Microsoft Sets IE Date With Death - Kind Of
Microsoft sets IE's date with death — kind of
Microsoft has announced its intention to phase out widespread use of the venerable Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) browser in just over a year.
"The future of Internet Explorer on Windows 10 is in Microsoft Edge," an Edge program manager stated in a May 19 blog post. "With Microsoft Edge capable of assuming this responsibility [of accessing IE-based sites and apps], Internet Explorer 11 will be retired and support for certain versions of Windows 10 will end on June 15, 2022."
The directive will not apply to all versions of Internet Explorer, as several editions of Windows, including 10's Long-term Support Channel (LTSC) and Windows Server, will be exempt. Similarly, Microsoft will continue to secure Internet Explorer's Trident rendering engine, which is embedded in Windows and is required for Edge's IE mode to function.
Death by a thousand cuts
If it appears as though Microsoft has been actively destroying Internet Explorer for years, it has. The Redmond, Washington-based developer put IE on life support more than five years ago, in early 2016, when it ceased development of the browser. And once Microsoft released a reworked Edge based on technologies from Google's Chromium project, it was only a matter of time before the company pulled the plug on support.
Even so, IE11 will die a slow and painful death. June 14, 2022 — a year and a half from now — will not, by any means, be the end of the browser.
Because Microsoft previously stated that IE11 would be supported as part of the three Windows 10 LTSC versions released thus far (the first two, 2105 LTSB and 2106 LTSB, were referred to as Long-term Support Branch), the end-of-support order will not apply to them. That is not to say the standalone Internet Explorer 11 application will last that long. (For example, Windows 10 2019 LTSC will be supported until January 2029, while 2015 LTSB and 2016 LTSB will be supported until October 2025 and October 2026, respectively.) Microsoft alluded to this when it stated that the LTSB/LSTC versions were "out of scope" (emphasis added) at the time of the June 15, 2022, announcement.
Even IE11 on Windows 7 will be supported beyond June. Commercial customers who purchase the third year of Extended Security Updates (ESUs) will continue to receive support for Internet Explorer until the contract expires, or until Jan. 10, 2023.
IE mode, Edge's secret weapon
What matters most to enterprises is that the June 2022 support deadline can be avoided by using Edge and its IE mode, which loads designated sites using IE's Trident instead of Edge's now-native Chromium. (When Lyndersay stated that "Internet Explorer's future is in Microsoft Edge" (emphasis added, he was referring to IE mode.)
Businesses that are still reliant on out-of-date internal websites and too-expensive-to-rewrite apps will be pushed toward Edge and its built-in Internet Explorer mode. Thus, it's unsurprising that support for Internet Explorer mode will be extended significantly, to 2029 for Windows 10 2019 LTSC and to May 2023 for Windows 10 Enterprise 20H2, which launched late last year. "IE mode support will continue to be supported throughout the lifecycle of Windows client, server, and IoT releases," Microsoft stated in a FAQ about the demise of the IE11 desktop app.
By putting an end to IE11, Microsoft intends to give its Edge browser, well, an edge. At least since the launch of Chrome in 2008, and to a lesser extent prior to that due to Mozilla's Firefox, Microsoft has seen its once-dominant browser dominance erode as customers, initially consumers and then enterprises, defected to rivals as IE became bogged down in backward compatibility and was unable to compete. IE was ancient, relied on antiquated technologies, and was, at best, a hack that creaked and groaned whenever it came into contact with the web as it evolved into a media-rich ocean of content.
Edge, released as part of Windows 10 in mid-205, was Microsoft's attempt to stem the bleeding of browser share. That was unsuccessful. Even when Edge and IE were combined, Microsoft's market share continued to decline. As a result, Microsoft abandoned its own rendering and JavaScript engines in favor of Google's, relying on Chromium's open-source nature, as did previous browsers, to become a Chrome clone. Since then, Edge has grown in popularity, accounting for nearly an eighth of all browser activity as of April.
It's almost certain that a significant portion of that growth came from Microsoft's best customers, the businesses large and small that run on Windows. Some of those businesses continued to require IE in order for employees and partners to access older, in some cases very old, intranet sites and apps. IE mode enabled the back-and-forth between Edge and IE renderings to be configurable, if not automatic.
That was an advantage over Chrome during the adoption of Google's browser by IT administrators. Of course, Google responded with what it dubbed "Legacy Browser Support," or LBS, which began as a browser add-on and was eventually integrated into Chrome itself in 2019. When Chrome encountered a URL marked as requiring Internet Explorer, it invoked IE to render the page. It was an inelegant solution that resulted in two open browsers, in contrast to Edge.
Due to the demise of IE11 — enterprises will stop using the application once security updates cease next summer — Chrome will be unable to handle IE-dependent URLs and applications.
Or does it?
Google announced last month that Chrome 90 — the version that launched on April 14 — could use LBS to open Edge in Internet Explorer mode rather than IE11. "With Chrome 90, we now support configuring your environment to switch between Chrome and Microsoft Edge in Internet Explorer mode," Google stated in the enterprise release notes for the browser. (For more information on configuring LBS for Edge in Internet Explorer mode, see this article.)
Microsoft almost certainly informed Google that it was about to abandon IE11 and leave Edge's IE mode as the sole legacy solution.
The difference between then and now for Chrome and its LBS is significant — between when Chrome opened Internet Explorer and now, when Chrome opens Edge instead. Users would not have done more than was necessary with IE; keep in mind that it was as old as Moses and crippled in comparison to a modern browser. However, what about Edge? That will be different.
Once opened, Edge may entice Chrome users to continue using it for purposes other than rendering IE-dependent websites and apps. Edge may appeal to Chrome users — the former is essentially the latter — enough for some to wonder why they should run two browsers when one will suffice.
We are not claiming that this was the sole or even the primary reason Microsoft decided to discontinue support for IE11. (Microsoft's Lyndersay mentioned several in his post, but they were mostly boilerplate arguments for Edge's superiority.) Internet Explorer had long outlived its usefulness, and its technology sell-by date was not long after its October 2013 release. Without Microsoft's indulgence of commercial customers and the company's history of backward compatibility and support, IE should have died around the time Edge arrived. (Such a drastic move could not have harmed Microsoft's browser market share any more than the company's actual actions, most notably its 2014 decision to force users to upgrade to Internet Explorer, which sparked Chrome's early 2016 surge.)
However, if the demise of IE11 benefits Edge, it is worth noting that Internet Explorer died for a good reason. Few browsers can make that claim.
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