Internet Explorer is not a browser, but a compatibility solution for enterprise users to deal with legacy websites and apps that have not yet been modernised.
That’s the conclusion of a blog post by Chris Jackson, Microsofts head for worldwide cybersecurity, entitled The perils of using Internet Explorer as your default browser. In other words: the dangers of using Internet Explorer as your default browser.
For organizations that still use Internet Explorer for legacy apps, the easiest solution is to use the browser as a standard for all web traffic. However, Jackson argues that by doing so, they are burdening themselves with a technical fault.
Enterprise Mode
Internet Explorer is a compatibility solution. We do not support new web standards for this and although many sites work well, developers generally do not test for Internet Explorer. They test on modern browsers, it sounds in the blog post.
According to Jackson, companies should only use Internet Explorer for internal websites and apps that still need the browser. He refers to the recent Enterprise Mode that automatically opens legacy sites in Internet Explorer 11, but allows the rest of the web traffic to pass through the newer Edge browser.
Legacy by exception
According to Jackson, Microsoft’s new legacy by exception approach has been an important step. Previously, Internet Explorer followed the principle of legacy by default, where a technical debt was built up and backward compatibility was guaranteed as much as possible at the expense of more modern standards.
If we were to continue with our previous approach, you would end up with a scenario in which, by optimising for the things you have, you wouldn’t be able to use new apps when they come out. As new apps come out more frequently, we want to help you avoid missing out on an ever-increasing amount of the web.
Edge
Jackson himself does not go as far as to say that users should switch to Edge, which will soon be switching to the Chromium engine. I’m not here to force a browser on anyone. Windows gives you a choice of your browser and you have to choose the one that best suits your needs, it responds to a comment under the blog post.
Related: Microsoft stops supporting Internet Explorer 10 in 2020
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.