# aFarkas/html5shiv

This script is the defacto way to enable use of HTML5 sectioning elements in legacy Internet Explorer.

Repository: https://github.com/aFarkas/html5shiv
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/html5shiv
Homepage: http://paulirish.com/2011/the-history-of-the-html5-shiv/
Language: JavaScript
License Family: other
Last push: 2024-07-07T13:46:38+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5681, "days_push": 787, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 9845, forks 2503 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:37.476513+00:00)

## What it is
A small JavaScript polyfill that enables HTML5 sectioning elements (like section, article, nav) in legacy Internet Explorer 6-8 and provides basic HTML5 styling for IE 6-9, Safari 4.x, and Firefox 3.x. It works by monkeypatching document.createElement so unknown elements become styleable and can hold children in old IE.

## Use cases
- support html5 elements in internet explorer 8
- make section and article tags styleable in legacy ie
- print html5 elements correctly in ie6-8
- add html5shiv to a legacy website
- polyfill html5 for old browsers

## When to choose
- You must support Internet Explorer 6-9 or other very old browsers that don't recognize HTML5 elements
- You're maintaining a legacy site built before IE support for HTML5 sectioning elements

## When to avoid
- Your target browsers are IE9+ or any modern evergreen browser, which support HTML5 elements natively
- You're starting a new project with no legacy IE requirements

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: ui-components, developer-tools
- domain: web-development, frontend, cross-platform
- platform: browser
- tags: html5, polyfill, internet-explorer, shiv, legacy-browser-support, css, web-server

## Member repositories
- aFarkas/html5shiv (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:37.476513+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:20:54.287707+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/aFarkas/html5shiv (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:37.476513+00:00, sha 2e80296daf69)
  - homepage: http://paulirish.com/2011/the-history-of-the-html5-shiv/ (fetched 2026-08-29T08:20:44.430437+00:00, sha 2b5a1fa9b6c6)
  - site_page: https://www.paulirish.com/about (fetched 2026-08-29T08:20:44.440030+00:00, sha 47ef5d2d1ba3)
  - site_page: https://www.paulirish.com/2006/what-does-your-sleeping-style-say-about-you (fetched 2026-08-29T08:20:44.442085+00:00, sha 7614005d04c3)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/html5shiv (fetched 2026-08-29T08:20:44.443602+00:00, sha 21ce0175464b)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.