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Baseline basics

What “Newly available” actually means

Every issue of Cleared is built on three words: Limited, Newly, Widely. They come from Baseline, a status system run by the WebDX Community Group. Here is the whole thing in about five minutes.

The three statuses

What each one promises

Limited availability
At least one browser in the core set does not support the feature. It might be shipping in most of them and stuck in a standards discussion at the last one. Either way, using it means writing a fallback.
Newly available
Every browser in the core set supports it in its current stable release. The feature works everywhere, right now, in an up-to-date browser.
Widely available
Thirty months have passed since it went newly available. Old browsers have aged out of circulation. You can use it without thinking about it.

The core set is four browsers:

  • Chrome, on desktop and Android
  • Edge, on desktop
  • Firefox, on desktop and Android
  • Safari, on macOS and iOS

That is the whole list. Baseline says nothing about Internet Explorer, embedded webviews, or browsers outside that set.

The clock

Thirty months of arithmetic

The date a feature goes newly available is the release date of the last core browser to ship it. Baseline calls this the keystone date, and everything else is measured from it.

Widely available is that date plus 30 months. No committee vote, no usage threshold, just arithmetic. There is one extra condition: the current Firefox ESR release (Extended Support Release, the slow-moving version organizations install and leave alone for a year) also has to support it, which occasionally holds a feature back a few weeks past the 30-month mark.

Thirty months is not a scientific constant. It is the WebDX group’s estimate of how long browser updates take to reach nearly everyone, and it is deliberately conservative.

So the widely available list for any future month is already fixed. Whatever went newly available in January 2024 crosses in July 2026, and nothing can change that. It is half of what Cleared covers each month, and it is the easy half. What a date cannot tell you is whether there is anything worth deleting, or whether deleting it is safe.

Here is the calendar

The fine print

What the label does not promise

Newly available means every current browser supports the feature. It does not mean every browser your visitors are running supports it. Someone on a two-year-old phone that stopped getting updates does not have it.

So Newly available is a decision, not a green light. If the feature degrades quietly, use it today. If the page breaks without it, wait, or ship a fallback until it goes widely available.

Baseline also says nothing about screen readers and other assistive technology outside the browser. And it says nothing about implementation quality: a browser can support a feature and still have bugs in it.

Reversals

A feature can lose its status

Baseline is a live reading, not a stamp. If a browser pulls support, or the spec picks up a deprecation notice, a feature can move backward. This is rare. It is also why Cleared re-checks every number against the source data before an issue goes out.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is “Newly available” safe to use?

It depends on what breaks. Newly available means every browser in the core set supports the feature in its current stable release. It does not mean every browser your visitors are running supports it: someone on a two-year-old phone that stopped getting updates does not have it. So Newly available is a decision, not a green light. If the feature degrades quietly, use it today. If the page breaks without it, wait, or ship a fallback until it goes widely available.

What does “Widely available” mean?

It means 30 months have passed since the feature went newly available. Old browsers have aged out of circulation, and you can use it without thinking about it.

How long does a feature take to become widely available?

It takes 30 months from the keystone date, which is the release date of the last core browser to ship it. No committee vote, no usage threshold, just arithmetic. There is one extra condition: the current Firefox ESR release also has to support it, which occasionally holds a feature back a few weeks past the 30-month mark.

Does Baseline cover Internet Explorer or webviews?

No. The core set is four browsers: Chrome on desktop and Android, Edge on desktop, Firefox on desktop and Android, and Safari on macOS and iOS. Baseline says nothing about Internet Explorer, embedded webviews, or browsers outside that set. It also says nothing about screen readers and other assistive technology outside the browser, or about implementation quality.

Can a feature lose Baseline status?

Yes. Baseline is a live reading, not a stamp: if a browser pulls support, or the spec picks up a deprecation notice, a feature can lose its status. This is rare. It is also why Cleared re-checks every number against the source data before an issue goes out, rather than reusing what was true last month.

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