SharePoint 2007 Browser Support – A refresher

With the release of SharePoint SP2 this week. There is much talk about the SharePoint 2007 browser support. So I like to refresh on what browsers SharePoint support and the level of support.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides rendering support for browsers that are commonly used. The support is distributed across two levels.

Level 1 Web Browsers:

1. IE 6
2. IE 7
3. IE 8 (SP2)

Levle 2 Web Browsers: 

1. Firefox 1.5 
2. Firefox 2.0 /3.0 (SP2)
3. Mozilla 1.7
4. Netscape 8.1
5. Unix/Linus with Firefox 1.5 or Netscape 7.2
6. Mac OS-X with Firefox 1.5 or Safari 2.0/3.0 

What is Level 1 and 2?

Good you asked!

Level 1 Web browsers take advantage of advanced features provided by ActiveX controls and provide the most complete user experience. Level 1 browsers offer full functionality on all SharePoint sites, including the Central Administration Web site.

 Level 2 Web browsers provide basic functionality, so that users can both read and write in SharePoint sites and perform site administration. However, because ActiveX controls are not supported level 2 browsers and due to the functionality differences within different browsers, a different user experience might be provided and there could be some variances from the user experience from the level 1 browsers.