Last week one of my friends in an online web design group asked a question about using the Astra WordPress theme vs. using the GeneratePress WordPress theme.
She commented that both themes were popular, responsive, free, and accessible.
That’s when my ears perked up.
Compared to the thousands of free themes in the WordPress repository, there are relatively few accessible-ready themes (125 as of June 11, 2018).
And while I’ve recently started using the GeneratePress to create client sites, I hadn’t worked with the Astra theme.
I was glad to hear the Astra developers took the initiative to develop a theme that produced WordPress websites that everyone could use.
My friend received a lot of responses about the two themes, including mine about GeneratePress.
Then she asked if anyone know what browser support Astra provided.
Who Cares What Browser Support a Theme Provides?
You might think all WordPress themes support all the different browsers.
But that’s not always true.
Depending on what features themes offer, and how the theme was developed to support those features, a theme might not have taken the extra steps to create a fallback for features not supported in certain browsers.
Like Mozilla Firefox.
Or in Microsoft Edge.
Or in my friend’s case, in Internet Explorer 11.
That’s right, my friend needed to confirm the Astra theme supported Internet Explorer 11.
Since she’s looking into using Astra on a government site, one of the requirements is that the site could be used with Internet Explorer 11.
She searched the Astra website, but couldn’t find any info about browser support. When I checked, I couldn’t find anything either.
So I sent a message to Astra support, using their technical support online contact form.
And the next day I got a response from their support group.
Astra Theme Browser Support
The Astra theme has browser support for:
- Internet Explorer 10+
- Chrome
- Firefox
- Safari
- Edge
I thanked support for the quick response. And when I asked if they could add the browser info to their Astra website, they replied:
We haven’t mentioned it on our site as of now. But we will be adding an article regarding this soon.
I replied:
Glad you’ll be adding it to your site! Useful info for those of us who need to know what browsers are supported.
Excellent!
So glad to hear a customer support group respond so quickly. And accept my suggestion to add the info their website.
Summary
Astra support was quick to reply with browser support info, which I shared with my friend in our online design group. She was glad to get the info!
While she had also contacted support, she hadn’t heard back from them yet.
While you might think WordPress themes support all browsers, if you have a requirement for a specific browser, you’ll want to confirm the theme supports that browser.
