Please Stop Using Internet Explorer, Microsoft Says (mashable.com) 174
Microsoft cybersecurity expert Chris Jackson recently published a post on the official Windows IT Pro blog, titled "The perils of using Internet Explorer as your default browser." Jackson urges users that it's time to stop using its old web browser, a product Microsoft officially discontinued in 2015. From a report: In his post, Jackson explains how Microsoft customers still ask him Internet Explorer related questions for their business. The fact of the matter is that while most average internet users have moved on to Google Chrome, Firefox, or Microsoft's Edge, some businesses are still working with older web apps or sites that were designed for Internet Explorer. Instead of updating its tech, many companies have chosen to just keep using the various enterprise compatibility modes of Microsoft's old web browser. But, Jackson says "enough is enough." It's time to event stop calling Internet Explorer a web browser.
Re:Event stop (Score:5, Interesting)
If Microsoft wants everyone off of Internet Explorer. They are going to need to think of a way to easily convert the Past 20 years of IE Only Crap that Microsoft pushed on businesses to deploy.
Active-X and Silverlight (or as I like to call them Active-Exploit and Silverfish) technologies got pushed as core development platforms for those mainframe programmers who needed to keep their jobs after the mainframe and mini-computers were retired from their work environment, to modernize for y2k, but didn't want to learn how to program in HTML/JavaScript and learn how to think in Web Server type of thinking for back end request and responce processing. . These 2 crap technologies, which were a bad idea when they were made are now an anchor to Microsoft growth.
Microsoft was intent on winning the browser war are nearly any cost. Well they now need to pay the cost for their winning. Back in the late 1990's Microsoft could had played the high ground, by insisting on open standards, using the fact that the browser was default and integrated into the OS, to really push the direction on where the open standards went to make sure they were always ready for the first release. But they made IE as part of the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish style. As Microsoft never had put too much faith in the Web. (Windows 95 era, Microsoft though big BBS like AOL, Prodigy, CompuServe, and their MSN was the future) However it was getting a lot of press. So they made IE good enough to compete against Netscape, they extended it with IE/Windows Only features. Hoping to keep everyone on Windows so they can extinguish the Web and go to MS Services (like MSN).
Microsoft Messed up the extend part, not realizing the fast growth of cheap broadband always on Internet. Their Security model and the Wide Open Gaps that Active-X did for system security, just couldn't be managed by educating users on how to be safe. Because the nature of the attacks have changed to broad hit any computer as you can. The processing power and showing Ads, and collecting personal data in their home folder was more valuable, then messing up the boot record, or tinkering with system files.
This allowed the fallout of the Netscape/IE wars Mozilla team to make Firefox which was a small fast browser that followed the open standards, to become popular enough to encourage open standards web development, and avoiding MS only Technology which people lost trust in. This with Apple Safari (ditching the aging IE 5 for Mac) and Google Chrome to get popularity as they all wanted to be the fasted browser out there. (Poor Opera, just never made their browser Open enough to get traction fast enough, they hung with add revenue filling up a good portion of the screen real estate or having to buy a commercial copy, while the others started to hit is main selling point)
If MS wants us to stop using IE. We will need a way to cheaply and easily convert our old stuff made by developers who have long retired, and where source code may be lost, to newer technology say HTML 5
Re: Event stop (Score:2)
Like WindowsXP before it the only way to get rid of ancient decrepit dinosaurs in IT is to stop supporting it!
Shit I worked at as an IT lead at a call center company up to 2 years ago. We had 8 or 9 customers and 2 still required IE 6! Not IE 11, not IE 8 but 2001 IE 6?! One of them is for HIPAA and takes credit card data even.
Another one requires IE 8, another did require IE 8 but and still requires IE but has been updated to work on IE 11 when I left in 2017.
For IE 6 those shameful customers used Citrix.
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Well, if it adds no value, turn it off. Really, just sell all the PCs off and pass out pens and paper. It added no value so I'm sure it'll be just fine. Right?
Re: Event stop (Score:2)
They deserve what they get. It's 2019. Hardware acceleration, CPU instructions to separate data vs instructions, and more than 4 gigs of RAM are outside the realm of XP. That's just a few examples. Chrome too is not updated anymore.
Go use Linux if you want something modern on your ancient stuff but keep in mind people are under no obligation to support you. 90% of everyone else has moved on.
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Re:Event stop (Score:4, Insightful)
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Exactly. They designed it to be like crack for corporations in their continuing quest for a monopoly. Surprise, we now have corporations acting like crack addicts.
The thing is, they didn't JUST offer their products like crack, first hit is free. They actively worked to introduce their product by stealth (like a dealer dosing peoples drinks in the bar) by obscuring the line between open standards and MS proprietary extensions.
I an many other IT professionals tried to warn them, but we were dismissed as overl
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If you don't weigh potential lock in and future availability problems as part of your tech recommendations you are a quack.
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When ActiveX started being the fad (only a fad on Windows that is), Javascript was still highly obscure (it is entirely unrelated to Java guys). So the mainframe people were not too jaded to learn Javascript as the earlier posted hinted. The real reason possibly is that the mainframe people were so used to the idea of "IBM is never wrong" that they revised their misconception into tbhe "Microsoft is never wrong" misconception. Meanwhile, people over on other platforms were saying "what the hell" from the
Re: Event stop (Score:1)
There were 40 year old mainframes still running when Microsoft first released Internet Explorer. They damn well knew that software sticks around for a very long time.
Re: Event stop (Score:1)
Great observation. I think it's all the cat shit that I've been eating.
What does the last sentence in the summary mean? (Score:2)
Re:What does the last sentence in the summary mean (Score:4, Interesting)
Jackson does have a section labeled "Enough is Enough" but the rest of that sentence is straight from Matt Binder. The location of that last sentence does make it look like it is part of the quote from Jackson but it is Matt that is saying we should stop calling IE a browser. The summary makes it look like Microsoft's blog contains the controversial sentence, which it doesn't.
It is a great way to make everyone read Matt's article though.
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So, a typical Matt Binder article then (no matter where he currently is, this has been his MO).
Re:What does the last sentence in the summary mean (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember: They spent a decade making sure nobody could use anything but Internet Explorer, making business software use IE+AcitiveX plugins for everything, and now this.
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Remember: They spent a decade making sure nobody could use anything but Internet Explorer, making business software use IE+AcitiveX plugins for everything, and now this.
This^
Microsoft cannot be taken seriously. They tried to own everything in the past in a non-competitive way. They should spend more time apologizing and less time lecturing others about a problem they themselves caused.
Re:What does the last sentence in the summary mean (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a cost to Winning. Winning doesn't make you better, or put you on a stronger position in the future. It just means you have met the initial objectives first.
I remember a story on NPR about a Chinese Violinist he was always winning the Violin Contest they have. He went to America to study under one the best Violinist.
While training he was asked "Do you want to keep on winning competitions or do you really want to be good at this?"
Winning a competition or competitive war, strategy isn't being the best. But being good enough to not fall behind, then find ways to make your competitor loose. Wither it being showing all the features your browser cannot do. knowing your competing Violinist may play a rift a little slower then you, so you play faster just to show them off, or find a way to injure your competition and hope the refs (or legal) do not find out (such as hitting a batter known for home runs, and forcing them to walk).
Microsoft won the browser war. But because of that Win, all their underhanded tricks to win, for the short term, is now a generation later biting them back, and is preventing them from future growth.
Re: What does the last sentence in the summary mea (Score:2)
That caught up to them as we need not to be reminded. While IE 4 to 6 were superior to Netscape (vehemently denied here on /. But is true if you ask any web developer) they got complacent and IE had bugs from being rushed. They just had less than Netscape.
Google Chrome started rendering with 0 bugs and Firefox started slowly removing them from Netscape and the rest is history
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Remember, Microsoft is still pushing Internet Explorer. It was included in Windows 10, they advise using it instead of Edge sometimes. In no way has Microsoft pulled the plug on Internet Explorer yet. It's just that it's a dysfunctional company that no longer has internal communications.
Re:What does the last sentence in the summary mean (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing new. Microsoft also spent a long time getting everyone to use Office Professional, and now it's actively trying to migrate people to Office 365. Microsoft's biggest competitor has since the 90s always been itself.
Re: What does the last sentence in the summary mea (Score:2)
Unfortunately I don't see an alternative to Office. Libra is not it like Mozilla before it. A Firefox or chrome needs to come in.
I suppose Google docs for light stuff is ok but it's also rental.
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They are good at splitting infinitives, in fact they are proud of it.
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Re: What does the last sentence in the summary me (Score:2)
To boldly split infinitives where no infinitives have been split before.
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Well most IE users, only use IE at work because of old Active-X and Sliverfish crap.
Home users, would be for people using older versions of windows and never upgraded.
If the site still works in IE, it isn't really up to the site owner to stop them. Why should they add an extra line of code that could be conflecting with something else only to annoy a customer.
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It is very easy to see what browser is being used. If its not current, only load up a page that says update your browser
I find this sort of nagging intensely annoying, even if it still allows me to load the page. I decide for myself when to update my browser (and I don't intend to chase every Mozilla update) and how to manage my own security.
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That sounds exactly like those people who don't personally like alcohol so they figure nobody else should have it either.
It's fine to not actively support IE6 users but there's no need to be an asshole about it.
Stop using Java then (Score:2)
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When you say cost prohibitive, are you talking about just the cost to develop new software and a migration strategy, or are you also including the cost of data breaches in that figure?
There are HUGE costs for running outdated software for the sake of compatibility. You just don't know what those costs will be until you're met with a Big Red Screen of Bitcoin Ransom.
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There was a cost at some point to develop the app. There's a good chance that redeveloping for modern tech would make huge strides in productivity and security.
Cheap-ass CEOs give me migraines.
Anybody mentioned South Korea to this guy? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Their whole banking system relies on ActiveX controls that require IE. How about Microsoft pay to fix the damage of 20 years of trying to embrace and extend through the web that's left governments and businesses stuck using abandoned plugins and Microsoft exclusive controls?
It's rare that I come to defense of Microsoft but ActiveX has been on death row since Silverlight was released back in 2007, they've had a decade plus to fix their shit. Here in Norway they created BankID in the 2000s, when Java applets was the hot shit and we were probably as dependent on Java as they are on ActiveX. In 2014 we got Java free BankID 2.0 because they owned that problem. They did not expect Oracle (Java) and Microsoft/Mozilla/Google/Apple (browsers) to support it from now to infinity, that's
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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To keep an enterprise system "up to date" by swapping out everything for the newest fad every 3 to 5 years would bankrupt the co
Re: Anybody mentioned South Korea to this guy? (Score:2)
1. Microsoft can't afford South Korea to shut down.
2. Microsoft has been subject to multiple antitrust trials regarding Internet Explorer, in both the U.S. and EU. Refusal to comply or learn and building Edge into the OS shows wilful negligence.
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That's a line from a few years ago. South Korea definitely relied on ActiveX but if you search for articles about it you'll find they are all dated either early this decade or late last decade. Anything more recently will net you stories like this:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/... [zdnet.com]
We also covered this shift on Slashdot: https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
In terms of ActiveX deployment South Korea are truly number 1, there's no arguing that. But it's no where near as bad as it was in the past. The government ha
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IE legacy is the new y2k, it seems.
Re: Anybody mentioned South Korea to this guy? (Score:2)
I heard they switched to HTML 5 a few years ago? It's 2019 and Asians have more cell phone and mobile apps than anyone!
Is this still true or was a few years ago?
Also Silverlight (Score:2)
Hey Microsoft. Remember when you made this excellent plugin called Silverlight that let you do .NET development on a web browser? It was actually really cool, and light-years better than Flash or even HTML development at the time. Then HTML5 + canvas caught up quick and you deprecated Silverlight? Well some people are still trying to migrate off of Silverlight. When you are doing giant UI-heavy enterprise apps, this takes time. Therefore, we are still going to be using Internet Explorer because using Silver
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Or how about the businesses that were so stupid as to ignore the warnings of everyone-that-is-not-Microsoft-or-a-shill pay the price themselves? It's not like they weren't warned extensively, and for decades, about the dangers of Active X and Internet Explorer. They brought it upon themselves, and more than kind of deserve the pain and expense.
I would like to think that they will have learned a lesson about the value of standards.
Phasing out Internet Explorer (Score:5, Interesting)
We need a really popular website to not support IE to make the phaseout happen. Youtube claims not to support IE but they still show an old version so people can still use it. Microsoft's GitHub also claims not to support it but it still works.
I think once Windows 7 goes out of support is when we should really start pushing for an IE free world, using Chromium Edge as a transition mechanism.
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Oh man I hope Windows 7 never goes out of support. At least not until something better comes along. Windows 10 is just a giant spyware app.
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For us, IE isn't going anywhere anytime soon even though we're on Windows 10.
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I have the opposite problem - my work tools have been migrated from IE dependencies and to Chrome. And now, recently, Edge is being refused as misidentified as Chrome (this one app can't tell that a non-IE browser isn't Chrome...).
Now I have this obstacle.I prefer to do personal browsing, as permitted by corporate policy,in Chrome, signed on to my Google account and all. This presents huge problems, with mixed credentials and all sorts of settings.
Not sure how to handle this, since I'm being forced to Chrom
Re:Phasing out Internet Explorer (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that IE is officially not fit for use on the public web, the question is how do we get people to stop using it?
Attrition. Internet Explorer's market share hasn't gone up once in the past 10 years. Even companies are moving away from that, often forced by their vendors to do so.
We need a really popular website to not support IE to make the phaseout happen.
NO!!! WE ABSOLUTELY DO NOT! Absolutely none of these problems should ever be solved by forcing some selective non-standard behaviour on the internet. We're only just recovering from the last time this shit happened. Absolutely no non-standard action should be taken. IE will die a natural death as it is no longer being developed while standards continue to evolve.
The problem will solve itself, give it time.
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>one of these problems should ever be solved by forcing some selective non-standard behaviour on the internet.
Who said they should? They could instead rely on *standard* behavior, and remove all the extra code required to cater to IE's incompatible-by-design idiosyncrasies. There's probably a mountain of it.
Re: Phasing out Internet Explorer (Score:2)
Shit we would still be on XP if MS didn't pull the plug in 2014. Good God people and businesses are resistant to change.
FYI many websites (addressed to grand parent) do not work well with IE. Today corporate desktops have Chrome in addition to IE
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Shit we would still be on XP if MS didn't pull the plug in 2014.
So what you're saying is that software was made obsolete and people moved away from it.
Re: Phasing out Internet Explorer (Score:2)
Yes. If you developed websites that had to run in IE and especially ancient IE you would be whistling a different tune.
Supporting old technology increases security risks to customers and creates technical debt and costs more. It also prevents innovation that would benefit everyone including IT workers.
Example is CSS in HTML 4 can't be used thanks to IE 6 for 12 years! HTML 5 could have prevented much of the data breaches from retailers and more up to date databases. That can't happen because too many grandm
Re: Phasing out Internet Explorer (Score:2)
Internet Exploder never followed standards. You need horrible hacks to simulate correct behaviour. That's why other browser vendors hated it. It was an attempt to embrace, extend and extinguish the entire web.
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Exactly my point. Let it die from it's own breakage but for the love of god stop making websites that depend at all on any specific browser, including for the purposes of breaking one specific one.
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Thank goodness some people still have sense.
Whether it's IE, or Flash, or Java, or floppy disks, no technology should be forced to die. Obsolete tech dies naturally on its own.
This is why I was pissed when Chrome dumped Applet support, and I'll be even more pissed when all the browsers ban Flash. It should be my decision when to stop using old tech... not anyone else's.
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We need a really popular website to not support IE to make the phaseout happen. Youtube claims not to support IE but they still show an old version so people can still use it. Microsoft's GitHub also claims not to support it but it still works.
This is completely against the standards of an open web. Websites should be accessible to all, regardless of whether they're using IE6, Opera for Mobile, or Chrome.
That said, as a web designer, I feel little compunction to make my sites look and behave exactly the same in modern browsers as in old ones. We are unfortunately tied to Flexbox since IE doesn't support CSS grid, but I'd happily stop coding layouts for IE if I could convince my clients it's not worth it. They can have the same content, but they'r
Re: 15 years too late. The damage is done. (Score:2)
You think IE 6 was bad you should try supporting Netscape 4.7.2
OWA (Score:1)
Re: OWA (Score:2)
Um owa has worked outside of IE for many years now. Your employer must have exchange 2003?!
If that is the case you're IT department is fucked as support left years ago
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This is why (Score:2)
23 years too late (Score:2)
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Exactly.
MS is always at least 10 years behind in tech, but not this time ! This time they are really over 20 years behind.
Really, they should have recommended to use Firefox (Or Netscape) one or two decades ago.
ya know ... (Score:2)
IE is installed alongside Edge with the latest and greatest version of windows
if you don't want people using it, dont fuckin install unsupported obsolete software on your OS, especially when you make us update the install media every fuckin week
Re:ya know ... (Score:5, Informative)
Can they take it out? They spend years baking IE in at the level of a vital, inseparable system component for legal purposes - it might be difficult to remove without the risk of breaking other things, both their own software and third party.
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>> the latest and greatest version of windows
That's a contradiction here. you really claim the latest version of windows is the greatest ? That's impossible.
There is a saying for this: (Score:2)
Live by the sword, die by the sword. [wikipedia.org] However, I do not think they envisioned Microsoft Seppuku. ;)
They not only install it, it's a default! (Score:5, Insightful)
I wanted to view the contents of an xml file yesterday so I clicked on it in File Explorer and guess what it opened in: yup, Internet Explorer. It was the first time I'd seen IE since the Vista days. I was connected to the Internet so, needless to say, I closed it down quickly and used Notepad++.
But, really, Microsoft! [i]You[/i] install it, [i]you[/i] make it a default, then you tell us not to use it?! I feel an event stop coming on...
Re: They not only install it, it's a default! (Score:2)
Oops! Wrong editor. Sorry, folks!
I want to stop, but... (Score:4, Informative)
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Something about Pale Moon with noscript and craigslist doesn't interact well, even with all scripts enabled I can't deobfuscate email addresses. So I C&P the url into the run dialog, prefixed by iexplore, and it pops right up. There's always the risk that a malformed image will own my browser, but I'm not actually browsing any site, just loading specific pages with stuff that I want to make an offer on.
If I'm not supposed to use it, why is it there?
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And some web sites want Google Chrome. Argh.
Took them long enough (Score:1)
Some of us have been saying this for 20 years. In a very real sense, Microsoft nearly broke the web in the 90s with their proprietary nonsense and lack of ethics. So, from those of us that saw this writing on the wall many years ago: that is what Google, Facebook, and other 2.0 companies are doing *today*, but with their privacy violations and recreation of users as a product or resource, they are even *worse*. You have been warned.
And then there were two (Score:4, Interesting)
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You forgot WebKit.
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It's a real fucking shame that MS decided to get out of the browser business.
You must be REALLY young. Microsoft getting out of the browser business is a wet dream come true for the entire universe, as they suck at it really, REALLY bad.
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Regardless, it's better to have THREE options for browsers than TWO.
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Web designer here. I really don't mind Edge as a Trident-powered browser. It's been relatively compliant compared to Firefox and Chrome, if a little slower to adopt newer CSS/JS.
Please, please Mozilla: stay in this race.
They need ot sort edge and sharepoint out first! (Score:2)
About 25% of the time:
I log in to my Win10Pro laptop.
I go to my network location in explorer to open my sharepoint files.
I get \\blahdeblah@SSL\DavWWWRoot\Docs is not accessible blah blah.
I tut and press OK.
I open internet explorer and log in to sharepoint then close sharepoint
Go back to explorer stab F5 and it lists the files.
It's something to do with renewing the credentials.
This only works on IExplorer NOT edge.
So essentially you cannot use Windows Explorer to open files on sharepoint unless you occasion
Re: They need ot sort edge and sharepoint out firs (Score:2)
It means your credentials are not saved by default in credential manager. Ask your SharePoint developer to include this? Also it's possible he was instructed to do this for security authentication if your employer is too cheap to use MFA on Azure, Ms federation, or some third party system if security is important.
Liars? (Score:2)
However, it does imply that basically everything they have said prior is an absolute lie.
Just saying.
oh wait (Score:2)
Stop using Microsoft products (Score:2)
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They can't. (Score:2)
Not without time travel and wire cutters. Microsoft built I.E. into their operating systems. Need a specific Microsoft OS? You use the web browser that is supplied, no matter what else you run.
Microsoft were told NOT to do this in 1995. They chose to compromise all subsequent computers instead. There is NOTHING anyone can do about it, save break up Microsoft.
Why can't MS make a browser extension? (Score:2)
It seems to me like the only reason people are still hanging onto using IE is all of these compatibility issues with Active-X controls, etc.
If Microsoft really thinks it's time to put IE to bed, they should develop a browser plug-in or extension that works with modern browsers, and extends the functionality that used to be IE specific.
It could even come with warnings that using it for general purpose browsing may be a security risk/unsafe, but it's simply a "shim" to enable on a case by case basis, on sites
Please tell that to SAP (Score:2)
Companies that stubbornly keep Internet Explorer as their default web browser because of SAP need to be publicly shamed.
Internet Explorer was never GOOD (Score:1)
But it is still better than "Edge."
I have multiple browsers on my work laptop and IE is the last choice I use.
Tried "Edge" and it didn't even work well on MS-centric sites.
MS should revert to IE 10 and do security updates for it, dropping their newer efforts.
But You Made The Replacement Horrible (Score:1)
Long live Opera! Chrome must die! (Score:1)
Any browser that doesn't support Most Recently Used switching is trash.
Oh, and, dear Microsoft, good job following Google's trend and bombing Microsoft Edge (older versions supported MRU and so di IE), perhaps you should change your task switching to "idiotic google chrome style" too?
Thanks MS (Score:2)
believe me, everybody wants to stop using that pos, but thanks to microsoft putting it full with closed integrations only working on IE we are stuck with it.
stop telling us not to use it anymore, and start screaming at developers, developers, developers to get with the times (oh, that also includes some of your own developers).
Tell that to the vendors stuck on ActiveX! (Score:2)
Wells Fargo check reader - touchy plugin, requires reduced security
Fingerprint scanner for adding users to security system - touchy plugin, reduced security
"eRelocation" service - wicked touchy, 32-bit only, security reducing plugin.
Maybe if MS just kills IE entirely these jerks will have to get with the damn times already.
You want me off IE? (Score:2)
Make modern browsers work with sites that are not perfect. I am required to use IE not because of some antiquated piece of Java, but because the security settings on modern browsers don't let you connect to sites with self signed certificates. So I cannot connect to my home router, my work routers, my hosting provider, etc. because they use certificates that for some reason or another are not "recognized". IE lets me say "hey this is okay and add an exception". Edge, Chrome, Firefox don't, they deny you