back to article If you never thought you'd hear a Microsoftie tell you to stop using Internet Explorer, lap it up: 'I beg you, let it retire to great bitbucket in the sky'

To mark the arrival of the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser, Microsoft software engineer Eric Lawrence, who helped shift Edge to its Google-driven open source foundation, issued a plea to Windows users to let go of Internet Explorer. Writing in a personal capacity on his own blog over the weekend, Lawrence heralded the …

  1. Shadow Systems

    Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

    Win10 comes with Edg & IE11, and your own advisories to the assistive tech using public is NOT to use Edg, rather use your own IE11 or a third party browser instead.

    I've got Firefox ESR installed, but it's an utter clusterfuck of a UI that makes it difficult if not impossible to get shit done.

    I tried to use Google's Chrome, but the installer wasn't accessible, I needed a sighted person to get it installed at all, and then I found out that it hates my screen reader. Forget trying to surf the web, I couldn't even get past the bullshit "You are not connected to the internet" message it kept coughing up into my face. Yeah, the same internet connection I could use in every other program except Chrome.

    PaleMoon, Vivaldi, Waterfox, etalia are all useless from an accessibility POV, so those got kicked to the curb just as soon as they proved actively hostile to my reader.

    MS Edg aka Chrome doesn't seem to like my computer either. It won't install & refuses to tell me why. My sighted helper says the error message flashes by too fast to read, so there's not a damn thing I can even research to even figure out WTF.

    So MS, I'll stop using IE11 once you or anyone else releases a stable, accessible, useful browser that lets me turn off scripts, block ads, & refuse to let sites use any sort of cookie/tracking/telemetry on me. Not via plug ins & extensions unless the toolbars for those bits is itself accessible.

    Otherwise I'm stuck on Win7Pro64 using IE11.

    Win10 isn't fit for purpose, isn't stable, is defective by design, and there's no point in even turning my Win10 machine on since it can't even find the internet. Via the same bit of cat5 I'm using through which to type this rant.

    Accessibility: you refuse to code for it & I hope you all go completely blind so you can experience first hand JUST how fucked up you've made my life.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

      Doesn't Firefox work well with NVDA, which Mozilla put money into?

      1. Shadow Systems
        Pint

        At Dan re: NVDA...

        I have no idea. The last time I tried using NVDA it made my brain hurt trying to get it to do simple stuff like a plain text document, so something as complex as a web page was right out.

        I'll go give them another try & "see" if they've improved enough to be a replacement for Freedom Scientific's JAWS.

        Thanks, now go enjoy a pint on me for the tip.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Accessibility?

      You can't be shown flashy ads to trigger compulsive buyer habits, so probably they think there's no need to support accessibility, no money to be made with the current business model.

      And it can only get worse.

    3. Yeti

      Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

      What about Seamonkey? Its appearance is still very close to the Netscape Navigator of last millenium. Dunno how it fares for blind users, though.

    4. steelpillow Silver badge

      Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

      @Shadow Systems: Do you still find that CSS floating divs and similar shit screw up normal flow and make you read half the layout backwards, like reading all the pages in a book in random order?

      To any site developers out there: Tables are cool for page layout. They have a rigid layout logic which assistive readers can understand and leave unspoken, so the user often does not even realise they are there. OTOH CSS3 allows you to make an utter cabbage of normal flow, with the above-mentioned result. I once did some demonstration pages while working in a large government organisation renowned for its diversity policy, but our intranet standards droids evidently thought that meant sity diver and quoted the old W3C mantra until all the electrons rolled onto the floor and died laughing. Please do not be like them; respect assisted users when designing your sites, just as browser designers are asked to do.

      1. RockBurner
        Coat

        Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

        @steelpillow

        I suspect the blame for a lot of your issues lie with poorly implemented CSS framework plugins like Bootstrap, which (to my mind) push the developers (especially those in a hurry, aren't we all) into writing utterly cockeyed HTML page which (once the CSS is removed) betray their utterly shit layout that renders the content in a manner that makes no sense whatsoever.

        Any decent development practise writes the HTML first, then wrangles the CSS to make it look right, not the other way around.

        My coat?

        It's the one over there..... ta.

        1. andy 103
          Boffin

          Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

          writing utterly cockeyed HTML page which (once the CSS is removed) betray their utterly shit layout that renders the content in a manner that makes no sense whatsoever

          Sorry but that's not true. As someone who frequently uses frontend frameworks the HTML has almost no effect on what you're talking about. In the case of Bootstrap the layout is determined principally by adding CSS classes to elements, which Bootstrap's CSS (and for certain things JS) is responsible for styling and positioning. The majority of these are block level elements (like div's) which would then occupy 100% width without CSS.

          So "once the CSS is removed" you're left with HTML - which has class names - no browser would do anything with anyway. This is not much different to having HTML *without* the class names. It's not going to look nice without the CSS especially in terms of element positioning. The semantic positioning of HTML tags and structure are something Bootstrap actually encourages. It's also got quite a bias on writing HTML that's valid and follows accessibility guidelines, which is a good thing.

          If you don't understand the problems of using table's for layout you're beyond help.

          1. steelpillow Silver badge

            Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

            "If you don't understand the problems of using table's for layout you're beyond help."

            I appear to be beyond help. They don't cause me any problems that I can detect. Setting aside the ancient dicing-and-slicing horrors of FrontPage and DreamWeaver, no other problem has ever been brought to my attention. Would you care to oblige?

            1. andy 103

              Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

              It's a widley acknowledged fact (see https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/6036/why-arent-we-supposed-to-use-table-in-a-design/6037) - not even an opinion - that tables are no longer used for web development.

              The reasons for this are numerous (Google it as I'm not copy/pasting for you) but ironically accessibility is one of them. Tables are used for displaying tabular data. That's all.

              If you're trying to make a responsive website it's pretty much impossible to do that using tables. The vast majority of sites are responsive given mobile/tablet usage. Re-designing an existing website or application that's been built in tables adds considerable time because the "layout" has been dictated in the HTML whereas this should be done by the CSS (that's partly the point of using it).

              I've worked in this field for 20+ years. It astonishes me how so many Reg readers comment thinking they know what they're talking about. A simple Google of "why tables are no longer used for web design" will tell you a lot.

              1. steelpillow Silver badge

                Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

                @andy 103

                Thanks for trying, but I am afraid that simply reciting the W3C mantra to a confirmed heretic is not going to make your case, even if it is a world religion and repeated on StackExchange.

                "trying to make a responsive website" does not depend on CSS as you suggest, it depends on three things; javascript, more javascript and, err... oh, yes, cross-site scripting (You have Google shit on there as a minimum, don't you?). CSS cannot even offer standard drop-down menu behaviour in "response" to a WIMP desktop user, nor auto-size a pop-up to its content for their mobile sibling. I think maybe you just find it easier for your javascript to spew out CSS than to structure HTML. May I recommend that you take a bog-standard security/privacy precaution by installing NoScript or similar in your web browser and then visiting your "responsive" web site as a user? Better still, use an assistive reader - see the OP's own reply to me.

                1. andy 103
                  Thumb Down

                  Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

                  Your lack of knowledge on this is embarrassing. As I say I've worked in the field for 20+ years so it is one area where I've got at least some authority to talk about it.

                  "trying to make a responsive website" does not depend on CSS as you suggest, it depends on three things; javascript, more javascript and, err... oh, yes, cross-site scripting

                  Wrong, wrong and very wrong. CSS media queries (look those up) are generally used to control both the layout and element positioning/sizing on a responsive site. Other than your given example of a "hamburger menu" (I assume that's what you mean, because you've referred to it as standard drop-down menu behaviour - as if that's even a thing) you do not require JavaScript.

                  Cross-site scripting - if you do indeed mean XSS - has absolutely nothing to do with any of this either. Are you suggesting that client-side scripts have to be hosted on different domains from your own website to make any of this work? Because, as someone who actually knows, they definitely definitely don't.

                  Think I'll leave this here as I'm talking to someone with no understanding of the subject area. If you're pissed off because your screen reader doesn't work well, consider using something else. Any screen reader that considers HTML tables as part of a layout - rather than their semantic tabular data meaning - is utterly bonkers and has been developed by someone who has even less of a clue what they're talking about than yourself.

                  Sorry your screen reader is shit. This isn't a fault of people writing standards compliant HTML5/CSS3 websites though. Not even a bit.

                  1. steelpillow Silver badge
                    Facepalm

                    Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

                    Well, your opinion of assistive software developers says it all really.

                    (BTW, that "err... oh, yes," was a warning that a windup was coming next. If you don't get it, there is no help for you)

                    A word of advice, if I may: never, ever listen to the disabled user, you wouldn't want your ego to suffer.

                    1. andy 103

                      Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

                      Unfortunately a lot of developers don't care about users with disabilities. That's partly why things like WCAG came into being, although in the UK it's only really enforced for public sector websites.

                      WCAG does make reference to W3 standards though and one of them, ironically, is that WCAG failures can occur as a result of using tables for layout: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/F49.html

                      Frameworks like Bootstrap are focused on writing good quality HTML/CSS with accessibility in mind. A developer is more likely to work with standards compliant code and improve accessibility. Whereas with legacy sites or use of tables for layout they have enough problems to deal with so essentially don't care. Not saying that's right, but I've seen that happen all over in the industry.

                2. Kiwi
                  Pint

                  Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

                  "trying to make a responsive website" does not depend on CSS as you suggest, it depends on three things; javascript, more javascript and, err... oh, yes, cross-site scripting (You have Google shit on there as a minimum, don't you?)

                  I dislike "responsive sites" as much as the next decent person, but yes you can do them purely in CSS and HTML. And no need for any of the google garbage spyware.

                  That said, for many sites they're not being designed to be used with phones or tablets but are designed to be used for decent sized screens. And of course in this specific example we're talking for a person who is mostly if not completely blind (sorry Shadowsystems, I cannot recall whether you have a small amount of vision or not) - "responsive design" can make things much harder for them.

                  But yes, you can do "responsive" without JS BS and without google spyware.

          2. NotBob
            FAIL

            Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

            If your problem is that your layout cannot be done in tables, you either need to simplify your layout or learn to use tables

          3. Claptrap314 Silver badge

            Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

            I'm not a front end developer, so I'm not going to say that these sites are necessarily garbage. I'm saying that they are garbage. Maybe they are okay in a tablet or idiot phone, but I run in a desktop. I also run uMatrix as a security precaution. (Never mind tracking.)

            I can assure you that these "responsive" sites are utterly reliant on javascript (mostly imported). Seriously, check out one of your "responsive" sights with noscript--they are utter garbage, and tend to be nonfunctional.

            Yeah, tables aren't supposed to be used for layout. Fine. But if you use them for layout, you get a far more consistent and predicable response so long as the table fits on the width of the page. I know that's an unacceptable limitation for the cool kids. Sorry, I've never been cool.

            Loading a new we page would not be nearly so onerous if it did not involve loading megs of scripts. Scripts that implement responsive design. Responsive design has thus become its own justification.

            1. Kiwi

              Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

              I can assure you that these "responsive" sites are utterly reliant on javascript (mostly imported). Seriously, check out one of your "responsive" sights with noscript--they are utter garbage, and tend to be nonfunctional.

              You're correct that many responsive sites - even the vast majority - require JS (and that from untrustworthy 3rd parties), but it is not actually required. Sometimes it's laziness, but much of it is trying to get a page done for a client with management breathing down your neck or every second you spend on the site being a big chunk out of your pocket. Of course, you're up against the free/cheap hosts who have templates that cover most use cases fairly well - these sites are both very commonly used (including by some less scrupulous "developers" who'll charge 10 hours "developing" a site where the stock standard images and most of the stock standard text is used).

              Common, and many of the tools around use JS and make it hard to extract (eg Coffee Cup's "Responsive Site Designer" which uses a ton of excessive JS last time I used it, whereas the earlier "Responsive Layout Maker" made JS for something but you could remove the JS later and still have a perfectly functional site).

              Of course, that it's easier to cave and use google JS has nothing at all to do with their push for "responsive" designs. That they have extra potential to get more data from you is just an unhappy side effect and nothing at all to do with them encouraging the use of their products which all accidentally have extra data gathering tools embedded...

        2. steelpillow Silver badge

          Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

          "which (once the CSS is removed) betray their utterly shit layout that renders the content in a manner that makes no sense whatsoever."

          Yes, that is what is called breaking normal flow. It is exactly the problem.

      2. Shadow Systems

        At SteelPillow, re: CSS...

        Yes. I have to wait upwards of a minute or two to give the page a chance to finish rendering before Jaws can begin reading it to me else the CSS bullshit causes Jaws to restart the page every time it updates itself.

        Situations like where there is an image on the page (my browser doesn't load them, it just tells me that there was an image in certain places) and the text leading up to that point said one thing, suddenly Jaws has a shitfit & starts reading the page all over again -- when it gets to where that image had been the first time the text near it says something completely different.

        Another irritation is text hidden until you press a button to reveal it - in order to figure out that the previously hidden text is now available I have to force Jaws to reread the whole thing over again. Not TOO annoying if it was only a paragraph or two, a whole 'nother kettle o' fish if it's burried in the middle of a page that has the infinite scroll bullshit.

        Now if you'll pardon me I need a stiff drink to go calm down from this entire thread. I keep envisioning killer meteores, smoky glassine craters, & webdevs like so much orbitally delivered Sperm whale blubber...

      3. Claptrap314 Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

        "all the electrons rolled onto the floor and died laughing"

        Wow. That's a line I'm definitely taking. Payment on the right.

    5. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

      Fair point

    6. Blackjack Silver badge

      Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

      Microsoft should outright remove Internet Explorer in the next Windows 10 update. They had updates that added ads, deleted files and so on. Pissing off the 2% that still use IE is minor compared to that.

      1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
        Big Brother

        Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

        "Lawrence heralded the new Edge as Microsoft's best browser ever"

        Not exactly a high bar to jump then...

    7. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

      Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

      "Win10 isn't fit for purpose"! Come on, it's more usable than windows 7, more secure and more capable. It's not use being stuck in the past with IE and Win7. Things move on. Of course WIn10 can get an internet connection - no use being arrogant and self-flagellating by sticking with old shit.

      1. matt 83

        Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

        "Come on, it's more usable than windows 7, more secure and more capable." Try using it blind with just a screen reader. I'm fortunate enough to have never needed to do this but I'll take the OP's word that it's a shit show under Win10 when it worked OK under 7 rather than calling him arrogant.

        1. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

          Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

          So it worked under windows 7 and it's a shit-show under windows 10 (the screen reader software)? Why is that Windows 10's fault? Surely it's the screen reader software's fault. I've set up screen reader software for the blind in the past, and it's always been a shit-show anyway!

          1. Kiwi
            FAIL

            Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

            Why is that Windows 10's fault?

            MS says not to use Edge for this purpose, and Win10 cannot connect to the internet. I'm guessing that might have something to do with it (again, the clues are hidden away in clear precise plain text in his first post)

          2. Kubla Cant

            Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

            I've set up screen reader software for the blind in the past, and it's always been a shit-show anyway!

            Sounds like you should give the job to somebody who knows how to do it.

      2. JohnFen

        Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

        > "Win10 isn't fit for purpose"! Come on, it's more usable than windows 7, more secure and more capable.

        I think that all of those points are debatable.

      3. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Snake Silver badge

          Re: At Andy re: Win10 useability.

          I'm terribly sorry to hear of your Windows 10 problems. Your Windows 10 network connectivity is indeed not common, sorry to hear, but it can and should be looked at to bring your Win10 box back online. Try deleting and/or updating the drivers, and possible even resetting the network systems

          https://www.thewindowsclub.com/reset-winsock-in-windows-10

          Winsock errors have been occurring since Windows XP so the possibility that this is your problem is absolutely nothing new.

          Yes indeed, Windows 10 does scatter the Control Panel's settings into 2 areas:

          - Settings, accessible from the Start Menu, and

          - (the classic) Control Panel, accessible from Start Menu / Windows System / Control Panel.

          I (firmly) believe this was done to allow easier touch-based access to the most frequently-used controls when using said touchscreen interface; the more readily accessible Windows 10 Settings menu is touch friendly and features most of the common things the 'average' user will change under the most circumstances. The legacy-style Control Panel is there to maintain all the controls that Windows always has had, but a bit 'hidden' as these are deemed much lower usage.

          Windows 10 does have a built-in screen reader and accessibility options, of which I can't speak of personally to their effectiveness for those who depend upon their accuracy and efficiency. Still, I hope that, by repairing your Windows 10 build and getting it back online, you can try them out and judge their suitability for yourself.

          Windows 10 isn't completely a botch, but it is a bit 'quirky' compared to previous versions due to the support of the touchscreen interface and the UI choices added on top of many legacy Windows UI interfaces to make for a more interesting touch experience. You...get used to it. If you can't, please consider Classic Shell for Windows 10

          https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu

          which will simply bring back the older Start Menu interfaces that you know, with the current Windows 10 updated systems underneath. Other 'classic' options are available, such as OldNewExplorer. Here's some tips

          https://www.techjunkie.com/how-to-make-windows-10-look-like-windows-7/

          Best of luck to you!

          1. JohnFen

            Re: At Andy re: Win10 useability.

            > The legacy-style Control Panel is there to maintain all the controls that Windows always has had, but a bit 'hidden' as these are deemed much lower usage.

            Which is weird, because it's the legacy control panel that I need to use 99% of the time. I don't remember the last time I used the new one.

            > please consider Classic Shell for Windows 10

            I agree. I consider this to be mandatory, personally.

      4. Kiwi
        Pint

        Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

        It's not use being stuck in the past with IE and Win7.

        Actually what he said was, and I quote :

        "...and your own advisories to the assistive tech using public is NOT to use Edg, rather use your own IE11 or a third party browser instead."

        So MS themselves tell blind people that Edge is not suitable for people with disabilities (aren't there EU laws around accessibility of sites and software etc?)

        He also said :

        "...there's no point in even turning my Win10 machine on since it can't even find the internet. Via the same bit of cat5 I'm using through which to type this rant"

        So his W10 machine cannot find the likely very common and obviously working NIC or connect to the LAN through it - which is a pretty common complaint. Hardly "more usable than W7" as you claim when it cannot connect to the net now is it?

        If that's your level of reading comprehension, perhaps it's no surprise that you think 10 is better.....

        Things move on

        I see you're also one of those idiotic insensitive twits as well. Are you going to ask him next it "have you tried not being blind?"

        People with disabilities can't "just move on" as easily as those without. I realise it may be quite a stretch for you to consider that people who are legally blind just cannot see the world in the same way that you do.

        --> Shadow Systems - have one on me, while we imagine together how much fun it could be to 'educate' some people in ways that might make Tarantino have nightmares.

        1. dboyes

          Re: Just as soon as you release a stable alternative...

          > People with disabilities can't "just move on" as easily as those without.

          > I realise it may be quite a stretch for you to consider that people who are

          > legally blind just cannot see the world in the same way that you do.

          Amen, brother.

          It's a fun party trick to blindfold the loudest proponent of Win10 in a room and say "Good luck." as he tries to actually navigate that steaming pile of dreck. Every software designer should spend a week using nothing but the "accessibility interfaces"; it's vastly enlightening as to what really needs to be done.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can't Avoid It

    With my employer we use ADP to access our payslips and that only works with IE. Also, some of our internal systems only have full functionality using IE, and those systems aren't going anywhere for a while yet. We just cannot avoid using it, even though our own internal IT department advises us to use Chrome or Firefox in preference to either IE or Edge.

    1. Deft

      Re: Can't Avoid It

      If you are using ADP Freedom, I found that although the main landing page tells you to get stuffed if not using Internet Explorer, the actual username / password login pages work in other browsers.

      For any other systems I do Chrome with IE Tab add-in which seems to cope with most things.

    2. DavCrav

      Re: Can't Avoid It

      It's also needed if you want to save an image not in Google's webp format. (There are some extensions which claim to help, but most are a bit dodgy.) Since webp isn't supported by many applications that take images, saving as jpg/png is much more useful.

    3. big_D

      Re: Can't Avoid It

      WinCC as well, only works with IE.

    4. defiler

      Re: Can't Avoid It

      Okay, Thomson-Reuters, I'm going to name and shame here.

      gofileroom.com

      advanceflow.com

      They've installed ActiveX controls:

      GoFileRoom.CheckOut dated 07/06/2018

      gfrPDFModify.PDF dated 27/09/2019

      TR.FileRoom.Client.OfficeAddin dated 27/09/2019

      GFPCheckBrowser.clsGetVersion dated 20/01/2020

      Yes, that was Monday of this week. They're still pushing out new ActiveX controls, and expecting customers to deploy them. What a fucking shambles - this should have been retired years ago.

      (We block all ActiveX and whitelist approved CLSIDs via Group Policy.)

  3. hitmouse

    Needed for SharePoint

    Internet Explorer with its support for ActiveX is still the only documented way of working around a lot of SharePoint problems, thanks to the File Explorer view it gives of SharePoint document libraries.

    https://support.office.com/en-us/article/open-in-explorer-or-view-with-file-explorer-in-sharepoint-66b574bb-08b4-46b6-a6a0-435fd98194cc

    If Mr Lawrence wants to remove IE11 from our workplace document ecosystem, then maybe he could address the longstanding bugs and feature deficiencies that have gone unattended on UserVoice for years despite thousands of users voting for them.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Needed for SharePoint

      Rename it to Intranet Explorer, only let it connect to LAN addresses, job done.

    2. 0laf Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Needed for SharePoint

      Yep you've beat me to it.

      Sharepoint is extra shit with IT. Much faster using 'any' other browser except that as you point out Sharepoint relies on ActiveX to do some key tasks users want especially 'Explorer view'. No IE no explorer view.

      How typical of MS these days that they can't make their own core products work with each other. It's fucking ridiculous really

    3. Quenda

      Re: Needed for SharePoint

      Agree - these SharePoint issues means we have to keep using IE (recommend internal only, otherwise use Chrome). Edge just does not work as well as IE - strange given they are all Microsoft products and Edge and SharePoint are major parts of their cloud strategy which is Microsoft major strategic thrust.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Needed for SharePoint

        I'm a novice in this, but isn't Sharepoint offered as part of O365?

        In that case, if you migrate a local sharepoint implementation to O365, do you still have to use IE to access it?

        If so, then - Internet access would be needed..

        1. Richard 12 Silver badge
          Mushroom

          Re: Needed for SharePoint

          Yep. Sharepoint is the back end for a lot of O365, most of O365 simply doesn't work at all without it.

          Not much better with it either, but you know..m

          1. 0laf Silver badge
            Flame

            Re: Needed for SharePoint

            Thats the perversity of it. O365 works better on almost every browser other than Microsoft's own products. Try to use 365/Sharepoint in IE for everything and it is painfully slow. But Sharepoint needs ActiveX for many tasks and you can only use that in IE. So you have to flick between browsers.

            And Woe betide you if you need to use 365 under multiple usernames or with different tenancies (I've got at least 3 to deal with) you need to log in using Incognito (Pr0n mode) to stop 365 gettiong locked into one user and you needing the global admin to get you out.

            It's wonderfully Agile. Half arsed, half finished and full price.

    4. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Linux

      Re: Needed for SharePoint

      I suspect that KDE's Konqueror, Gnome's Nautilus, or Mate's Caja could view a Samba share with an "explorer view" that would do the same thing that IE users want to do with SharePoint.

      I've already seen references to using Konqueror with 'WebDAV://" URLs and also something called 'davfs2' to mount SharePoint shares onto the Linux file system. So it seems that there are actual SOLUTIONS to these problems already for Linux.

      (might as well just run Linux, then!)

    5. trindflo Silver badge

      Re: Needed for SharePoint

      Don't forget Microsoft was instrumental in creating all of these needs. They reworked Windows specifically to make IE integral to the OS so that they could claim it was impossible to ship Windows without IE. Nice Frankenstein monster you built there - nice try blaming others that the monster still vexes you.

    6. veti Silver badge

      Re: Needed for SharePoint

      If your company uses SharePoint, you've got a bigger problem than the browser.

      I don't understand why IE attracts so much hate, yet SharePoint seems to be relatively accepted, as if it were somehow a necessary evil.

      1. JohnFen

        Re: Needed for SharePoint

        If it makes you feel any better, I have to use SharePoint at work, and I think it's terrible.

  4. LosD

    Errr... Internet Explorer is very much still in support, and there is no Window for retirement, according to the he very page you referenced. Internet Explorer _10_ will run out of support at det end of January.

    The only thing that happened in 2016 was that only the latest version of Internet Explorer for each supported OS would still be supported.

    It's a curse that they can't seem to kill.

  5. Diogenes

    Bugs in new edge

    Why does the new Edge ignore the dns setting in the vpn extension, and the vpns dns AND the dns set in windows networking and use the dns on the router , which i cannot change. Uninstalled !

    1. A.P. Veening Silver badge

      Re: Bugs in new edge

      Get a new router so you can change the DNS settings. And while you are at it, point those DNS settings at a Pi-Hole.

    2. chuBb.

      Re: Bugs in new edge

      Disable smart name resolution, fixes most but not all of edges DNS stupidity

      Still possible to be unable to browse LAN/Intranet with it, even if you set the hostnames in the hosts file, as well and fail with NTLM SSO

      (might have changed in splashback as i traditionally call chrome edgeing...)

  6. fnusnu

    Surface RT

    Still supported to 2023 and no Edge released for it.

    Way to go MS!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But don't LTSC versions of Windows 10 come with IE instead of Edge?

    And they are supported for 10 years?

    1. Carpet Deal 'em

      Re: But don't LTSC versions of Windows 10 come with IE instead of Edge?

      The article's mistaken - IE11 has no sunset date. From the FAQ:

      Yes, Internet Explorer 11 is the last major version of Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer 11 will continue receiving security updates and technical support for the lifecycle of the version of Windows on which it is installed.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Managing Favourites

    I still think that IE has the best interface for browsing managing favorites. Chrome seems to go out of its way to make saving and accessing them an opaque chore.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Managing Favourites

      Didn't you know you're supposed to use Google to search for whatever it is every time?

      But as for IE having the 'best' interface for managing favourites, I assume you value it regularly forgetting the order of favourites in folders.

    2. chuBb.

      Re: Managing Favourites

      Always preferred firefox, before it got to slow and full of unwanted additional services, was a reluctant migrant to chrome

  9. chuBb.

    If only i could

    But cisco, apc, and various other venders seems determined to ensure i have to have at least one pc infected with flash, silverlight, java 6 and IE :(

  10. jezza99

    I wonder how many “enterprise” apps still need IE6 with old versions of Java and all the security settings switched off? I used to manage fibre channel switches which did this.

  11. Sgt_Oddball

    Annoyingly....

    IE 11 is the only browser I've got that plays nice with java serverlets still. Everything else has thrown them by the wayside.

    Very unhelpful when trying to get ilo2 to work on a header less server.

    1. Ambivalous Crowboard

      Re: Annoyingly....

      Came here to say this. You give me a way to use the remote console in iLO, I'll happily take it. Until then, Java and IE it is.

    2. Kubla Cant

      Re: Annoyingly....

      IE 11 is the only browser I've got that plays nice with java serverlets still. Everything else has thrown them by the wayside.

      Eh? A Java Servlet* is a purely server-side component. I can send anything you want to the browser - text, HTML, binary data.... It just sends whatever you program it to emit.

      If some browsers are having problems with a servlet then there's something wrong with the way it's been written.

      * assuming that's what you mean by "serverlets "

  12. karlkarl Silver badge

    I don't get it

    People let go of IE years ago. The whole reason why Microsoft is now using Chrome as their new web browser *is* because we let go of IE.

    1. JohnFen

      Re: I don't get it

      Although a minority, lots of people haven't let go of it -- when I see it, it's usually people who hate Edge but don't want to bother investigating third-party browsers. IE is acceptable to them and is the path of least resistance.

    2. Jakester

      Re: I don't get it

      Unfortunately, many government agencies here in the U.S. have websites with applications that will only work with IE. One company I provide support for has a web browser application that works best with Chrome, iffy with Firefox, and not at all with Edge or IE.

  13. andy 103
    FAIL

    "I don't know who needs to hear this"

    The people who need to hear it fall into two categories and two categories only.

    The first are people who have no choice. For example a lot of legacy intranet apps used by companies rely on legacy IE. Because that's how long ago they were developed and nobody can be arsed (and/or won't pay) to go through either redeveloping them or testing them in newer browsers. I believe the NHS were using IE 6 a few years back but don't know if that's changed.

    The second are people who don't know what a browser is, or don't understand why you'd ever need to "upgrade" to a newer one.

    There isn't anyone else who is using IE.

  14. adam payne

    He put it more bluntly on Twitter: "I don't know who needs to hear this, but...don't use Internet Explorer to browse the web."

    Well i'm so sorry Mr Lawrence but IE is the only way to do certain things and workaround some bugs in Sharepoint so i'm stuck with it. So Mr Lawrence please feel free to turn your attention to Sharepoint.

  15. ske1fr
    Devil

    "We say take off and nuke the entire codebase from orbit. It's the only way to be sure". Why stop at IE? Better still, de-orbit Elon's Starlink constellation onto Redmond, fix two abominations with one action and leave no radioactive fallout.

  16. bombastic bob Silver badge
    Unhappy

    The fact that anything depends upon it in 2020 is appalling

    from article: "The fact that anything depends upon it in 2020 is appalling"

    More like: The fact that anything depended upon it in 2003 is appalling

    (I don't even want to get started as to why)

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Microsoft is part of the problem

    I use Microsoft's Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations ERP systems on a daily basis. IE is REQUIRED in certain instances because the system still relies on ActiveX controls in specific situations.

    MS needs to get their own house in order and stop complaining about their customers.

  18. Inkey
    Joke

    Laughable

    I find it astounding that microshaft still has customers... The fact that some of those customers are still using products that require active X is

    Histerical

  19. Carpet Deal 'em

    and in Java Runtime Environment 8 environments

    Credit where credit's due: this is entirely the fault of Chrome and Mozilla for blocking all plugins but Flash. IE is simply the last man standing.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If only we could ditch IE...

    but our corporate intranet pages require Java and ActiveX.

    Actually, it's worse than that. I'm a contractor based at a customer site. The customer's intranet (which I have to use on a regular basis) requires Java and ActiveX, so won't function in Firefox or Chrome. But my employer's intranet (which I can access remotely) only seems to function properly in Chrome and (sometimes) Firefox. And both provided me with Office365 accounts linked to the two different intranets; I'm just now starting to use Firefox Containers to try to resolve some of my "you don't have access" issues related to being logged into the wrong global Microsoft account.

    Web standards? They may have heard the term...

  21. Erik4872

    People aren't using it to "browse the web"

    I do systems integration work, and IE is something we just can't kill. People aren't daily-driving it as a web browser for the most part these days. They're using it as the only thing that provides full backward compatibility for early-2000s web development. They're NOT going to re-implement ActiveX on Edge, even in a super-safe totally-offline can't-be-hacked sandbox mode. Why do you think Oracle is extracting money from companies in the form of Java EE licenses for ancient versions? Because there's still a demand for it.

    One reality in this whole sordid story is that Microsoft are the kings of backwards compatibility on the desktop. IBM wins for the mainframe...but until recently, Microsoft has been very happy to let older stuff limp along. This is because outside of Silicon Valley and born-in-the-cloud startups, IT is delivered through a crazy patchwork of systems in most companies. These applications and systems they're the front end for don't get replaced daily like they do in Agile-land. In my short 20-year career, I've seen business processes responsible for millions a day being governed by Access 97 "applications" and FoxPro databases...in the 2010s. The world is full of vertical-market vendors who don't care one bit about updating their software, as well as "business unit apps" that are a tangle of Excel 5.0 macros and such cobbled together by an accounting intern in 1998 and processing $800M a year.

    It does need to go, and it is slowly happening...but VERY slowly! Can't wait to see Adobe writing something similar about Flash, Air, ColdFusion, etc....

    1. defiler

      Re: People aren't using it to "browse the web"

      Can't wait to see Adobe writing something similar about Flash, Air, ColdFusion, etc....

      Can't wait to see Adobe writing something similar about Adobe.

      Seriously, on a XenApp farm, an Adobe Acrobat Pro user gets harassed about running Acrobat on more than two machines just because the load balancer shunts her around. It offers her a button to logout all other machines, and that often doesn't work. And I've now spoken to 7 people about it before one chap has said "it's a bug - we can reproduce it internally". And, to be fair to him, he then said "I'll find out what our expected time on a fix is and get back to you Tuesday/Wednesday" which was refreshing.

      But fuck Creative Cloud - it sucks up gigabytes of RAM on our servers for no bloody purpose at all.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: People aren't using it to "browse the web"

      Indeed, the cruft just keeps piling on...

      Not running Windoze, I use Firefox/Safari for everything but one expensive corporate manure-pile that only works with IE. So I fire up VirtualBox for that sole purpose. (By the way, Sun kept older stuff in Solaris that went back to SunOS days.)

  22. JohnFen

    *raises hand*

    > or spoofed User-Agent request headers to appear to be doing so.

    Guilty as charged!

  23. hellwig

    Eh, let them eat cake... er... surf with IE.

    Yeah, it sucks if you're stuck with IE, or your grandparents can't be bothered to update from Windows XP, but at some point, you just have to cut them loose.

    It's like driving an old car with one wheel falling off, no seat belts, etc... Some people can't afford to upgrade (an unfortunate aspect of our capitalist society), and others just don't care to, no matter how much you try to tell them newer cars are much safer and more efficient.

    If people are willing to put their lives at risk for convenience and familiarity, there's no excuse you can come up with to get them to move away from IE.

    1. Kiwi
      Boffin

      Re: Eh, let them eat cake... er... surf with IE.

      no matter how much you try to tell them newer cars are much safer

      Efficiency can be argued on a like-for-like basis, ie a landrover vs a SUV. Most minis and other small cars of the 50's and 60's will still outperform many SUVs on fuel use and all will outperform them on manufacturing resource use.

      As to safety, no for the most part newer cars are NOT safer. The amount of automatics and distractions mean the drivers are less engaged and are much more likely to be at fault in a crash whereas the older cars take much more effort to drive making the driver more engaged.

      Plus, safety tech people say they can only protect you up to around 80kph and then the likelihood of you dying starts to very quickly increase above that - whereas that old granny in the old Morris Minor holding everyone up is unlikely to even reach 30kph let alone 80! :)

      But seriously... There are many crashes where no amount of 'new car' is going to help you, but with good 'situational awareness' and well-practised emergency evasive/braking manoeuvres you're much more likely to see the event happening and have time to react to minimise the impact and perhaps even avoid the crash.

      [El Reg - we need a "I'm so far off-topic I'm in another galaxy" icon! - could be coupled with a "this is my favourite soap-box du jour" one]

  24. baud

    > mapping a folder to a Sharepoint library, generating a Certificate Signing Request at Certificate Authorities like DigiCert, accessing some banking and government websites in Asia, and in Java Runtime Environment 8 environments

    And websites that requires ActivX to work. Well, in theory, the work to add support for Chrome for our software should start in earnest next month and it might take a few months. But it's not as if the devs have been asking to have that on the roadmap for years, but the POs prefer to prioritize developing as many new features as possible instead of letting us clean some of the cruft that has accumulated in the software during the last 20 years.

  25. N2

    Microsoft

    Never was a web browser company and to take over twenty years to get rid of this shows.

  26. David Jackson 1

    If only Edge wasn't so appalling

    ,, people might use it. IE beats it easily in usability and user interface. If I don't use IE, I use Chrome (at work for example). Personally, I never seen the point in anything added to browsers in the last 10 or 15 years, but I realise that some people do. Whatever flaws IE has (and there are more than a few), it has pretty much the best UI of any current browser (Edge holds the record for the worst). I would love to be able to uninstall Edge, but sadly I can't.

  27. Gil Grissum

    Not hsving any problems with new Edge

    No problems with new chrome based Edge.

  28. General Purpose

    Outlook launches IE, won't use Edge or any other browser

    When reading an HTML email, Outlook* itself often offers "If there are problems with how this message is displayed, click here to view it in a web browser." Clicking there launches IE. There's no way to change that to another browser, not in Outlook's settings nor in W10's. Yes, Microsoft, "The fact that anything depends upon it in 2020 is appalling,"

    *Outlook 2019 and previous; outlook666 may differ.

  29. Wibble

    Could say the same for that Office monstrosity

    Office seems to be creaking at the seams. A massive monolithic turd of an application that barely works and with a minging UX.

    Maybe all the developers (or is that so-called developers) that threw IE together found a new home as Office 'devs'.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'd happily oblige Mr Microsoft Engineer, but corporations have a habit of procuring browser-dependent applications with multi-million pound price tags that just don't magically migrate to a new platform.

    Personally I think the real problem is that we're using web browsers to host what should be fat client applications. 5 decades of IT progress but routine tasks are still no faster because of badly thought out workflows, network lag, and bloat.

    1. baud

      I don't think that replacing web-based apps by fat client app, since we'd still get the same level of coding quality, the same bad workflows, network lag each time the client has to talk to the server and the same bloat, but just with the added hassle of deploying and keeping up-to-date the fat on each user's computer.

  31. x 7

    "and in Java Runtime Environment 8 environments"

    That means the whole of the UK NHS

    The NHS smart card / single sign on needs a version of Java no newer than Java 8 update 74 - and so do most of the web hosted applications it works with

  32. This post has been deleted by its author

  33. Roland6 Silver badge

    Re: "Win10 comes with Edg & IE11"

    "Microsoft software engineer Eric Lawrence, who helped shift Edge to its Google-driven open source foundation, issued a plea to Windows users to let go of Internet Explorer.

    ...

    "The fact that anything depends upon it in 2020 is appalling," he said.

    Just finished setting up a new Win10 box, went to login to OneDrive using the OneDrive app listed in the start menu, only for it to complain that Javascript wasn't enabled in my browser. Win10 said the default browser was Edge, Took a little investigation to find that the OneDrive app was actually using IE and that the running of scripts was disabled...

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