8 specific hacks and have simplified my code base to boot. It’s not simply jQuery 2.0.
As for keyboard shorcuts, I think I’ll try to push out a single checkbox for the up/down arrow keys since that seems to be the only custom keyboard shortcut people want to override.
@Samuel - thanks for the color on the up/down key. Meanwhile, you guys can use this script http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/1… to restore key behavior.
Apropos, I feel very jealous of you, as 99% of my users are using IE8 and they’re the one who pay my bills…
Adding a note for anyone using the Blurblog feature - the lack of IE8 support also breaks those as your readers will not be able to access pages of articles after the first, as “Next Page of Stories” does not work.
Condescension toward your users does not seem like a wise choice. Users like me who have not upgraded from IE8 are not just idiots or jerks who are trying to make your life hard. To be honest, it doesn’t matter WHY I haven’t upgraded, only THAT I haven’t upgraded. You provide(d) ME with a service, not vice versa. If you don’t get to do all the cool things you want because I’m running a browser you don’t like, that is not my problem. At least, it wasn’t until you made it my problem. I dont’ use a service to make things harder on me.
Apparently, you are not interested in my business or my recommendation. In two words (“it’s time”) you’ve turned me from a fan who told all my friends to try out NewsBlur to someone who will warn all my friends away from NewsBlur, for fear that one day you will, without notice, pull the plug on them too. What if supporting any version of IE, or Safari, or Opera, or Chromium, or Firefox gets to be too much trouble? What if Linux or Mac is just too much of a hassle? What if machines without dual 16-core processors and high-end GPUs just won’t do the cool things you’ve got in mind?
You gave us no warning, no indication that you were making NewsBlur less useful, and then you insult someone when they say something is wrong.
I hope you decide to reverse this decision in the very near future. If my premium membership doesn’t mean that much to you, maybe your reputation does.
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I’m sorry to say that IE8 is no longer supported. It lived a long life, but it’s time.
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I am more than happy to provide full refunds to anybody who asks. I want users to be completely satisfied and I can understand if you’re an IE8 user. Email me your username: samuel@newsblur.com.
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