[HN Gopher] Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) to be retired on June 15...
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Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) to be retired on June 15, 2022
Author : smukherjee19
Score : 728 points
Date : 2021-05-19 18:00 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blogs.windows.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blogs.windows.com)
| jb775 wrote:
| Can we just retire the entire Windows operating system already?
|
| I recently started working on a new project that's running on
| Windows Server 2019 and the experience so far has been absolutely
| terrible. One Windows related headache after another.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| Start a petition to release the source code. Let's do a Linux
| port.
| skrebbel wrote:
| I smell a lot of nostalgia in this thread, and rightfully so! IE
| has been a terrible browser, but it was _our_ terrible browser.
|
| But fear not! Outlook still uses the HTML parsing engine from MS
| Word (!) to display your HTML emails, and it's not going
| anywhere.
| augustk wrote:
| > Outlook still uses the HTML parsing engine from MS Word (!)
| to display your HTML emails, and it's not going anywhere.
|
| Maybe that's why my replies from Thunderbird using interspersed
| posting shows up empty for some Outlook users.
| userbinator wrote:
| If they took the Edge rendering engine (which is really like
| Chromium or some close approximation of it now) and put it in
| the IE UI instead of the opposite, I think that would get a lot
| of praise from me and probably many others including all the
| Google-drunk web developers. Those who like IE and prefer it to
| other browsers are doing so _despite_ its horrible rendering
| engine.
| fomine3 wrote:
| I doubt such users had used Chrome frame instead of Chrome.
| Ndymium wrote:
| The Edge rendering engine is Blink, because Edge is a fork of
| Chromium now.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| I work in small business IT, and I literally have to use IE11
| on a weekly basis to interface with some shoddy something.
|
| And it's not necessarily just old stuff, either- there are
| brand new NVRs and cameras going in today that require IE and
| some godforsaken ActiveX control to work. IE is going to be
| around for a _long_ time.
| etripe wrote:
| Isn't that also what people said about Flash?
| Baeocystin wrote:
| Yes, and they were right. I have to deal with Flash
| regularly, too. So much so that I keep a VM around for
| solely that purpose.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| > But fear not! Outlook still uses the HTML parsing engine from
| MS Word (!) to display your HTML emails, and it's not going
| anywhere.
|
| I feel you, and if you're an enterprise user still on the last
| LTSB release (1803) then yes - Outlook is still using a trident
| based browser.
|
| If you're on 1903 or above, though, my understanding is that
| you're now on a WebView2 engine running roughly what's in Edge
| right now: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
| edge/webview2/
|
| I know for a fact that our company's product for Outlook (an
| addin.js extension) has suddenly started working for customers
| in Outlook when they upgrade, and we're not IE11 compatible.
| OakNinja wrote:
| I was helping a friend out with html email templates a while
| ago, and it was like time traveling back to 2001 Geocities web
| development. Table hell...
| easton wrote:
| When Outlook becomes a PWA (currently in test, I think it's
| probably two-three years from stable), it'll be rendering mail
| with all the functionality of Blink. Which depending on your
| point of view, means a sigh of relief or time to buy more RAM.
|
| https://www.windowscentral.com/project-monarch-outlook-web-u...
| djxfade wrote:
| But Gmail is already a web app, and only supports a tiny
| subset of modern HTML and CSS. The limitation is of course
| arbitrary, it could in theory support any modern standards.
| But HTML mail is so quirky and full of hacks, that they
| probably have to do it that way to preserve compatibility.
| Apple's Mail app is one of the few modern mail clients that
| can render modern HTML/CSS
| whakim wrote:
| That's true, and I wish that emails could just work like
| everything else on the web. But simply removing Outlook and
| all its baggage from the equation would be a big, big
| improvement on the status quo.
| SilverRed wrote:
| There are good reasons to reject a lot of it. You don't
| want JS running in an email for example. Or even some of
| the fancier CSS abilities.
| whakim wrote:
| By "I wish that emails could just work like everything
| else on the web" I meant modern web HTML/CSS - I was
| replying to the GP - not the full set of browser
| capabilities such as Javascript. I suppose it's possible
| you'd also want to exclude certain CSS abilities, but at
| that point you're now diverging from the web CSS spec
| which isn't ideal either.
| fomine3 wrote:
| Web standard is continuously evolving but email don't
| need most of them. I think whitelist approach is better
| than blacklist for email.
| whakim wrote:
| Yes, but then who maintains the whitelist? What's to stop
| individual email providers from deciding they do/don't
| like certain standards? I agree that email doesn't need
| much of the CSS spec, but nor do the vast majority of web
| sites and yet we don't like it when browsers aren't
| standards-compliant...
| fomine3 wrote:
| HTML/CSS is designed to be safe for web by browser
| vendors and working groups. Unused HTML/CSS feature is
| fine as long as it's not vulnerable, but blacklist for
| email is problem because new feature is not designed to
| be safe for email.
|
| Theoretically email client vendor can host working group
| like WHATWG to define standard by picking subset from web
| HTML/CSS. I don't know why it's not happened.
| whakim wrote:
| Can you share some CSS vulnerabilities that would work in
| email but not in a browser? I can certainly think of CSS
| vulnerabilities that would _not_ work in email because
| email can 't execute javascript, but can't come up with
| the reverse off the top of my head. Genuinely curious
| here.
| fomine3 wrote:
| * Any way that reference external resource like css url()
| can be used as beacon. It should be blockable by client
| like image, but thinking how it affect is difficult if
| all tags are allowed.
|
| * iframe content inside message is editable after message
| sent.
|
| * Java Applet/ActiveX is almost dead, but still
| available. Should it be allowed on email? (for web mail
| on IE11/Trident)
|
| * Sanitizing JavaScript from HTML by blacklisting isn't
| simple operation. Possibly attack vector. (for web mail)
| whakim wrote:
| > * Any way that reference external resource like css
| url() can be used as beacon. It should be blockable by
| client like image, but thinking how it affect is
| difficult if all tags are allowed.
|
| You can already use url() to load background images -
| seems like this is a solved vector.
|
| > * iframe content inside message is editable after
| message sent.
|
| Does this really increase the attack surface area, since
| you can't execute javascript from the iframe?
|
| * Java Applet/ActiveX is almost dead, but still
| available. Should it be allowed on email? (for web mail
| on IE11/Trident)
|
| No, because that's not in the HTML/CSS spec and modern
| browsers don't support it.
|
| * Sanitizing JavaScript from HTML by blacklisting isn't
| simple operation. Possibly attack vector. (for web mail)
|
| Seems like a solved problem considering there's currently
| no way to execute arbitrary javascript in webmail.
| fomine3 wrote:
| > You can already use url() to load background images -
| seems like this is a solved vector.
|
| Background image with url() is very easy to be
| whitelisted because it's very similar to <img> tag.
|
| > Does this really increase the attack surface area,
| since you can't execute javascript from the iframe?
|
| Sorry, this concern isn't about security for browsers,
| but for text editable email without indication. Maybe you
| can argue that it's not a problem because external image
| is already replaceable, but IMO it's more problematic.
|
| > No, because that's not in the HTML/CSS spec and modern
| browsers don't support it.
|
| Blacklist approach means that any tags just work unless
| explicitly specified on blacklist. "Not in spec" won't
| help.
|
| > Seems like a solved problem considering there's
| currently no way to execute arbitrary javascript in
| webmail.
|
| That's thanks to whitelist approach.
| philistine wrote:
| I don't think there's any HTML or CSS that is problematic
| in an email. The problem is Javascript.
| speleding wrote:
| The surface of HTML+CSS is pretty big by now. Perhaps you
| could use CSS to restyle the "From" address: hide the
| original content and use an :after property to put
| "$bank_name" there. Perhaps you can generate a unique
| @font url for each user to track opening of messages.
| Just two things of the top of my head that maybe won't
| work, but it would probably be a cat and mouse game for a
| while when security researchers start poking at it.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| But then why have HTML email at all? You could just write
| in markdown.
| nexuist wrote:
| _Why_ have HTML email in the first place? No other
| messaging client lets you send entire HTML documents as
| messages. Just send me some words and a link to click on
| in a proper browser. The fact that HTML email is so
| bloated and a nightmare to eyeballs eveywhere is (IMO) a
| huge reason why conversations (even professional ones)
| shifted over to Slack, SMS, WhatsApp, FB Messenger, etc.
| I want a place to talk to people, not to shitty template
| engines. But if you 're going to automate my
| conversation, use words, not posters.
| SilverRed wrote:
| You're comment made me think about why we actually use
| slack/IM when email is just as capable and I think the
| answer is that I can have notifications turned on for IM
| and I can't do that for email. Which means I respond much
| slower to email.
|
| IM is one of the last places on the internet not filled
| with automated crap, advertisers and spam. And to be
| fair, some of that automated crap I actually want and
| browse through at a later time but IM explicitly
| separates real time messages and newsletters.
| tofukid wrote:
| Email supports instant notifications, via your provider's
| app or IMAP IDLE. I use Fastmail and get push
| notifications for email the instant it is received.
| SilverRed wrote:
| The point is if I turned on instant notifications I would
| go insane because they would never stop. I receive lots
| of emails and a lot of them are not very important or at
| least not urgent. While every IM I receive is something I
| at least want to glance at now.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| That point, frankly, applies to some Slack workspaces
| too. Some of them just have too many notifications to
| keep track of.
| jiofih wrote:
| Not a bad idea.
| m0dest wrote:
| I'm intrigued by that idea. Markdown or Markdown-like
| subsets have proven to be sufficient for communication in
| a variety of media (Slack, Wikipedia, forum comments,
| GitHub issues/comments, etc.)
|
| Email clients are a bit of an oligopoly, so execution
| would depend on which player(s) are involved. Most of
| these initiatives would need an "everyone but Outlook"
| coalition to succeed.
|
| A few thoughts on implementation:
|
| - Multipart MIME is still a big part of HTML mail, so it
| would make sense to piggypack on that support. Instead of
| adding a new MIME attachment for Markdown, it would make
| sense to extend the existing support for text/plain
| renditions and find some way to signal that it's
| Markdown. (e.g. text/plain; charset=UTF-8;
| variant=MarkdownMail)
|
| - For mail clients that aren't Markdown-aware, it would
| be important to produce an HTML-rendered variant with a
| reasonable style sheet.
|
| - A Markdown-first mail client would either need to limit
| formatting to Markdown or soft-block access to non-
| Markdown formatting. ("Custom text colors will not be
| visible on some devices and may be lost when replying.
| Continue?")
|
| - When viewing a Markdown-enabled message, a Markdown-
| first mail client would render the text/plain variant in
| its preferred style sheet, not the HTML-rendered variant.
|
| - When replying to a Markdown-enabled message, a
| Markdown-first mail client would use the text/plain
| variant as the source of truth for quoted replies, not
| the HTML-rendered variant.
|
| A few tricky areas:
|
| - Mail clients would need to agree on a Markdown dialect,
| especially for extensions like tables.
|
| - Markdown isn't very incompatible with quoting. There
| would need to be a solution for inline quoting.
|
| - For everyone's sanity, it would seem important to agree
| on a delimiter to separate prior messages and their
| headers.
|
| - To not be worse than HTML mail, we'd really need a way
| to signal that a paragraph is part of a mail signature so
| that it can be rendered in a subtle way. As much as we
| might wish that mail signatures would just go away, they
| will continue to be used, and rendering them as standard
| paragraph text just makes them more distracting.
| derefr wrote:
| Sounds like you're talking about the subset of HTML+CSS
| used in ePub. Come to think, ebooks and emails have
| pretty similar "richness" needs.
| craig131 wrote:
| That's a great idea, just use the ePub standard. Never
| made the connection between ebook formatting and email
| formatting before, nice.
| shakna wrote:
| Most ePub readers are intentionally not compliant with
| the standard, because the standard allows way too much.
| Including, for example, arbitrary execution.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Sounds like you're talking about the subset of HTML+CSS
| used in ePub.
|
| EPUB3 supports JS.
| derefr wrote:
| EPUB3 is a half-baked standard that nothing actually
| fully supports. The JavaScript parts especially--most
| e-readers don't ever plan on adding JS support, even if
| they nominally support EPUB3.
| zymhan wrote:
| > Apple's Mail app is one of the few modern mail clients
| that can render modern HTML/CSS
|
| That's kinda funny given how my Calendar.app event notes
| are just full of unparsed HTML tags
|
| Though I don't know which is worse, putting HTML in
| calendar invite descriptions, or refusing to render basic
| tags.
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| I vote for putting HTML in calendar invites. As worst
| thing, I precise.
| derefr wrote:
| Given that email is MIME (i.e. you can add multiple
| "bodies" to a message, with different content-types, and
| the email client will select the best one it can render),
| you'd think we could just come up with a new content-type
| for email meaning "HTML, but for real", and add that to
| email in addition to the current "HTML, but sucky"
| semantics we get from text/html-typed bodies.
|
| For a while, people would be sending both text/html and
| text/html-for-real, but eventually we'd maybe be able to
| switch to only sending text/html-for-real (while also
| continuing to send text/plain for fallback.)
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| CSS grid email designs would be great, but we'd also get
| an avalanche of nightmare canvas-tag spam...
| akx wrote:
| A canvas tag won't do much without scripts, and I really
| don't believe any client would allow running scripts from
| email...
| toastal wrote:
| Maybe more people will then demand plaintext as we come
| full circle
| ratww wrote:
| You can have one without another! Apple Mail supports
| grid, but doesn't support canvas or script tags.
| smichel17 wrote:
| I wish people sent text/plain as a fallback for
| text/html...
| drewzero1 wrote:
| > a new content-type for email meaning "HTML, but for
| real"
|
| text/email Mozilla/5.0 (KHTML, like Gecko)
| derefr wrote:
| I get what you mean, but it's not like we'd have to keep
| adding these on. "text/html" on email clients _currently_
| means "some specific ossified version of HTML4"; but
| text/html-for-real would hopefully mean "the newest and
| most featureful version of HTML that your rendering
| engine can manage." So there'd just be the one version of
| it.
|
| Eventually, if everybody switched to sending text/html-
| for-real first, maybe the email clients could follow
| along and make text/html _also_ mean "the newest and
| most featureful version of HTML5"; and then we could all
| revert to just calling it text/html.
|
| Rather than a distinct MIME type, I believe it could also
| make sense to borrow the HTTP header X-Content-Type-
| Options: nosniff (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/X-...) into the MIME envelope of
| the text/html document, to signal that this envelope is
| "really" using HTML, no second-guessing. (This is how the
| header was used in IE8: to tell the renderer to
| explicitly not trigger IE historical-renderer compat
| mode.)
|
| That might get into a situation where the message has two
| MIME bodies that are both text/html, though, and I'm not
| sure existing clients have been written to cope with
| that. A well-engineered solution would work with existing
| clients (by having them ignore the body of unknown-to-
| them media-type, and render the old fallback body of
| known media-type.)
| Vinnl wrote:
| AFAIK Thunderbird just uses Gecko - I wonder whether it's
| not running into similar problems.
| formercoder wrote:
| Wow this is awful. I just moved to an outlook company after
| years on google. It's so nice having my mail client be
| native.
| dahart wrote:
| > I just moved to an outlook company after years on google.
| It's so nice having my mail client be native.
|
| Hehe, I also moved to an Outlook company a few years back.
| I've had to switch completely to the Outlook Web App (OWA),
| the native app gets too bogged down after a while, and it's
| frustrating to deal with Outlook native across multiple
| machines. My Outlook experience was vastly improved when I
| stopped using the native client. And there are a lot of
| reasons I prefer Gmail as well, Outlook seems to lose
| threads easily, the spam filtering isn't as good, and it
| has all kinds of unintuitive UI quirks and gaps.
| golergka wrote:
| Is it?
|
| For an application which has rendering HTML content
| (emails) as its primary function, being a PWA and using
| something like Electron actually sounds like a good choice.
| waheoo wrote:
| Thunderbird is still a thing and Google supports IMAP.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| Many companies disable IMAP for data security
| arvindamirtaa wrote:
| FYI, Gmail works on Outlook. But the ability to use
| extensions may be limited on some platforms.
| TheRealNGenius wrote:
| Outlook is a PWA
| thrower123 wrote:
| Damn, hopefully it is more than two or three years out. I'm
| enjoying Outlook being one of the most stable and least
| resource-hungry applications that I run on a daily basis.
|
| Also, if it's going to be a packaged-up version of the
| Outlook webapp, I'm going to lose the global unread mail
| folder, which is going to kill me, given the way my inbox
| folders and rules are set up by customer.
| sebazzz wrote:
| More RAM or worse performance? I doubt it, given the COM
| addons my employer stuffs in my Outlook client. Zipmail among
| others.
| easton wrote:
| If you want to switch to this, PWA install is available for
| Outlook Web App right now (just sign into
| outlook.office.com and click on the plus button that
| appears in the address bar in Edge or Chrome). If you don't
| have any crazy mail needs it works fine.
| chihuahua wrote:
| Thanks for the tip - I just tried this out in the free
| outlook.com client, and it works there too.
| [deleted]
| tresvert wrote:
| I agree with this one; it will always be etched on our hearts.
| The good thing is that even though IE 11 will retire, Microsoft
| Edge is here to stay. It's even better than other browsers, for
| sure. I tried using it, and I love the browsing experience.
| underscore_ku wrote:
| not my browser! i use Linux - Chromium or Firefox
| major505 wrote:
| no, not really. If I could I would be the first to thrown it in
| a deep hole in the ground and seal with concrete to make sure
| it never rises again.
| gerdesj wrote:
| "but it was our terrible browser."
|
| Don't you dare include me in "our" 8)
|
| My first browser was telnet (1992ish) From 1993 onwards it was
| all a bit weird in internets land.
|
| For me the golden time for wwwbly_internets was around 2000-5
| or so. /. was still (just) worth reading, FB was still a bulge
| in MZ's trousers. Google was cool, Amazon was clever, Apple was
| cool. The www was still interesting - US frontier like.
|
| I am of course joking. Today's www is not the same as that in
| say 2000. Google is not cool, Apple is not cool, Facebook is
| unpleasant, Amazon is not cool and quite odd.
| Laforet wrote:
| eBay has changed very little since then if that helps,
| however PayPal might as well be unrecognisable.
| lbriner wrote:
| I often think that EBay are outdated in almost every
| regard. Their UI is confusing, spaghetti code, an obvious
| mixture of old pages and new pages and until recently,
| still seemed to use some bootstrap dll for requests.
|
| I guess your damned if you update and damned if you don't.
| saos wrote:
| > But fear not! Outlook still uses the HTML parsing engine from
| MS Word (!) to display your HTML emails, and it's not going
| anywhere.
|
| My biggest ever frustration.
| detritus wrote:
| Going a bit further back, IE 5 and 6 were the best browser by
| far. Strange for me to think that my now-beloved Firefox has
| its heritage embedded in Netscape, which at the same time as
| IE5 was an absolute pig.
|
| - ed
|
| for some reason I have it in mind as IE5.5 specifically that
| was The Great IE.
| danybittel wrote:
| IE 4 specifically was the big milestone. MS had a lot of
| catch up to do (they mostly ignored Internet before that).
| I've written web apps in IE4 (around 2000), it was capable of
| dynamically generating and manipulating the dom. While
| Netscape 4 could barely change a color of an element without
| crashing.
| munk-a wrote:
| I have a version of myself aged in their twenties and working
| in web development that really wants to stab anyone believing
| that IE6 was the best browser.
|
| I won't argue that it wasn't decent at launch, but MS kept
| support for that browser around way too long and failed to
| actually roll out support for new features that customers
| desired. I believe it was the era of IE6 specifically that
| led to the proliferation of top-right-corner.jpg which was an
| absolute abomination.
| jp555 wrote:
| As a web developer, I might have billed 3x more hours
| thanks to IE 6. :P
|
| I hated it but it made me a lot of money for many years,
| mostly thanks to governments requiring IE 6 support. LOL
| Rodeoclash wrote:
| Compared to IE5 and Netscape Navigator 4, it was a great
| browser!
|
| The issue was the length of time that it stuck around for.
| detritus wrote:
| Oh, don't get me wrong - it was a Trojan Horse, and my
| first ever web browsing experience was on Navigator, so it
| was a hard-hearted appreciation at the time.
|
| But from my stand point then, It Just Worked.
| ido wrote:
| Same for me - I started browsing the web on Mosaic and
| quickly switched to Netscape. I hung on during the
| Netscape 4.x days but at some point couldn't deny how
| much better IE was (I think maybe even IE 4 was already
| as good or better than Netscape).
|
| I switched to IE until the Mozilla suit released and
| later on switched to Firefox 0.something - it was amazing
| how fast it was compared to both IE6 and Mozilla.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Some time around 2001 or 2002 I bought Opera (with tabs!)
| and that just made the internet usable.
| claviska wrote:
| IE6 almost made me quit web development once it grew
| stagnant. It was put on the back burner at some point and
| they rested on their laurels until Firefox started eating
| IE's market share.
| gnu8 wrote:
| Did we forget all about Mozilla already?
| detritus wrote:
| Nope, still using two of their products today, and waiting
| for the moment (as, I think, promised soon?) wherein I
| could donate/pay directly to/for firefox.
|
| I don't broadly support Mozilla's aims (I also don't not -
| I'm an owner of a 1st-gen Firefox phone, for example), but
| we're just talking browsers here.
| Notre1 wrote:
| I think you proved his point. ;) He's talking about the
| Mozilla browser, the precursor to Firefox. (Well
| actually, Firefox was named Phoenix before it became
| Firefox.)
| ricardonunez wrote:
| Firebird
| fn1 wrote:
| First Phoenix then Firebird, then they changed the name
| to Firefox because of the similarly named database
| (https://firebirdsql.org/).
| ido wrote:
| Wasn't that the email client?
| chihuahua wrote:
| I think the email client was Thunderbird
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Thunderbird
| fn1 wrote:
| The email client is still Thunderbird, it's in active
| development.
| adventured wrote:
| It was IE 5.5 that was particularly a champ compared to the
| terrible Netscape Communicator / Netscape 4 product. I
| continued to regularly use Netscape 4 through those years, as
| I didn't like IE, and it was a real dog in most every
| respect. Netscape took their eye off the ball in an attempt
| to further build their business away from the browser
| (Communicator of course was their suite attempt), and failed
| at both things in the process.
| ido wrote:
| There's an old post about that by Joel Spolsky that I
| remember thinking was particularly insightful at the time:
|
| https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-
| should-...
|
| I also vaguely remember jwz writing about the experience of
| developing it.
| detritus wrote:
| Thanks for confirming - I wasn't sure if I was mixing up
| the version number with Photoshop, which 5.5 was (if memory
| serves) the one that fixed terribly-kerned typesetting in
| v5, and added some new web-export wizziness.
| marcodiego wrote:
| I never got the feeling that IE was a good browser. It came
| by default with windows and that made it specially popular,
| but never good. Alternatives always looked like a better
| option.
| berkut wrote:
| As someone who used Netscape, IE and Opera back then,
| Netscape was unfortunately very buggy (and not just in
| terms of stability). It's offline cache didn't always work
| (i..e you could resize the window, and it would re-download
| things instead of using the local cache, which was very
| painful on 28.8 dialup!) I remember being able to browse
| some sites very quickly while dialed up in IE, and then
| later offline be able to view them more leisurely all fine
| in offline mode. Netscape couldn't consistently do that.
|
| IE 5, 5.5 and 6.0 (this last one at least initially, but
| clearly it stayed around too long without development) were
| noticeably faster and more user-friendly in my experience.
| afavour wrote:
| Then you weren't around in the IE5-6 era. It was definitely
| a better browser. But then they decided IE6 could never be
| improved and sat on it for years.
| wvenable wrote:
| IE was positively fantastic at the time. So much more
| stable, light-weight, and sane than Netscape Navigator.
| [deleted]
| luke2m wrote:
| > for certain versions of Windows 10 Not all?
| baud147258 wrote:
| well, maybe my previous team would have finished their migration
| of IE by then
| SLWW wrote:
| F in the chat for IE 11
|
| we will miss you
|
| the last (worthy) MS browser; it is gonna die
| robinjfisher wrote:
| I am just waiting to hear back from a customer on a support
| ticket request where functionality in my app is not working as
| expected.
|
| They sent me a screenshot of what should be a form in a modal but
| the modal has failed to load so it has loaded just the form in a
| new page looking pretty unstyled. The JS for the modal uses
| fetch() so possibly why it broke.
|
| I'm 95% sure that the browser in the screenshot is IE10. I
| pointed them to this announcement if only to make them aware of
| the security risks in running IE10 but it beggars belief that
| anyone would choose to run IE10, individual or enterprise.
| torstenvl wrote:
| Not accusing you of this, but the primary reason people run
| outdated software is a really problematic insistence, mostly by
| front-end people, on using the new-and-shiny instead of the
| tried-and-true. Breaking changes galore - so people stick with
| the past as much as possible.
|
| Example: Office 365 OWA doesn't work well on modern browsers
| other than the latest version of Edge on Windows. But it does
| work fine on browsers that are older or pretend to be older!
| I'm technical enough to spoof my user agent, but Mom & Pop are
| just going to say "I don't like the new one, it broke stuff"
| and that will be that.
| charrondev wrote:
| Pretty sure the primary reason people stayed stuck in IE for
| so long was that Microsoft shipped it by default until very,
| very recently (even in home editions of windows).
|
| You can add on top of that the rebranding they went through.
| If they had just done what they did now, and shipped the old
| rendering engine inside the new one as some kind "legacy
| mode" that sites could request then everyone else could have
| moved forward years ago and not had to deal with a stagnant
| browser.
| chociej wrote:
| I dislike Outlook 365 because of a number of UX design
| decisions, but I can't say it works poorly on Firefox for me.
| torstenvl wrote:
| For me, and maybe this is just my organization, but the new
| O365 OWA interface is _extremely_ slow. Latency is so bad
| that typing results in only 1 in every 4-5 keystrokes _not_
| failing to register.
|
| If I pretend my user agent is from circa 2012-2013 (e.g.,
| Internet Explorer 10), it will default to an older
| interface that has marginally fewer features and is much,
| _much_ more performant.
| Klonoar wrote:
| Cool.
|
| Now ship WebView2 with the OS in a reliable way that people can
| use.
| ilkkao wrote:
| Nice, IE mode in Edge works now even in Windows home edition.
| This is new information for me. My old security camera supports
| only IE11.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Does IE mode support Java Applets? Considering:
|
| https://openjdk.java.net/jeps/398
| AwkwardPanda wrote:
| Served me well!
| klausnrooster wrote:
| Some minutes searching the IEMode and WebView2 links and not a
| single match for ".HTA".
| lriel wrote:
| I'm currently enjoying nostalgia as I'm currently using IE for a
| full on ActiveX app which has no use the loose obtuse constructs
| of the HTML.
|
| Much live a headcrab, the ActiveX takes over the the full device
| context and reaches deep into the OS. I CAN pulp my own WM
| messages thank you very much Mr browser ... Brakes my alt tab
| from time to time, can't grab focus from a miss Z'd dialog.
| Yes... Nostalgia Nostalgia Nostalgia
| [deleted]
| ivanche wrote:
| It's time for a saveie11.com :)
| gregmac wrote:
| Interesting contrast to the general sentiment about another
| major IE milestone: http://www.ie6death.com/
| selimthegrim wrote:
| ie11zombo?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| My current employer will be devastated. The user interface of our
| currently in development program requires IE + Java applets.
| thr1123 wrote:
| still not aboard the php 3 hype train?
|
| now it's time to sell it hard to management
| mr_toad wrote:
| That's like building a new barn after the horse has bolted.
| mmastrac wrote:
| This sounds like the stuff I worked on 15 years ago in the oil
| and gas sector (in fairness, IE + applets _were_ the best
| choice at the time).
| cies wrote:
| > IE + applets _were_ the best choice at the time
|
| Depends on the constraints. Qt was around and mature for many
| years in 2006. Ruby on Rails had it's first release mid 2004.
| Django mid-2005.
|
| Again it depends on the constrains, what you can "the best
| choice in 2006" is limping now. Meanwhile an app built in
| 2006 on Qt/RoR/Django would be on a platform that is
| currently still being considered for green field devt.
|
| Without knowing all constraints I'd be willing to say that
| IE+applets was not the best choice in 2006, neither was: GWT,
| WebSphere or any of the MS GUI toolkits around in that year.
|
| I'm still on the fence wrt Vaadin. It was not around in 2006,
| but soon after. Never used it, but it seems to still be
| actively maintained to this day.
| lbriner wrote:
| The oil and gas sector are not going to be using 2-year old
| software to develop safety critical systems. Can you
| honestly imagine using Ruby on Rails for monitoring an oil
| rig?
|
| The timescale for a supplier to be in-business in order to
| prove their safety-critical credentials, the time it takes
| experienced developers to learn a language or framework and
| prove that it works, the time it takes to find, specify,
| build and deliver a project in these circles means you
| would be hard pushed to find anything that is less than 10
| years old being used outside of startups.
| skrebbel wrote:
| I don't think any of this was obvious in 2006.
| cies wrote:
| I know! That's the gamble one makes choosing a
| language/dependency you cannot easily move away from.
|
| But the lack of obviousness does not make IE+applets the
| best choice in 2006.
| fomine3 wrote:
| Agreed, Flash is the best choice at the time.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| That's around when my project was started.
| pram wrote:
| The horror.
| [deleted]
| bydo wrote:
| It's still very common in a lot of niche industries. Though
| apparently it's also still supported, since they just embed
| the entire Trident engine in Edge. So really this is just yet
| another way for Microsoft to try to force Edge on users?
| gibolt wrote:
| I'm really curious what client requirements drove that
| decision.
|
| 'In development'. Does this mean v1 hasn't even shipped yet?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| >Does this mean v1 hasn't even shipped yet?
|
| yes
| jefft255 wrote:
| That sounds just unbelievable to me, and I've worked at
| government agency doing Lotus Note programming on Windows
| XP past EoL. What was the decision process like, to decide
| to create a new Java applet in 2021??
|
| Edit: I've seen a later comment mentioning it was started a
| while ago. But still... this is a dead platform. To me this
| is on the level of launching a new app targeting Windows
| XP. It's just a disaster
| bartread wrote:
| About 5 years ago I briefly contracted for a large
| multinational, who shall remain nameless, who were still
| running a version of some Lotus thing (I forget whether
| it was Notes or Smartsuite) that was well over a decade
| out of support, and possibly two decades old, running on
| a long since obsolete niche operating system, on hardware
| that probably dated from the 90s.
|
| None of it could be upgraded.
|
| Which would have been fine except that it had
| dependencies, and those dependencies had dependencies,
| and... you get the idea. I got the distinct impression
| that were it to fail or be unplugged every system in the
| business might slowly and inexorably fail over a period
| of days or weeks, eventually grinding all trading
| activity to a halt.
|
| They were trying to figure out what to do about it and,
| fortunately, the guy in charge of replacing it really
| seemed to enjoy that kind of problem but, for all I know,
| they're still running it.
| lenocinor wrote:
| I think I used to work at the company you're talking
| about. Definitely don't miss those parts! What a crazy
| old tech stack it was...
| lbriner wrote:
| I think many companies have a short and medium-term view
| but not a longer-term one.
|
| People should know that hardware will become obsolete or
| fail, that software will become unsupported, the supplier
| might go bust etc.
|
| You need to be able to run generations of IT in parallel
| so that you always have newer hardware/software getting
| used/proved alongside the old nonsense and if you will
| need to replace an aging system, you better have seen it
| coming enough years earlier to give you time to find a
| replacement.
|
| Also, large corporates have a habit of over-customising
| what they want so a new system has to be completely
| bespoke = slow and expensive to replace.
| keithnz wrote:
| IE Mode in edge should keep you living in the dark ages for
| years to come :)
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > currently in development program requires IE + Java applets.
|
| Why?
|
| Surely it's not a greenfield project.
| Tade0 wrote:
| The other day I was inspecting some software for an
| industrial pump to advise how to customise/debug it and sure
| enough the source code is in some proprietary language which
| compiles into a Java applet.
|
| Not sure when was that app written, but the control unit was
| assembled just months ago.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| It's just a defense program with a very very long timeline.
| danjac wrote:
| IE + Java applets? Who were you defending? The
| Carthaginians?
| suzzer99 wrote:
| Wait, you're serious?
| selimthegrim wrote:
| In 2014 the healthcare IT company I left was running this
| plus ActiveX controls written in Delphi
| teh_klev wrote:
| This wouldn't be Craneware would it?
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| I would worry about long term availability.
|
| For that type of project, it might be worth it to write a
| detailed spec for how the back-end talks to the front-end
| so in the future it's possible to write a more modern
| client.
| lbriner wrote:
| I'm not sure you appreciate how much work it is to both
| "write a detailed spec" and then also to "write a more
| modern client".
|
| All of that on top of a system which has likely changed
| in the intermediate years. Basically, you might as well
| milk the existing system for as long as possible and then
| replace it with a completely new system that probably
| runs on newer hardware (1990s instead of 1980s), is much
| more maintainable and does things in a more modern way.
| nickkell wrote:
| Who defends the defenders? Sounds like a secondary
| (tertiary?) business will spring up to plug the security
| holes in these defence technologies
| crazygringo wrote:
| What does it matter? Your users will just run it in Edge using
| IE11 compatibility mode, which "will be supported through at
| least 2029".
|
| I see no devastation here...
| amanzi wrote:
| Not sure if Java apps will run in IE Mode?
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| You'll also need an old version of Java installed that will
| certainly be EOL with no security patches back ported.
| dheera wrote:
| I don't think IE will self-implode, you just won't get
| "support", whatever that means.
| lbriner wrote:
| Haha, yeah, don't really get any support anyway except those
| forums where they tell you to reinstall Windows if it is
| still not working :-)
| amanzi wrote:
| To be fair, this has been on the cards for the last couple of
| years - should be no surprise to anyone.
|
| Also, if there's a genuine need to keep IE around for longer,
| then you have some options, e.g. deploy Win 10 LTSC for
| specific legacy use-cases, or publish IE11 via Citrix.
| keithnz wrote:
| if you want automatic redirection to Edge for your website, you
| can request it via https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
| edge/web-platform...
| marcodiego wrote:
| From time to time I like to lake a look at the last efforts ms
| did to try to save ie:
| https://www.youtube.com/user/internetexplorer/videos as for
| example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyl4ABlXzuM
| IntelMiner wrote:
| "Comments are disabled"
|
| I almost wonder if at the time they were enabled, before people
| found the video
| ramses0 wrote:
| Does this include IE11.dll? (used by some internal MS tools as a
| renderer, eg: Office Add-ins)
|
| https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/concepts...
| locallost wrote:
| There was a time when I was really good in fixing bugs in IE6.
| This made me go to school because I realized no matter what
| happens, IE will eventually die and my skills will be useless.
| So, final goodbye, although I haven't thought about you much in
| the last years.
| foxfired wrote:
| One of my former employer will be devastated (a fortune 10).
| There was absolutely no other way for employees to use the
| company's websites without IE. (payroll, hr, internal services,
| etc)
|
| Even mac users had to use IE. I never figured out how they were
| running IE on the mac, but there it was running in all its glory.
| FateOfNations wrote:
| Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your perspective),
| they will be fine... Enterprises are able to configure Edge to
| load certain websites using the legacy IE rendering engine
| (until 2029). Shouldn't break anything at this point, while
| allowing the rest of the internet to abandon IE.
| AngeloAnolin wrote:
| Hate it or hate it, Internet Explorer paved the way for a lot of
| developers to provide web content and applications as it was the
| de-facto browser used by a lot of end consumers.
|
| It also paved the way for technology to focus on security,
| standards and most of all, a better and standardized approach for
| browser technology.
| droptablemain wrote:
| I was assigned a Trello task the other day to go ahead and put up
| a warning to IE users (until August).
|
| It was one of the most satisfying tasks I've ever received.
|
| I can't wait to go through the app with a machete and whack away
| all the sloppy IE compatibility code.
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| We relaunched a 12 year old SaaS app last month and dropped IE
| support. It was the most wonderful feeling to remove support
| for that dumpster fire out of the repos.
| ma2rten wrote:
| That reminds me of a story where in 2009 some rouge youtube
| employees put up a warning that IE6 would be deprecated:
|
| https://blog.chriszacharias.com/a-conspiracy-to-kill-ie6
| willhslade wrote:
| Rogue
| layer8 wrote:
| > Microsoft Edge has Internet Explorer mode
|
| I wish they would provide the opposite, Edge/Chromium engine in
| an IE skin/UI.
| theropost wrote:
| As someone actually working in operations, and keeping our
| current suite of software/apps/etc compatable with these
| upgrades, I say - Microsoft, your documentation is very poor and
| lacking, and I have to invent fixes to your lack of effort...
| probably by design.
|
| It is annoying when we can quickly proof up software, and
| specialized utilities when consulting with business. It is wayyyy
| to much work to port from IE to Edge though.. yeesh, waste of my
| productive time.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Sad trombone. You could have avoided all that if you had
| written the software to the standards and not to IE. Then you
| didn't use the many years you got to transition.
|
| It's way too much work to port your app? Well guess it isn't
| that important after all. Because whether you want it or not,
| IE is a dead end and it's going away.
| theropost wrote:
| Yup, that is the case - Gov. is slow to react with such poor
| funding. We tend to wait until our hand is forced, and
| support tons of legacy apps - if this was my own PC/network I
| would have been way ahead of this train wreck.
| jefftk wrote:
| _By moving to Microsoft Edge, you get everything described above
| plus you'll be able to extend the life of your legacy websites
| and apps well beyond the Internet Explorer 11 desktop application
| retirement date using IE mode. Internet Explorer mode in
| Microsoft Edge will be supported through at least 2029._
|
| While IE11 as an independent program is going away, the rendering
| engine is still around for 8+y.
|
| Here's hoping that this deprecation removes the expectation that
| things support IE11, however!
| [deleted]
| brnt wrote:
| I wonder if MS will remove Webview and ship Webview2 by default
| now.
| brundolf wrote:
| Imagine being the engineer who has to keep maintaining the IE
| codebase for the next 8 years. [shudders]
| eric__cartman wrote:
| I doubt anyone will be actively maintaining it once it gets
| implemented as a rendering engine in Edge. It will probably
| be implemented including the existing bugs as issues and
| remain unchanged until it's late retirement date. Kind of
| what happened with flash player.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| While I wouldn't want to do it, if you've been working on
| that codebase for years and you're no longer young and fired
| up about always going for the latest things, it could be a
| good way to sunset your career. A guaranteed position using
| technology you understand rather than being thrown out into
| the job market, struggling to get up to date on the latest
| programming fads so you can compete with people half your
| age, would be nice for many.
| nly wrote:
| What makes you think they won't just lump it on a couple of
| juniors who rarely ever touch it, and even then only for
| critical bugfixes?
| brundolf wrote:
| That's fair! I guess I just assume the codebase is terrible
| (not just because of age, but also judging by the end-
| product) and will remain terrible; why would you do a
| refactor, or optimize something, or add new features when
| it's become a niche project that nobody likes and is on its
| way out? It's probably just patching over critical bugs
| from here forward
|
| It's not just about doing something new; a bad codebase
| that I don't have the opportunity to genuinely improve is
| probably the most miserable type of project I can possibly
| think of
| Tostino wrote:
| If the task is just "keep this working", I could see
| plenty of people being alright with not making major
| changes to a codebase. It pays the bills, and that's all
| a good number of people care about.
| bigyikes wrote:
| And that is all they _should_ care about if the product
| is EOL.
|
| Good software engineering is all about building something
| that meets current business needs while being flexible
| enough to adapt to future needs. When you lose this
| flexibility, you need to refactor or changes become too
| difficult to implement.
|
| IE11 isn't getting any new features. It's in maintenance
| mode. Cleaning up the code in major ways at this point
| would be a waste of time.
| ido wrote:
| If I was in that position and had nothing else to do, why
| not leisurely refactor and clean up the code in a
| piecemeal fashion?
| chronogram wrote:
| I could really only see that if your job title is "IE11
| maintainer" and for the next 10 years you clock in, drink
| coffee and chat while waiting for a CVE to come in to
| fix. But you'd still rather not touch anything because
| there's really only risk and no reward to it.
|
| Realistically it'll just be part of a far larger security
| team that fixes bugs in a large number of software
| preferably prioritising bugs based on severity where
| there's always going to be something better to do than
| mess with old codebases.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| risk vs reward
| [deleted]
| simonh wrote:
| True. If you really, deeply know COM and vintage C++ you
| can make a lot of money contracting in New York to this
| day.
| Uehreka wrote:
| I'm pretty sure almost no one is. There are tons of IE11
| layout bugs (not missing features, straight-up bugs) that
| have not gotten fixed in 8 years. I get the vibe that MS may
| have totally cut off development and all but the most
| critical security maintenance in order to speed the plow of
| Edge adoption.
| wvenable wrote:
| Yeah, I'm happy if they change nothing about IE11 till the
| end of time at this point. Software that currently requires
| IE11 isn't going to change either.
| SilverRed wrote:
| The bugs did get fixed. In Edge. If you are using IE11 you
| want the bugs to stay exactly the same so your legacy
| silverlight app still works the same.
| datameta wrote:
| MSFT goes so far as to have said bugs in Edge's IE11
| compatibility mode. They've truly become features.
| als0 wrote:
| This must be what hell is like.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Managing a legacy codebase can be a lot of fun if one
| thinks of oneself as a digital analog to Indiana Jones or
| Sherlock Holmes. It does take more work to keep up one's
| reputation though.
| TranquilMarmot wrote:
| Honestly using modern web technology (Babel, PostCSS, etc.)
| makes it pretty easy to maintain IE11 support without TOO
| much effort and there aren't that many features you
| absolutely can't use (CSS grid is probably the most painful
| missing feature).
|
| That being said, our company is deprecating IE11 support in
| October and I already have the PRs ready to rip out some of
| the code that bloats our JS/CSS with polyfills.
| lbriner wrote:
| > Here's hoping that this deprecation removes the expectation
| that things support IE11, however!
|
| Always sounds good in theory but when trying to maximise reach,
| it can be hard to instantly tell a whole bunch of the web, who
| might be running old PCs, that they can't use your site any
| more.
|
| Also, when you have large corporate customers, you often do not
| have enough muscle to tell them that unless they upgrade their
| client browsers, they can no longer use your service.
|
| That decision might sound simple but there can be loads of
| regulatory or accreditation hurdles to overcome to use a new
| browser and it can affect 1000s of corporate employees.
| crazygringo wrote:
| But that'll only be whitelisted for legacy corporate sites/apps
| that need it.
|
| Anything new can safely ignore IE11, because Edge won't be
| using the IE11 engine for it.
|
| This is great, because it'll get corporations to replace the
| actual IE11 executable with the Edge executable.
| daigoba66 wrote:
| > because it'll get corporations to replace the actual IE11
| executable with the Edge executable.
|
| I'm probably just cynical, but nothing caused corporations to
| get rid of IE11 before, and nothing will now.
|
| Working on an enterprise b2b web app, I'm going to have to
| support IE11 indefinitely.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _and nothing will now_
|
| Yes it will. Microsoft is gradually pulling out all support
| for it, with this year being the big start of that.
|
| Very soon, it'll become more work for admins to maintain
| IE11 installations than it will be for them to migrate to
| Edge with IE11 compatibility mode. Admins tend to choose
| the path of least work.
|
| You're only going to need to support IE11 indefinitely if
| your enterprise app requires IE11. Otherwise, your company
| is probably going to be able to pull the plug at some point
| in the next 2 years, depending on your specific customer
| base.
| ilkkao wrote:
| I think it will. Just tested the IE mode, you need to manually
| enable it for every time. I think it's annoying enough.
| Kneecaps07 wrote:
| In an AD environment, you can push out a centralized list
| that is easy to update. We've found that IE Mode
| unfortunately works very well. I wish it didn't work so well
| because it allows us to keep these IE sites around
| indefinitely.
| mr_toad wrote:
| > In an AD environment, you can push out a centralized list
| that is easy to update.
|
| You can even disable the ability for users to change it,
| forcing IE mode on sites _where it doesn't work_.
|
| It's my second most hated abuse of group policy.
| joshmanders wrote:
| While it keeps existing IE11 compatible sites around
| indefinitely, it stops everyone else from having to support
| IE11 because that's the default and only browser IT allows
| on the machine.
| [deleted]
| SilverRed wrote:
| This is the main point. Now no one will have to support
| IE because any IE user has easier access to a more
| capable browser.
| drdec wrote:
| Can't you use the X-UA-Compatible header with value IE=11?
|
| https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
| us/openspecs/ie_standards/ms-i...
| Foe wrote:
| This is what I love about Microsoft. While Google is eager to
| go ahead and cancel Google Cloud Print and say "find an
| alternative before next month", Microsoft would be the company
| to announce it'll be cancelled in 2023, extended support lasts
| until 2029, and you can buy Extended Warranty 365+ for Business
| that lasts until 2067.
| hangonhn wrote:
| I think that's what happens when your root is in enterprise
| software or at least some of your heritage is in enterprise.
| I have no great love for MSFT but I agree with you about
| their willingness to support things well past their expected
| expiration. IIRC they even went so far as to detect programs
| that used some "bugs" in earlier versions of Windows and
| emulated those same buggy behaviors just for those programs.
| flatiron wrote:
| Too lazy to look but I believe someone in a vm went from
| windows 1.0 to windows 7 (with all upgrades in between) and
| some of their personalization options from 1.0 (or maybe
| 3.11) were still present in 7. Insane!
| datameta wrote:
| https://youtu.be/l60HHWWo9z4
|
| There are also timelapses for those not into having a
| multi-hour windows nostalgia marathon.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| I clicked your link thinking it was the time lapse
| version, but it is over 10 hours.
| datameta wrote:
| Hah, I can see how my wording could be interpreted that
| way. The timelapses I saw had music or the stereotypical
| content creator greeting - couldn't post that here in
| good conscience.
| stordoff wrote:
| Windows 1 to Windows 7:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPnehDhGa14 (set colour
| schemes disappear at XP, but programs continue to work)
|
| Follow up - Windows 1 to Windows 10:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH1BKPSGcxQ
| thatfunkymunki wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2hwlrk/new_win
| d... comes to mind, which explains (at least partially) why
| Windows 10 came directly after Windows 8.1
| golergka wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2281932
|
| Microsoft has a long reputation of fixing bugs caused by
| other people's software and their incorrect assumptions
| about Windows.
| jefftk wrote:
| You're definitely right that Microsoft is better about this,
| but it wasn't "find an alternative before next month". Cloud
| Print's shutdown was announced with a bit over a year of
| notice, in November 2019: https://web.archive.org/web/2019112
| 1200236/https://support.g...
| wvenable wrote:
| We have a critical 3rd party business app that absolutely
| requires IE11 (actually it requires IE11 to be in compatibility
| mode for IE5 or something). We currently use Internet Explorer
| only for this app and I think we will welcome the change to
| IE11 mode in Edge.
|
| Luckily it only to last another year or so before we replace
| this product. Some people don't understand the cost and effort
| required to replace some of these older but hugely important
| legacy products.
| [deleted]
| reputet wrote:
| I thought it retired 20 years ago, didn't it?
| aussieguy1234 wrote:
| Who remembers the IE tax? https://www.zdnet.com/google-
| amp/article/australian-retailer...
| shaicoleman wrote:
| FYI, You can send an email to Microsoft requesting the your
| website will automatically reopen in Edge when someone visits it
| with IE
|
| https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/web-platform...
| paledot wrote:
| > The IE compatibility List only adds a website when the
| following actions occur.
|
| > * Shows an IE user a message suggesting the user should use a
| different browser for compatibility reasons.
|
| Looks like you can have your site automatically added to the
| list by telling your users to use Firefox instead of IE.
| wrikl wrote:
| TIL - this is cool!
|
| Do you know if there's a way to see that XML list they mention
| anywhere publically? I can't find a link to it on that page.
|
| I guess it should be possible to spin up IE11 in a VM on macOS
| and inspect the network, but would be nice to take a look and
| see which sites are on there.
| xsc wrote:
| https://edge.microsoft.com/neededge/v1
| wrikl wrote:
| Perfect, thank you.
| marcelfw wrote:
| Never used it and now never have to! Happy me!
| jl6 wrote:
| Do we expect legacy TLS versions to remain supported under Edge's
| compatibility mode? I note MS deferred the end-of-support in IE11
| for TLS 1.0/1.1 last year and haven't announced a new end date.
| ksec wrote:
| Despite the decline of Mozilla and Firefox in recent years, it
| managed to outlive Internet Explorer!
|
| And I still remember the print ad with the launch of Firefox 1.0.
|
| M$ still have a lot to do to redeem themselves.
| marcodiego wrote:
| According to https://gs.statcounter.com/ FF is more popular
| than Edge. Many years ago I used to complain to webdesigners
| how they simply ignored FF.
|
| It is a victory and not an empty one. Firefox is the most
| independent among last remaining browsers. It is a good browser
| and an important alternative now that most other major browsers
| all use the same engine.
| chociej wrote:
| Stunning to me that so few people use Firefox. It works
| nearly flawlessly for everything I do, no worse than any
| other browser including Chromium. And it's clear they
| actually care a little about privacy and democratic
| standardization.
| wdb wrote:
| Maybe it will finally force people to upgrade away from IE11 in
| the Finance/Wealth industry.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| Can't they just take it behind the shed and put it out of its
| misery already.
| ElectricMind wrote:
| "This Little Maneuver's Gonna Cost Us 51 Years" :D
| nikanj wrote:
| Edge can't be automated via COM the same way IE could. I wonder
| what MS is offering as an upgrade path
| saulr wrote:
| Edge supports WebDriver: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
| us/microsoft-edge/webdriver-ch...
| nikanj wrote:
| Looks like the customer would have to download the Edge
| driver from Microsoft, picking the right version (and
| supposedly update the drivers as Edge auto-updates).
|
| That's a complete non-starter, compared to automating IE that
| just requires our .exe to create an IE object via
| CoCreateInstance(CLSID_InternetExplorerMedium ...), and no
| additional installation by the customer organization.
| lstamour wrote:
| The desktop application is deprecated. The guts of the Trident
| engine will live on forever... probably.
| dheera wrote:
| FireFox?
| nikanj wrote:
| Do you have any links to documentation for automating FF?
| cpeterso wrote:
| Some options for automating website tests in Firefox:
|
| WebDriver: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/WebDriver
|
| Marionette: https://firefox-source-
| docs.mozilla.org/testing/marionette/I...
|
| Puppeteer:
| https://www.infoq.com/news/2020/04/puppeteer-3-firefox-
| suppo...
|
| I haven't used these tools, so I don't know which is "best"
| or why so many different tools are needed. :)
| nikanj wrote:
| I don't want to run tests, I want to drive the browser
| for the customer. I guess it's time to learn chrome
| extensions
| cpeterso wrote:
| Mozilla uses Marionette to automate its own browser UI
| testing (not just clicking on web pages).
| chociej wrote:
| For better or worse (better, I'd argue), I don't think
| browsers want you to drive the browser for the customer.
| My takeaway from most modern browser security
| developments is that if you can't do it with the standard
| APIs, you aren't supposed to be doing it.
| fomine3 wrote:
| Microsoft Power Automate
| bsheps wrote:
| Will internet explorer mode in Edge have the same support as ie11
| running compatibility view or just base ie11?
| Asmod4n wrote:
| Just opened the latest stable release of chromium edge, there is
| no IE compatibility mode. No flag, no command line switch.
| Nothing.
|
| Why was it removed?
| mmastrac wrote:
| That's a real end of an era. Internet Explorer's legacy engine is
| going to be relegated to old grayhair horror stories. Not unhappy
| it's going away, but it feels like a big chapter is closing.
| coldpie wrote:
| Rest in peace, <!--[if lte IE 6]>
| JohnBooty wrote:
| relegated to old grayhair horror stories.
|
| The real shame of IE's passing is that we'll forget the lessons
| we learned and therefore repeat that particular disaster. It's
| already happening. I'd be happy to relegate the nightmare of IE
| to old war stories... except the same thing is happening today!
| Different method, nearly the same end result.
|
| We nearly lost the damn open web to the horror of IE6 and the
| peak "embrace, extend, extinguish" version of Microsoft.
|
| Now, of course, we're happily creating another browser
| monoculture and handing the web over to Google. This time,
| we're doing it with a smile instead of a grimace.
|
| Unlike IE6's reign of incompetent terror, Chrome is actually a
| competent browser. Techies are embracing the takeover instead
| of fighting it. It's guaranteed to succeed.
| petre wrote:
| You forgot about Safari, although it's not as atrociuos as IE
| was.
| reificator wrote:
| > _Unlike IE6 's reign of incompetent terror, Chrome is
| actually a competent browser. Techies are embracing the
| takeover instead of fighting it. It's guaranteed to succeed._
|
| IE6 was also a good browser. It didn't _stay_ a good browser
| over the 5-10-15 year lifespan it had (depending on who you
| ask) but at the time of release it was easily the best.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Arguably the best user experience in some ways- relative to
| other browsers at the time it "felt fast". Partly because
| it used native widgets instead of XUL like Mozilla, and
| also probably because various parts of it probably were
| loaded when Windows booted up.
|
| But it was pretty bad in other ways: security, stability,
| etc.
| rstupek wrote:
| Unquestionably the best at the time.
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| Chromium is open source...
|
| Seems like a better approach in every way than the old
| mosaic/trident closed source mess.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| There are obvious benefits to Chromium being open-source,
| but you're kidding yourself if you think that gives you an
| ounce of control over the direction of web standards and
| the web as a whole.
|
| Sure, you can look at (most of) Chrome's source code, and
| fork it all day long if you want. But it will amount to
| little when it comes to actual control of the web. You
| simply won't have the marketshare to steer the direction of
| the web standards themselves.
|
| The end result will be the same as we suffered with IE's
| dominance: _de facto_ control of the web by a single
| entity.
|
| But at least the ride to hell will be nicer.
| chociej wrote:
| The more I see distasteful things happening around
| Chromium, the more exclusively I use Firefox these days.
| And frankly I have had vanishingly few problems using FF
| alone.
| Angius wrote:
| Now it passes the torch of shitty feature support to Safari
| andrewclunn wrote:
| From a business standpoint, getting businesses who are dependent
| on IE 11 to adopt Edge is a great idea. This will certainly help
| Microsoft's browser share. On the other hand, A LOT of IE users
| do so because they are running version of Windows that themselves
| are no longer supported. I'm going to be very wary of what my
| grocery store's POS system is running on in about a year.
| userbinator wrote:
| I hope someone finds a way to use its interface with a better
| rendering engine, which I think is the best part of IE - no
| infantile HUGE buttons, patronising error messages, or other
| dumbed-down things, just a serious UI with good ideas like per-
| zone trust security settings and user stylesheets built-in. It
| also doesn't have gobs of phone-home "telemetry".
|
| (Firefox is a close second but is clearly starting to become
| user-hostile too... and now you may realise much of why they want
| to kill IE and dumb down Firefox: herding users is easier when
| they're turned into obedient and docile consumers, instead of
| masters over how they decide to consume your content.)
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > no infantile HUGE buttons
|
| Did you completely miss IE9?
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| I am genuinely curious, what do you think is the end game of
| this apparent conspiracy by browser creators to reduce the
| intelligence of users through simplified user interfaces? They
| will convince them to buy more things... somehow? And that
| benefits the browser creators... somehow?
| userbinator wrote:
| It's not "browser creators"; it's one huge company which is
| literally the gateway to the Internet for the majority of the
| population, effectively controls the web standards now, knows
| far more than the population thinks it knows about them, and
| profits off an industry whose primary goal is to convince
| users to buy and consume increasingly more through
| misinformation and misdirection.
| superjan wrote:
| It is undeniably happening. One benefit is you ship the same
| UI for all screens. For several billion people, the power
| user features mostly serve to shoot themselves in the foot,
| and then they blame the browser manufacturer. On their phone
| the software either works, or it does not without
| explanation, in which case you need an expert, and for most
| people this is perceived as an improvement. Desktop software
| development is pushed in the same direction. Fewer people
| complain, and its a lot simpler than doing fine grained
| settings and informative error messages.
| potemkinhr wrote:
| IE is used in some unexpected places, one of the weirder ones for
| example a ingame display frame for the ingame wiki of older Total
| War series games. They'll need to update the game and replace it
| in some way else ingame help will be unavailable when they remove
| it via an update.
| unilynx wrote:
| Are they actually using IE or just the webview? As far as I
| understand, that one is staying around for a couple of more
| years
| potemkinhr wrote:
| It's probably just WebView but from the UI and elements it
| was obvious that it's IE-based. What's also interesting is
| that for the manual's videos Flash was required which now
| obviously doesn't work as it was removed via cumulative
| updates on W10
|
| https://steamcommunity.com/app/34330/discussions/0/864947668.
| ..
| echoradio wrote:
| As a web dev, I must say Microsoft just gave me the best birthday
| present ever.
| minikites wrote:
| We've replaced one monopoly browser (IE) with another monopoly
| browser (Chrome), except this time it's worse because Microsoft's
| business model is selling software and Google's business model is
| tracking and selling user information for advertisements. Because
| of this, I don't have a rosy outlook for the future of the web.
| xnx wrote:
| The most important feature any browser ever included was auto-
| update. If IE had included this, things would be quite different.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Auto-update was never important or even desired on GNU/Linux
| distros world. A simple apt-get update/upgrade always felt much
| better than having each app implementing their own failure
| prone update mechanism. It is a good thing that the competition
| chose to mimic this feature. It is way more convenient.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| It sorta did through Windows/Microsoft update. They just didn't
| focus on releasing major editions often or at all for Windows,
| but it got security patches and minor point releases all the
| time.
| cesarb wrote:
| Actually, IIRC the very first versions of Windows Update were
| an ActiveX control. You had to use IE to run it, so from a
| certain point of view, that was IE updating itself.
| chungy wrote:
| The very first version was a native application for Windows
| 95 and 98 (First Edition). It was retired in short order in
| favor of the ActiveX page.
| cesarb wrote:
| Interesting. Do you know of anywhere that has screenshots
| of that native application, for curiosity's sake? When I
| first used Windows Update in Windows 9x, it was already a
| (very slow) ActiveX applet.
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| I was curious, because that's very much not my memory of
| how things were.
|
| After fighting with QEMU and getting Windows 98 4.10.1998
| up and running, the wupdmgr.exe stub that it ships with
| just detects if the machine is connected to the Internet,
| if it is, it opens MSIE and sends you to a page that
| doesn't exist anymore.
|
| If you're not connected, it loads a local webpage in MSIE
| telling you about how great Windows Update is. Funnily
| enough, that page also includes instructions to get rid
| of the Windows Update launcher should you not want to see
| it anymore.
| tpmx wrote:
| It's kinda weird to see Edge having its own auto-update system
| on Windows. (Which of course has a system-wide auto-update
| system called Windows Update.)
|
| Makes me think of this:
| https://ritholtz.com/2013/07/organizational-charts-of-amazon...
| yyyk wrote:
| The one thing I regret about this is that IE11 was stable. By
| 'stable' I don't mean 'not crashing', but rather stable as in
| 'fixed feature set'.
|
| These days, sites and apps that support FireFox/Chrome tend to
| test only on latest versions. Which come out frequently and can
| and do break things. Supporting IE11 means it works in IE11.
| Supporting FF/Chrome means it mostly works in the latest tested
| version.
|
| If devs were more aware of Firefox ESR version and tested against
| it, we could have more stability again.
| tims33 wrote:
| It is nice to see the long internet nightmare known as Internet
| Explorer come to a conclusion.
|
| What is the next thing we should wish to see die on the internet?
| sedatk wrote:
| Its failures aside, some of the things that Internet Explorer
| have brought to our life:
|
| - DOM
|
| - CSS (first browser to support CSS, to be more specific)
|
| - Events
|
| - IFRAMEs
|
| - AJAX
|
| - favicon.ico
| coldpie wrote:
| Browsers funded by ad companies.
| petepete wrote:
| AMP and cookie pop-ups are top of my list.
| stevencorona wrote:
| I work on a SaaS app in the healthcare space where IE11 is the
| preferred browser, and was getting worried watching all of our
| favorite tools begin to completely drop IE11 support (Tailwinds,
| Bootstrap) - effectively punishing us for the sins our customers
| IT orgs.
|
| This brings me hope. But only a little. I'm sure they'll find a
| way to keep running it.
| mrweasel wrote:
| >in the healthcare space where IE11 is the preferred browser
|
| Do you know why that is?
|
| I noticed that there are prominent links to a Korean and
| Japanese version, presumably because Internet Explorer is still
| used to a large extend in those two countries. Korea had some
| crypto stuff that only worked in IE, but that was years ago.
| Why haven't those markets moved on more modern browsers?
| otterpro wrote:
| I worked at a hospital about 10 years ago, and at that time
| only IE was available on our PC. PC workstation was locked
| down for security reason and users were not allowed to
| install 3rd party software without approval (including
| chrome, etc). Also Chrome's browser extensions were security
| concerns (esp for medical records, HIPPA regulations, etc) It
| was also a time when IE was used in enterprise for mostly
| legacy web app that was written long ago. We were also using
| command line apps (TUI-based) at that time, mostly for nurse
| and doctors, but we were migrating to the fancy web apps.
|
| As for Korea, IE was mostly for ActiveX, but now most Korean
| website supports modern browsers ie Chrome.
| ampdepolymerase wrote:
| Do modern healthcare TUIs support UTF-8?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| > users were not allowed to install 3rd party software
| without approval (including chrome, etc)
|
| This should be, and always should be, the case. Chrome is
| such a bad actor in allowing userspace install, we mark it
| as malware to prohibit unauthorized installation. Chrome
| Enterprise policies don't seem to be able to disable this,
| marking it as malware is the only way out...
|
| That said, we offer two modern browsers to everyone in our
| environment, Edge and Firefox.
| wrs wrote:
| Same as anywhere else, I suppose: because changing it costs
| time/money and has no obvious value. In regulated areas like
| health care there can also be a recertification or audit
| support cost if you change something.
| ehutch79 wrote:
| Isn't IE11 support a potential HIPPA violation?
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| *HIPAA
|
| Also...no? Why would it be?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Isn't IE11 support a potential HIPPA violation?
|
| To the extent (if any, though I'd be surprised if there were
| none) IE11 doesn't support standards required effectively, if
| indirectly, via the HITECH guidance on secured PHI, IE11
| _use_ could have some some adverse consequences under HIPAA
| (and, as a SaaS operator with a BAA that would include the
| vendor, not just the customer), but not in and of itself
| noncompliance for use or support. Mostly just making it more
| likely that situations would become reportable breaches.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| How? Like, what part of HIPPA do you think applies to the
| browser the app is running in?
| axelthegerman wrote:
| Only hope is more and more services actually having the balls
| to drop IE11, e.g. Office 365.
|
| Imagine Google would not support IE11, I'm sure the pressure to
| upgrade these browser would be much higher (not sure about the
| health care space though)
| nicoburns wrote:
| This announcement is a much better hope: IE11 being replaced
| by edge, which will also have a modern rendering engine,
| which will be only one anyone needs to support.
| technion wrote:
| Just to be clear here: retired for windows 10.
|
| People talking about certain spaces (eg healthcare) where Citrix
| on windows server is the norm are going to support ie11 for the
| lifespan of windows 2019. So don't pop the cork just yet..
| dspillett wrote:
| _> Internet Explorer 11 desktop application will be retired ...
| on ..._
|
| Woo. And, indeed, hoo.
|
| _> for certain versions of Windows 10_
|
| Ah. And there begineth the weasle words. I'm guessing there will
| be significant organisations in finance/wealth management (our
| general area) and other industries that will still demand IE11
| support for some time after that date.
|
| I think first a combination of our move towards "more smaller
| clients, not being beholden to a few large ones", the reducing
| budgets if those big clients, and the fact the others are more
| up-to-date, will mean we'll be able to say "Support IE11 or will
| go elsewhere? OK then, see you around." long before IE11 really
| exits the industry. Whether the company will have the balls to go
| through with that, is something I'll find out in future, but I'm
| allowing myself a little hope.
| TranquilMarmot wrote:
| I work somewhere that focuses on software for the public
| sector, so we sell to a lot of state, city, and federal
| customers. We're currently taking the stance that we're going
| to end IE11 support in October, but I'm betting that a handful
| of our customers will be very very upset about it and we'll
| reverse course and support it indefinitely.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Reality is much simpler - as mentioned directly below that
| section "Note: This retirement does not affect in-market
| Windows 10 LTSC or Server Internet Explorer 11 desktop
| applications." and those version already have precommitted
| support lifecycles that extend well past this date. Nobody
| needs to ask/push for an extension, that's what those versions
| exist for and support is already committed to nearly 2030.
| danjac wrote:
| > significant organisations in finance/wealth management (our
| general area)
|
| I can have some sympathy to support IE for some cash-strapped
| local government department struggling to keep their old
| systems running with duck tape and prayers. "Finance/wealth
| management" is exactly where that sympathy stops.
| Angius wrote:
| Great news! Do Safari next!
| acheron wrote:
| And yet when I see a site that asks you to use Chrome I know that
| the true spirit of IE lives on.
| parenthesis wrote:
| The other day I had a website accuse me of using an outdated
| version of Safari (I was using Firefox version 88).
| luke2m wrote:
| The other day I had Google Drive tell me not to use IE (I was
| using Epiphany)
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| "Please apply using Chrome, as applications are only supported
| using Chrome on desktop." -- lever.co job
| posting
|
| sigh...
| kemonocode wrote:
| It makes me wonder if a decade or so down the road, we'll be
| bemoaning Chrome/Chromium as the new IE.
|
| Well, you could argue we're already doing that, considering its
| influence and how even Microsoft yielded and made Edge Chromium-
| based.
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