End of passive support for pre-ECMAScript 2020 (ES11) browsers

[Joce Heuzé]

Hello Maps JavaScript API Customers,

We’re writing to let you know that Maps JavaScript API passive support for older browser versions will cease with version 3.53.

What do I need to know?

We are updating the Maps JavaScript API to allow for ECMAScript 2020 (ES11) features, in order to ensure that the API remains as performant and lightweight as possible. To this effect, namespace-contained polyfills will no longer be automatically included for JavaScript features up to ES11-level.

To the best of our knowledge, Chrome, Edge, and Firefox all support ES11-introduced features from version 80. Safari supports ES11 from version 14.1.

Please note that all these browser versions are 2-3 years old and already unsupported.

What do I need to do?

If your users use recent versions of the supported browsers, there is nothing for you to do. Otherwise, you may need to hold off using the Maps JavaScript API version 3.53 and above for the time being. Alternatively, please ensure that your applications and web pages proactively include polyfills to allow for ES11-level JavaScript dependencies.

You can already test this change on your applications and web pages by loading the API using the beta channel, with v=beta.

Version schedule

Please note that exceptionally, the quarterly version update will be performed in late April 2023, instead of mid-May.

Version 3.53 will be loaded into the weekly channel in late April 2023 and in the quarterly channel in August 2023. You can specify v=3.52 in your loading URL before those dates if necessary. This is effective only until version 3.52 is decommissioned, in February 2024.

If you have any questions or require assistance please contact the Google Maps Platform Support.

Thanks for choosing Google Maps JavaScript API.

- The Google Maps JavaScript API Team

[Joce Heuzé]

Dear Developers and Maps JavaScript API Customers,

Due to many customers and users still using the Maps JavaScript API with unsupported browser versions, this change will be effective from version 3.54 of the API, releasing to the `weekly` channel in August 2023. This replaces the previous release schedule and extends it by over a quarter.

Once the change is effective, usage of the API with browser versions dating prior to 2020 may switch from being unsupported to being unavailable. For continued support, we recommend for everyone to use the latest or second-latest version of browsers supported by the API.