back to article Microsoft adds Internet Explorer mode to Chromium Edge, announces roadmap

Microsoft had to consider businesses' addiction to Internet Explorer 11 in its roadmap for Edge Enterprise, the business aspect of its new web browser based on Google's Chromium project. Group program manager Sean Lyndersay and senior program manager Colleen Williams said of the roadmap, rolled out yesterday, that "one of the …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hoist with their own petard ...

    and other phrases spring to mind ....

  2. Paul Crawford Silver badge

    Ha ha ha!

    Ha ha ha!

    Ha ha ha!

    (repeat ad nausium in Nelson Muntz accent)

    1. John 110
      Joke

      @Paul

      "Ha ha ha!

      (repeat ad nausium in Nelson Muntz accent)"

      For full compatibility with Simpsons mode, that should be:

      "Ha Ha!"

      I believe

  3. iron Silver badge
    FAIL

    This will just continue the problem of lazy devs creating sites that require IE. Only now they will say it requires Edgium but it won't always work in Edgium and will depend on if IE mode is enabled. More confusion, angry users and security breaches will ensue.

    They should just say no. Update sites written 20 years ago and fire devs that can't manage to keep up with current practice in their career.

    (I'm a dev myself.)

    1. baud

      It's been 5 years that we're asking for the budget to move the ActivX app to Javascript to at last move to a modern browser and I don't even know if it's going to get done in 2019

      1. Hans 1
        Go

        You seem to be at the very least a half decent techy, what are you doing working for numpties?

        Move on, move on, you know that when shit hits the fan, YOU will get the blame!

        1. baud

          The numpties are mostly on the PO side, the team I'm part of is A-level great and I don't want to leave. And I know that when shit hit the fan, the blame will (mostly) stop above me, that's why I've got a great boss.

          1. baud

            Also replacing the functionality from the ActivX has to be done if we want to switch from IE, since it's like the main feature of the software. But it's not a job that could be done in a few days, it's roughly a few weeks, especially taking into account that no one in the team has experience in developing a browser extension/plugin (since it's the most likely replacement).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      " fire devs that can't manage to keep up with current practice in their career."

      … and drop the extra workload on the existing staff while you try to find somebody with proficiency in ObjectiveCobol# to modernize/rewrite the existing app, to specs that consist of "all existing use-cases (of which we have no list, but your fired predecessor knew them all by heart, apart from the ones he forgot) must continue to function". I.e., you'll have to hire them back at conslutant rates now.

      Yes, I'm up to my eyebrows in public sector brownfield, does that show a lot?

    3. Captain Scarlet

      No good if the developer no longer exists, its very hard to get a company to agree to give you their source code and even when they do it can cost an absolute fortune as it tends to have to be in a 3rd party escrow type vault.

  4. jelabarre59

    IE6

    So Edge will simulate MSIE11, while Chrome/Chromium/AdNauseum continue on their trend to become MSIE6 version 2. Just fecking wonderful. No wonder the internet is turning to shit.

    1. GiantKiwi

      Re: IE6

      Too late. Firefox already beat them to it. Lovely when nothing but the Mozilla-rolled CSS/JS libraries work consistently in FF as of late..

      Quirky CSS declarations that work in all browsers (including IE11 *shudder*) apart from FF just doesn't feel right.

  5. OpenSauce
    Unhappy

    Oh noes, undead zombie brower

    MS caused the problem by have non-standard superset features that it actively encouraged devs (and effectively end users) to embrace.

    MS and the sheeple have a lot to answer for.

    1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      Re: Oh noes, undead zombie brower

      Largely because Microsoft developed and deployed desktop software development tools for the purposes of web development. They provided all kinds of examples helping idiot developers pretend that a website page is instead a local rich application. As a result we have a legacy of use of ActiveX, stupid JavaScript practices which all rely on "_postback", to the point that whenever I see a website or service relying on this I know that it's been developed by somebody lacking in any real competence.

      Previously we also had the mess of idiot developers using Flash to deploy an entire website rather than its intended use which was to enhance parts of a website. The parallels between this and JavaScript usage are uncanny, as is the utter lack of quality and the seeming looks of surprise when things stop working.

  6. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Why IE 11?

    I mean it's not the best browser, but for the time it was okay and reasonably standards compliant? Presumably, this is about the crazy stuff that IE >= 9 could do to support those WebForm/ASP based IE 6 websites that are essential to company business but haven't been maintained for over ten years, because no one is willing to touch VB any more.

    1. mark l 2 Silver badge

      Re: Why IE 11?

      From what I read about 'IE Mode' in the new edge is that it isn't some compatibility layer or emulation of IE, but purely just an Edge tab showing an IE background process, rather than just launching the IE process separately.

      Therefore it had to be IE11 as this is the only version MS still offer support for.

      It will also mean than the MacOS version of Edge won't have the IE mode unless MS plan on porting IE over to MacOS just to be able to run IE mode.

  7. SVV

    So, Microsoft are bringing ActiveX to Chrome!

    Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1999........

  8. Zippy´s Sausage Factory
    Facepalm

    I still remember the setup for VB5 proudly advertising that it could "create ActiveX controls that run inside the user browser without intervention".

    Whoever would have dreamed that something like that could possibly go wrong, eh?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Forcing Microsoft to fix application?

    "Forcing Microsoft to fix applications that do not comply with standards is a good thing, but inflicting pain on users with a change in browser behaviour is not."

    Howabout they write to web standards in the first place.

    17:05: submitted and awaiting moderation

    1. Excellentsword (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Forcing Microsoft to fix application?

      Quit moaning.

      1. MiguelC Silver badge

        Re: Forcing Microsoft to fix application?

        I get that, but sometimes I post twice on any article and one of the posts is immediatly published while the other stays there waiting for moderation. When it happens, I'd like to know why... if only to change whatever stopped the publishing - or just to moan about the reason it was made sit in the corner for a while ;)

    2. Jay Lenovo
      Alert

      Re: Forcing Microsoft to fix application?

      The wise man built his house upon web standards

      The foolish man built his house upon MSIE

      ...And the rain came tumbling down

      1. Psmo
        Coat

        Re: Forcing Microsoft to fix application?

        The wise man got paid in advance and emigrated...

    3. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Forcing Microsoft to fix application?

      Howabout they write to web standards in the first place.

      Well, at the time a lot of the ActiveX crap was written IE 6 was pretty much standards-compliant (with the then standard HTML 4). Indeed it's worth noting that the IE 6 box-model was the one in the standard, that was subsequently revised so that IE 6 became wrong. And, lest we forget, IE 6 introduced the ability for the website to make asynchronous server calls which led to the snappy, appy websites of today. Of course, this was all part of Microsoft's embrace, extend, extinguish of the time and achieved exactly what was intended: make the IE / IIS combination an essential tool for development. So essential, in fact, that they couldn't the kill the monster off!

  10. Hans 1
    Paris Hilton

    2019 ?

    Principal program manager Fred Pullen asked IT administrators at the Microsoft Ignite conference "how many of you no longer need Internet Explorer for anything? I had four hands out of about 200 people," he said in a video.

    It is 2019, and some companies rely on programs written for IE 6.

    PS: Only retarded idiots incapable of learning anything would have bought software locked to IE7+.

    PPS: Sorry for the downvoters, their opinion does not count; arguing this is futile.

    Icon: Even Paris got that decades ago.

    1. joeW

      Re: 2019 ?

      A year ago I was hired to modernise the front end of an in-house application that was written for IE5 and is still in use today. Framesets, it had been a while since I had to deal with those... especially when the top frame had a load of hidden input fields which were used to persist user data across different pages of the application.

      We've come a long way baby.

  11. gnarlymarley

    always multiple browsers

    At work, I have a few applications that require regular full browser restarts. (This means I have to close all windows as the programmer idiots have put in some hidden javascript that takes over all windows.) Because of this "desired feature", I always run separate browsers (whether it be one in private mode or it be different vendors). Anyone here can cry all they want for me to use a single browser, but I never will. Go cry to your mommies, you suckers.

    1. NeilPost Silver badge

      Re: always multiple browsers

      Ir’s Simple - IE11 for stuff that won’t work without it like Sharepoint, Juniper SSL VPN, RemoteApps.

      Chrome for everything else - G-Suite, Ring Central, everything that is Sign in with Google.

      Junk Edge, and take a punt at IE12.

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