8 ms·

Microsoft Is Building Internet Explorer into Its New Chromium Edge

133 points by dfabulich 7y ago

dfabulich 7y ago
This could be the feature that finally kills off IE11. A bunch of businesses mandate IE11 to ensure compatibility with unmaintained internal systems; if they can use Edge in IE11 mode, there's no reason to use the IE11 app. (This really makes me wish IE11 mode had been a feature of Edge from the very beginning. Think of how much time we've lost!)
- spankalee 7y ago
  I'm not sure how much it would have mattered to have IE mode before, since Edge only ran on Windows > 8.1 IE mode is really killer when combined with the fact that the new Edge will run on Windows 7.
  - dfabulich 7y ago
    Windows 7 isn't my biggest concern, though I agree that IE mode on Edge for Win7 will strike a killing blow. According to my site's analytics, 41% of our IE11 users are on Windows 10, plus another 5.63% on Windows 8. (Windows 7 reaches End of Life in January 2020.)
    - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
      So then ~53% of your IE11 users are still on Windows 7? That certainly sounds like something you should still care about.
      - dfabulich 7y ago
        I do care, (and of course we still support IE11 on any OS version) but Win7/IE11 users are gradually upgrading on their own. I was afraid that IE11 would literally never go away. Microsoft has said that they'll support IE11 until Windows 10 reached End of Life. But they've also said that Windows 10 is the "last version" of Windows, that they'll continue shipping new updates for Windows 10 in perpetuity. Now, I have hope.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - Shorel 7y ago
    IE mode will not make the new Edge kill Chrome in market share. The relationship is the other way around: the lack of Windows 7 support is what killed Edge in the real world. Anyway, Microsoft is learning from its mistakes.
    - jessaustin 7y ago
      The implied victim seemed to be IE, not Chrome...
      - Shorel 7y ago
        In that case, it was already dead, for all practical purposes. For example https://lichess.org/blog/XMvcJSwAADkA0hPE/lichess-v2-is-here https://lichess.org/blog/XMvcJSwAADkA0hPE/lichess-v2-is-here
gscott 7y ago
This is important. There is a Government website that I use that only works in IE. They built it years ago through contractors using .Net and I bet they don't have any ability to change it. I wonder if they even have the original source code.
- weka 7y ago
  At some point, the government is going to have to realize that the internet has long passed the days of moving slow. Putting unrealistic restrictions (only works in IE, can only use .Net) is going to hinder the progress of its development. There are times where vetting and change management make sense. But then we have applications that were built before 2008 and realize that in the long run, with the tools of today, it would be easier to use the tools of today than adding another feature to this bloated mess.
  - mgkimsal 7y ago
    Yeah, we've got more than enough history to look at to draw conclusions from re: "web" and "internet" software/services. Any new projects should have a "migration" or "upgrade" metric associated - how long will it take to upgrade to the next major version of the employed platform? how long will it take to migrate to a different platform? no doubt there are not always simple answers, but it's something which needs to at least be considered. And there are sometimes really "single source" options with no viable competition, but those are possibly more rare than we'd think, and even if not, the risk needs to be called out even more in those project/contracts then.
  - majkinetor 7y ago
    That is unrealistic (I work for gov ATM). There is no such thing as incentive in gov, stuff is mandated by low. You don't want to use IE ? Your problem, you can explain it to the judge. That is how majority of gov services work (not only IE, multiple domains). We had services from ALL major IT companies in the world that still need IE (or Firefox, or Chrome, exclusively) , so this is even not strictly in gov or IE domain only. Some gov companies are lucky to have somebody that lives in 21st century that is on such position that can change some of it but that is merely a fluke.
beart 7y ago
I'm concerned this will actually discourage companies from updating to move away from IE11. It's a lot easier to install a new browser than it is to actually update whatever is running in it.
- skybrian 7y ago
  I'm thinking that's their problem (and Microsoft's opportunity). As long as public websites don't see traffic in IE11 mode, it doesn't affect other web developers. Hopefully.
chrismeller 7y ago
Oh great. So we’re back to “is it running in quirks mode” level crap now? Just like it seemed like a great idea that would be “seamless” last time around, it will again...
- Hamuko 7y ago
  Hopefully web developers can be given a tool to force their site to never run in "quirks mode". Like having a meta tag or something.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    That seems worse? If anything it should be opt-in.
    - lol768 7y ago
      I suppose the issue with it being opt-in is that legacy, unmaintained internal tools won't have the opt-in mechanism
      - tantalor 7y ago
        Your domain admin could enable IE mode for certain sites and block it for all others.
      - tracker1 7y ago
        I'm pretty sure it'll be via a Group Policy setting set by your Domain/System administrator for a list of sites/tools that require it.
    - SargeZT 7y ago
      It appears to be opt-in via group policy. This isn't something you'll run into on the web at large.
- iforgotpassword 7y ago
  To me it sounds like this is something you have to manually enable when opening a new tab, and perhaps it's triggerable by adding a header or meta tag to your site. So hopefully no quirks mode 2.0
partiallypro 7y ago
I'm hoping this means they are going to strip IE from Windows entirely now.
- pndy 7y ago
  Pretty sure they can't because Trident is still being used in rendering a lot of stuff inside Windows, not mention the 3rd-party programs
Someone1234 7y ago
If it supports Java Applets, I'll do a little dance. We have to keep supporting IE11 because Java Applets continue to be used for intranet corporate and government stuff. No other browser officially supports them except IE11.
bla3 7y ago
On one hand, it's commendable how seriously Microsoft takes backward compatibility. On the other hand, I can't help but feel that this is part of what's holding them back in their "modern browser" efforts. Edge felt like a new start but failed. Chromium Edge feels like yet another new start, but again is tied down by support for ancient IE versions from day one.
- thelarkinn 7y ago
  On the Edge team and I can tell you, in no way, does supporting IE, hold back our development capabilities. If anything, it enables more companies to adopt Edge without concern of breaking support for their legacy applications. We see that Developers are the ones held back by older versions, and we see this as a huge win for them.
  - nickspag 7y ago
    This is basically just a compatibility mode where you switch the IE renderer in the tab within the same Edge application "shell." Seems like a no-brainer.
  - vanadium 7y ago
    We're trying to figure out on my team what the Edge Team's plan for rollout on OSes with IE11 already installed looks like; e.g., will Edge Chromium outright pull and replace Legacy Edge _and_ IE11 from Win7? And is "IE Mode" going to be an option on the non-Enterprise version of Chromium Edge? I'd love to see more messaging around the rollout intentions; plenty of us out here still supporting IE11 (non-Government, non-Enterprise) and trying to read between the lines to a point where we can start legitimately calling the time of death.
  - arthurfm 7y ago
    Will it be possible to 'remove' IE from Windows 10 (for example, via: Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature –Online -FeatureName Internet-Explorer-Optional-amd64) and then only allow users to access IE through the new Edge?
  - bla3 7y ago
hackily 7y ago
Will IE mode be available on the other platforms? OSX? Testing IE on non-windows devices is a pain in the unmentionables, maybe this can make it easier.
- tracker1 7y ago
  Pretty sure this will be a Windows only feature... the IE Active X (COM) engine is already running on windows, this is just a relatively small feature that uses it.
tantalor 7y ago
"totally seamless... you’d never be able to tell the difference... designed exclusively for businesses" Sounds like a security nightmare. I assume IE mode is vulnerable to XSS attacks that the normal Chromium mode protects against. So a user might be duped into thinking they are safe when they visit a random site that forces IE mode. Because it's "totally seamless" they won't notice. Better yet, it only affects business users, the prime target for XSS.
- javagram 7y ago
  If the feature is in fact designed exclusively for businesses, the IE11 mode will only activate on a whitelisted list of sites pushed out via your corporate provisioning process. I believe this is how the feature already works today in Edge anyway, it just opens a new window instead of a new tab.
  - Mindwipe 7y ago
    The biggest offender seems to be SharePoint nowadays. Maybe Microsoft could try and make it less of a heap.
    - freeone3000 7y ago
      Sharepoint 2017 doesn't have this problem, Sharepoint 2007 does.
      - Mindwipe 7y ago
        Opening a folder from SharePoint in Windows Explorer still requires IE in 2017.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >So a user might be duped into thinking they are safe when they visit a random site that forces IE mode. IE mode doesn't mean it would have random security exploits or wont run in a sandbox, just means it will support the quirks and legacy behavior required to run legacy enterprise apps based on IE. And of course it will obviously be totally controllable by some enterprise level settings -- what IPs/domains to be enabled on, whether it should be on or off, etc.
antaviana 7y ago
What will happen to the embedded webbrowser control? Will it continue to be IE, will it be Chromium or will it disappear from Windows?
futurix 7y ago
We migrated from the age of IE shells (2000s) to the age of Blink shells...
kgwxd 7y ago
Will "IE Mode" support "Compatibility View"?
leshokunin 7y ago
I'm really confused by the fact that both IE and Edge exist. It seems so contrary to the move towards convergence (having Xbox on Windows, Linux kernel on Windows, Windows on ARM...). Why the need for two brands?

133 points by dfabulich 7y ago

This could be the feature that finally kills off IE11. A bunch of businesses mandate IE11 to ensure compatibility with unmaintained internal systems; if they can use Edge in IE11 mode, there's no reason to use the IE11 app. (This really makes me wish IE11 mode had been a feature of Edge from the very beginning. Think of how much time we've lost!)

spankalee 7y ago
I'm not sure how much it would have mattered to have IE mode before, since Edge only ran on Windows > 8.1 IE mode is really killer when combined with the fact that the new Edge will run on Windows 7.
- dfabulich 7y ago
  Windows 7 isn't my biggest concern, though I agree that IE mode on Edge for Win7 will strike a killing blow. According to my site's analytics, 41% of our IE11 users are on Windows 10, plus another 5.63% on Windows 8. (Windows 7 reaches End of Life in January 2020.)
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    So then ~53% of your IE11 users are still on Windows 7? That certainly sounds like something you should still care about.
    - dfabulich 7y ago
      I do care, (and of course we still support IE11 on any OS version) but Win7/IE11 users are gradually upgrading on their own. I was afraid that IE11 would literally never go away. Microsoft has said that they'll support IE11 until Windows 10 reached End of Life. But they've also said that Windows 10 is the "last version" of Windows, that they'll continue shipping new updates for Windows 10 in perpetuity. Now, I have hope.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- Shorel 7y ago
  IE mode will not make the new Edge kill Chrome in market share. The relationship is the other way around: the lack of Windows 7 support is what killed Edge in the real world. Anyway, Microsoft is learning from its mistakes.
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    The implied victim seemed to be IE, not Chrome...
    - Shorel 7y ago
      In that case, it was already dead, for all practical purposes. For example https://lichess.org/blog/XMvcJSwAADkA0hPE/lichess-v2-is-here https://lichess.org/blog/XMvcJSwAADkA0hPE/lichess-v2-is-here

gscott 7y ago

This is important. There is a Government website that I use that only works in IE. They built it years ago through contractors using .Net and I bet they don't have any ability to change it. I wonder if they even have the original source code.

weka 7y ago
At some point, the government is going to have to realize that the internet has long passed the days of moving slow. Putting unrealistic restrictions (only works in IE, can only use .Net) is going to hinder the progress of its development. There are times where vetting and change management make sense. But then we have applications that were built before 2008 and realize that in the long run, with the tools of today, it would be easier to use the tools of today than adding another feature to this bloated mess.
- mgkimsal 7y ago
  Yeah, we've got more than enough history to look at to draw conclusions from re: "web" and "internet" software/services. Any new projects should have a "migration" or "upgrade" metric associated - how long will it take to upgrade to the next major version of the employed platform? how long will it take to migrate to a different platform? no doubt there are not always simple answers, but it's something which needs to at least be considered. And there are sometimes really "single source" options with no viable competition, but those are possibly more rare than we'd think, and even if not, the risk needs to be called out even more in those project/contracts then.
- majkinetor 7y ago
  That is unrealistic (I work for gov ATM). There is no such thing as incentive in gov, stuff is mandated by low. You don't want to use IE ? Your problem, you can explain it to the judge. That is how majority of gov services work (not only IE, multiple domains). We had services from ALL major IT companies in the world that still need IE (or Firefox, or Chrome, exclusively) , so this is even not strictly in gov or IE domain only. Some gov companies are lucky to have somebody that lives in 21st century that is on such position that can change some of it but that is merely a fluke.

beart 7y ago

I'm concerned this will actually discourage companies from updating to move away from IE11. It's a lot easier to install a new browser than it is to actually update whatever is running in it.

skybrian 7y ago
I'm thinking that's their problem (and Microsoft's opportunity). As long as public websites don't see traffic in IE11 mode, it doesn't affect other web developers. Hopefully.

chrismeller 7y ago

Oh great. So we’re back to “is it running in quirks mode” level crap now? Just like it seemed like a great idea that would be “seamless” last time around, it will again...

Hamuko 7y ago
Hopefully web developers can be given a tool to force their site to never run in "quirks mode". Like having a meta tag or something.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  That seems worse? If anything it should be opt-in.
  - lol768 7y ago
    I suppose the issue with it being opt-in is that legacy, unmaintained internal tools won't have the opt-in mechanism
    - tantalor 7y ago
      Your domain admin could enable IE mode for certain sites and block it for all others.
    - tracker1 7y ago
      I'm pretty sure it'll be via a Group Policy setting set by your Domain/System administrator for a list of sites/tools that require it.
  - SargeZT 7y ago
    It appears to be opt-in via group policy. This isn't something you'll run into on the web at large.
iforgotpassword 7y ago
To me it sounds like this is something you have to manually enable when opening a new tab, and perhaps it's triggerable by adding a header or meta tag to your site. So hopefully no quirks mode 2.0

partiallypro 7y ago

I'm hoping this means they are going to strip IE from Windows entirely now.

pndy 7y ago
Pretty sure they can't because Trident is still being used in rendering a lot of stuff inside Windows, not mention the 3rd-party programs

Someone1234 7y ago

If it supports Java Applets, I'll do a little dance. We have to keep supporting IE11 because Java Applets continue to be used for intranet corporate and government stuff. No other browser officially supports them except IE11.

bla3 7y ago

On one hand, it's commendable how seriously Microsoft takes backward compatibility. On the other hand, I can't help but feel that this is part of what's holding them back in their "modern browser" efforts. Edge felt like a new start but failed. Chromium Edge feels like yet another new start, but again is tied down by support for ancient IE versions from day one.

thelarkinn 7y ago
On the Edge team and I can tell you, in no way, does supporting IE, hold back our development capabilities. If anything, it enables more companies to adopt Edge without concern of breaking support for their legacy applications. We see that Developers are the ones held back by older versions, and we see this as a huge win for them.
- nickspag 7y ago
  This is basically just a compatibility mode where you switch the IE renderer in the tab within the same Edge application "shell." Seems like a no-brainer.
- vanadium 7y ago
  We're trying to figure out on my team what the Edge Team's plan for rollout on OSes with IE11 already installed looks like; e.g., will Edge Chromium outright pull and replace Legacy Edge _and_ IE11 from Win7? And is "IE Mode" going to be an option on the non-Enterprise version of Chromium Edge? I'd love to see more messaging around the rollout intentions; plenty of us out here still supporting IE11 (non-Government, non-Enterprise) and trying to read between the lines to a point where we can start legitimately calling the time of death.
- arthurfm 7y ago
  Will it be possible to 'remove' IE from Windows 10 (for example, via: Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature –Online -FeatureName Internet-Explorer-Optional-amd64) and then only allow users to access IE through the new Edge?
- bla3 7y ago

hackily 7y ago

Will IE mode be available on the other platforms? OSX? Testing IE on non-windows devices is a pain in the unmentionables, maybe this can make it easier.

tracker1 7y ago
Pretty sure this will be a Windows only feature... the IE Active X (COM) engine is already running on windows, this is just a relatively small feature that uses it.

tantalor 7y ago

"totally seamless... you’d never be able to tell the difference... designed exclusively for businesses" Sounds like a security nightmare. I assume IE mode is vulnerable to XSS attacks that the normal Chromium mode protects against. So a user might be duped into thinking they are safe when they visit a random site that forces IE mode. Because it's "totally seamless" they won't notice. Better yet, it only affects business users, the prime target for XSS.

javagram 7y ago
If the feature is in fact designed exclusively for businesses, the IE11 mode will only activate on a whitelisted list of sites pushed out via your corporate provisioning process. I believe this is how the feature already works today in Edge anyway, it just opens a new window instead of a new tab.
- Mindwipe 7y ago
  The biggest offender seems to be SharePoint nowadays. Maybe Microsoft could try and make it less of a heap.
  - freeone3000 7y ago
    Sharepoint 2017 doesn't have this problem, Sharepoint 2007 does.
    - Mindwipe 7y ago
      Opening a folder from SharePoint in Windows Explorer still requires IE in 2017.
coldtea 7y ago
>So a user might be duped into thinking they are safe when they visit a random site that forces IE mode. IE mode doesn't mean it would have random security exploits or wont run in a sandbox, just means it will support the quirks and legacy behavior required to run legacy enterprise apps based on IE. And of course it will obviously be totally controllable by some enterprise level settings -- what IPs/domains to be enabled on, whether it should be on or off, etc.

antaviana 7y ago

What will happen to the embedded webbrowser control? Will it continue to be IE, will it be Chromium or will it disappear from Windows?

futurix 7y ago

We migrated from the age of IE shells (2000s) to the age of Blink shells...

kgwxd 7y ago

Will "IE Mode" support "Compatibility View"?

leshokunin 7y ago

I'm really confused by the fact that both IE and Edge exist. It seems so contrary to the move towards convergence (having Xbox on Windows, Linux kernel on Windows, Windows on ARM...). Why the need for two brands?