[HN Gopher] Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) to be retired on June 15...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) to be retired on June 15, 2022
        
       Author : smukherjee19
       Score  : 252 points
       Date   : 2021-05-19 18:00 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blogs.windows.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blogs.windows.com)
        
       | jb775 wrote:
       | Can we just retire the entire Windows operating system already?
       | 
       | I recently started working on a new project that's running on
       | Windows Server 2019 and the experience so far has been absolutely
       | terrible. One Windows related headache after another.
        
       | skrebbel wrote:
       | I smell a lot of nostalgia in this thread, and rightfully so! IE
       | has been a terrible browser, but it was _our_ terrible browser.
       | 
       | But fear not! Outlook still uses the HTML parsing engine from MS
       | Word (!) to display your HTML emails, and it's not going
       | anywhere.
        
         | easton wrote:
         | When Outlook becomes a PWA (currently in test, I think it's
         | probably two-three years from stable), it'll be rendering mail
         | with all the functionality of Blink. Which depending on your
         | point of view, means a sigh of relief or time to buy more RAM.
         | 
         | https://www.windowscentral.com/project-monarch-outlook-web-u...
        
           | djxfade wrote:
           | But Gmail is already a web app, and only supports a tiny
           | subset of modern HTML and CSS. The limitation is of course
           | arbitrary, it could in theory support any modern standards.
           | But HTML mail is so quirky and full of hacks, that they
           | probably have to do it that way to preserve compatibility.
           | Apple's Mail app is one of the few modern mail clients that
           | can render modern HTML/CSS
        
             | whakim wrote:
             | That's true, and I wish that emails could just work like
             | everything else on the web. But simply removing Outlook and
             | all its baggage from the equation would be a big, big
             | improvement on the status quo.
        
           | sebazzz wrote:
           | More RAM or worse performance? I doubt it, given the COM
           | addons my employer stuffs in my Outlook client. Zipmail among
           | others.
        
         | detritus wrote:
         | Going a bit further back, IE 5 and 6 were the best browser by
         | far. Strange for me to think that my now-beloved Firefox has
         | its heritage embedded in Netscape, which at the same time as
         | IE5 was an absolute pig.
         | 
         | - ed
         | 
         | for some reason I have it in mind as IE5.5 specifically that
         | was The Great IE.
        
           | munk-a wrote:
           | I have a version of myself aged in their twenties and working
           | in web development that really wants to stab anyone believing
           | that IE6 was the best browser.
           | 
           | I won't argue that it wasn't decent at launch, but MS kept
           | support for that browser around way too long and failed to
           | actually roll out support for new features that customers
           | desired. I believe it was the era of IE6 specifically that
           | led to the proliferation of top-right-corner.jpg which was an
           | absolute abomination.
        
             | Rodeoclash wrote:
             | Compared to IE5 and Netscape Navigator 4, it was a great
             | browser!
             | 
             | The issue was the length of time that it stuck around for.
        
             | detritus wrote:
             | Oh, don't get me wrong - it was a Trojan Horse, and my
             | first ever web browsing experience was on Navigator, so it
             | was a hard-hearted appreciation at the time.
             | 
             | But from my stand point then, It Just Worked.
        
           | gnu8 wrote:
           | Did we forget all about Mozilla already?
        
             | detritus wrote:
             | Nope, still using two of their products today, and waiting
             | for the moment (as, I think, promised soon?) wherein I
             | could donate/pay directly to/for firefox.
             | 
             | I don't broadly support Mozilla's aims (I also don't not -
             | I'm an owner of a 1st-gen Firefox phone, for example), but
             | we're just talking browsers here.
        
           | adventured wrote:
           | It was IE 5.5 that was particularly a champ compared to the
           | terrible Netscape Communicator / Netscape 4 product. I
           | continued to regularly use Netscape 4 through those years, as
           | I didn't like IE, and it was a real dog in most every
           | respect. Netscape took their eye off the ball in an attempt
           | to further build their business away from the browser
           | (Communicator of course was their suite attempt), and failed
           | at both things in the process.
        
             | detritus wrote:
             | Thanks for confirming - I wasn't sure if I was mixing up
             | the version number with Photoshop, which 5.5 was (if memory
             | serves) the one that fixed terribly-kerned typesetting in
             | v5, and added some new web-export wizziness.
        
       | baud147258 wrote:
       | well, maybe my previous team would have finished their migration
       | of IE by then
        
       | SLWW wrote:
       | F in the chat for IE 11
       | 
       | we will miss you
       | 
       | the last (worthy) MS browser; it is gonna die
        
       | robinjfisher wrote:
       | I am just waiting to hear back from a customer on a support
       | ticket request where functionality in my app is not working as
       | expected.
       | 
       | They sent me a screenshot of what should be a form in a modal but
       | the modal has failed to load so it has loaded just the form in a
       | new page looking pretty unstyled. The JS for the modal uses
       | fetch() so possibly why it broke.
       | 
       | I'm 95% sure that the browser in the screenshot is IE10. I
       | pointed them to this announcement if only to make them aware of
       | the security risks in running IE10 but it beggars belief that
       | anyone would choose to run IE10, individual or enterprise.
        
         | torstenvl wrote:
         | Not accusing you of this, but the primary reason people run
         | outdated software is a really problematic insistence, mostly by
         | front-end people, on using the new-and-shiny instead of the
         | tried-and-true. Breaking changes galore - so people stick with
         | the past as much as possible.
         | 
         | Example: Office 365 OWA doesn't work well on modern browsers
         | other than the latest version of Edge on Windows. But it does
         | work fine on browsers that are older or pretend to be older!
         | I'm technical enough to spoof my user agent, but Mom & Pop are
         | just going to say "I don't like the new one, it broke stuff"
         | and that will be that.
        
       | ilkkao wrote:
       | Nice, IE mode in Edge works now even in Windows home edition.
       | This is new information for me. My old security camera supports
       | only IE11.
        
         | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
         | Does IE mode support Java Applets? Considering:
         | 
         | https://openjdk.java.net/jeps/398
        
       | lriel wrote:
       | I'm currently enjoying nostalgia as I'm currently using IE for a
       | full on ActiveX app which has no use the loose obtuse constructs
       | of the HTML.
       | 
       | Much live a headcrab, the ActiveX takes over the the full device
       | context and reaches deep into the OS. I CAN pulp my own WM
       | messages thank you very much Mr browser ... Brakes my alt tab
       | from time to time, can't grab focus from a miss Z'd dialog.
       | Yes... Nostalgia Nostalgia Nostalgia
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | ivanche wrote:
       | It's time for a saveie11.com :)
        
         | gregmac wrote:
         | Interesting contrast to the general sentiment about another
         | major IE milestone: http://www.ie6death.com/
        
       | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
       | My current employer will be devastated. The user interface of our
       | currently in development program requires IE + Java applets.
        
         | thr1123 wrote:
         | still not aboard the php 3 hype train?
         | 
         | now it's time to sell it hard to management
        
         | mmastrac wrote:
         | This sounds like the stuff I worked on 15 years ago in the oil
         | and gas sector (in fairness, IE + applets _were_ the best
         | choice at the time).
        
           | cies wrote:
           | > IE + applets _were_ the best choice at the time
           | 
           | Depends on the constraints. Qt was around and mature for many
           | years in 2006. Ruby on Rails had it's first release mid 2004.
           | Django mid-2005.
           | 
           | Again it depends on the constrains, what you can "the best
           | choice in 2006" is limping now. Meanwhile an app built in
           | 2006 on Qt/RoR/Django would be on a platform that is
           | currently still being considered for green field devt.
           | 
           | Without knowing all constraints I'd be willing to say that
           | IE+applets was not the best choice in 2006, neither was: GWT,
           | WebSphere or any of the MS GUI toolkits around in that year.
           | 
           | I'm still on the fence wrt Vaadin. It was not around in 2006,
           | but soon after. Never used it, but it seems to still be
           | actively maintained to this day.
        
             | skrebbel wrote:
             | I don't think any of this was obvious in 2006.
        
               | cies wrote:
               | I know! That's the gamble one makes choosing a
               | language/dependency you cannot easily move away from.
               | 
               | But the lack of obviousness does not make IE+applets the
               | best choice in 2006.
        
           | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
           | That's around when my project was started.
        
             | pram wrote:
             | The horror.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | bydo wrote:
           | It's still very common in a lot of niche industries. Though
           | apparently it's also still supported, since they just embed
           | the entire Trident engine in Edge. So really this is just yet
           | another way for Microsoft to try to force Edge on users?
        
         | gibolt wrote:
         | I'm really curious what client requirements drove that
         | decision.
         | 
         | 'In development'. Does this mean v1 hasn't even shipped yet?
        
           | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
           | >Does this mean v1 hasn't even shipped yet?
           | 
           | yes
        
             | jefft255 wrote:
             | That sounds just unbelievable to me, and I've worked at
             | government agency doing Lotus Note programming on Windows
             | XP past EoL. What was the decision process like, to decide
             | to create a new Java applet in 2021??
             | 
             | Edit: I've seen a later comment mentioning it was started a
             | while ago. But still... this is a dead platform. To me this
             | is on the level of launching a new app targeting Windows
             | XP. It's just a disaster
        
               | bartread wrote:
               | About 5 years ago I briefly contracted for a large
               | multinational, who shall remain nameless, who were still
               | running a version of some Lotus thing (I forget whether
               | it was Notes or Smartsuite) that was well over a decade
               | out of support, and possibly two decades old, running on
               | a long since obsolete niche operating system, on hardware
               | that probably dated from the 90s.
               | 
               | None of it could be upgraded.
               | 
               | Which would have been fine except that it had
               | dependencies, and those dependencies had dependencies,
               | and... you get the idea. I got the distinct impression
               | that were it to fail or be unplugged every system in the
               | business might slowly and inexorably fail over a period
               | of days or weeks, eventually grinding all trading
               | activity to a halt.
               | 
               | They were trying to figure out what to do about it and,
               | fortunately, the guy in charge of replacing it really
               | seemed to enjoy that kind of problem but, for all I know,
               | they're still running it.
        
         | 908B64B197 wrote:
         | > currently in development program requires IE + Java applets.
         | 
         | Why?
         | 
         | Surely it's not a greenfield project.
        
           | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
           | It's just a defense program with a very very long timeline.
        
             | suzzer99 wrote:
             | Wait, you're serious?
        
             | 908B64B197 wrote:
             | I would worry about long term availability.
             | 
             | For that type of project, it might be worth it to write a
             | detailed spec for how the back-end talks to the front-end
             | so in the future it's possible to write a more modern
             | client.
        
         | crazygringo wrote:
         | What does it matter? Your users will just run it in Edge using
         | IE11 compatibility mode, which "will be supported through at
         | least 2029".
         | 
         | I see no devastation here...
        
         | dheera wrote:
         | I don't think IE will self-implode, you just won't get
         | "support", whatever that means.
        
         | amanzi wrote:
         | To be fair, this has been on the cards for the last couple of
         | years - should be no surprise to anyone.
         | 
         | Also, if there's a genuine need to keep IE around for longer,
         | then you have some options, e.g. deploy Win 10 LTSC for
         | specific legacy use-cases, or publish IE11 via Citrix.
        
       | keithnz wrote:
       | if you want automatic redirection to Edge for your website, you
       | can request it via https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
       | edge/web-platform...
        
       | ramses0 wrote:
       | Does this include IE11.dll? (used by some internal MS tools as a
       | renderer, eg: Office Add-ins)
       | 
       | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/concepts...
        
       | locallost wrote:
       | There was a time when I was really good in fixing bugs in IE6.
       | This made me go to school because I realized no matter what
       | happens, IE will eventually die and my skills will be useless.
       | So, final goodbye, although I haven't thought about you much in
       | the last years.
        
       | droptablemain wrote:
       | I was assigned a Trello task the other day to go ahead and put up
       | a warning to IE users (until August).
       | 
       | It was one of the most satisfying tasks I've ever received.
       | 
       | I can't wait to go through the app with a machete and whack away
       | all the sloppy IE compatibility code.
        
         | gogopuppygogo wrote:
         | We relaunched a 12 year old SaaS app last month and dropped IE
         | support. It was the most wonderful feeling to remove support
         | for that dumpster fire out of the repos.
        
         | ma2rten wrote:
         | That reminds me of a story where in 2009 some rouge youtube
         | employees put up a warning that IE6 would be deprecated:
         | 
         | https://blog.chriszacharias.com/a-conspiracy-to-kill-ie6
        
           | willhslade wrote:
           | Rogue
        
       | theropost wrote:
       | As someone actually working in operations, and keeping our
       | current suite of software/apps/etc compatable with these
       | upgrades, I say - Microsoft, your documentation is very poor and
       | lacking, and I have to invent fixes to your lack of effort...
       | probably by design.
       | 
       | It is annoying when we can quickly proof up software, and
       | specialized utilities when consulting with business. It is wayyyy
       | to much work to port from IE to Edge though.. yeesh, waste of my
       | productive time.
        
         | tinus_hn wrote:
         | Sad trombone. You could have avoided all that if you had
         | written the software to the standards and not to IE. Then you
         | didn't use the many years you got to transition.
         | 
         | It's way too much work to port your app? Well guess it isn't
         | that important after all. Because whether you want it or not,
         | IE is a dead end and it's going away.
        
           | theropost wrote:
           | Yup, that is the case - Gov. is slow to react with such poor
           | funding. We tend to wait until our hand is forced, and
           | support tons of legacy apps - if this was my own PC/network I
           | would have been way ahead of this train wreck.
        
       | jefftk wrote:
       | _By moving to Microsoft Edge, you get everything described above
       | plus you'll be able to extend the life of your legacy websites
       | and apps well beyond the Internet Explorer 11 desktop application
       | retirement date using IE mode. Internet Explorer mode in
       | Microsoft Edge will be supported through at least 2029._
       | 
       | While IE11 as an independent program is going away, the rendering
       | engine is still around for 8+y.
       | 
       | Here's hoping that this deprecation removes the expectation that
       | things support IE11, however!
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | brundolf wrote:
         | Imagine being the engineer who has to keep maintaining the IE
         | codebase for the next 8 years. [shudders]
        
           | eric__cartman wrote:
           | I doubt anyone will be actively maintaining it once it gets
           | implemented as a rendering engine in Edge. It will probably
           | be implemented including the existing bugs as issues and
           | remain unchanged until it's late retirement date. Kind of
           | what happened with flash player.
        
           | Mountain_Skies wrote:
           | While I wouldn't want to do it, if you've been working on
           | that codebase for years and you're no longer young and fired
           | up about always going for the latest things, it could be a
           | good way to sunset your career. A guaranteed position using
           | technology you understand rather than being thrown out into
           | the job market, struggling to get up to date on the latest
           | programming fads so you can compete with people half your
           | age, would be nice for many.
        
             | nly wrote:
             | What makes you think they won't just lump it on a couple of
             | juniors who rarely ever touch it, and even then only for
             | critical bugfixes?
        
             | brundolf wrote:
             | That's fair! I guess I just assume the codebase is terrible
             | (not just because of age, but also judging by the end-
             | product) and will remain terrible; why would you do a
             | refactor, or optimize something, or add new features when
             | it's become a niche project that nobody likes and is on its
             | way out? It's probably just patching over critical bugs
             | from here forward
             | 
             | It's not just about doing something new; a bad codebase
             | that I don't have the opportunity to genuinely improve is
             | probably the most miserable type of project I can possibly
             | think of
        
           | Uehreka wrote:
           | I'm pretty sure almost no one is. There are tons of IE11
           | layout bugs (not missing features, straight-up bugs) that
           | have not gotten fixed in 8 years. I get the vibe that MS may
           | have totally cut off development and all but the most
           | critical security maintenance in order to speed the plow of
           | Edge adoption.
        
           | als0 wrote:
           | This must be what hell is like.
        
         | crazygringo wrote:
         | But that'll only be whitelisted for legacy corporate sites/apps
         | that need it.
         | 
         | Anything new can safely ignore IE11, because Edge won't be
         | using the IE11 engine for it.
         | 
         | This is great, because it'll get corporations to replace the
         | actual IE11 executable with the Edge executable.
        
           | daigoba66 wrote:
           | > because it'll get corporations to replace the actual IE11
           | executable with the Edge executable.
           | 
           | I'm probably just cynical, but nothing caused corporations to
           | get rid of IE11 before, and nothing will now.
           | 
           | Working on an enterprise b2b web app, I'm going to have to
           | support IE11 indefinitely.
        
             | crazygringo wrote:
             | > _and nothing will now_
             | 
             | Yes it will. Microsoft is gradually pulling out all support
             | for it, with this year being the big start of that.
             | 
             | Very soon, it'll become more work for admins to maintain
             | IE11 installations than it will be for them to migrate to
             | Edge with IE11 compatibility mode. Admins tend to choose
             | the path of least work.
             | 
             | You're only going to need to support IE11 indefinitely if
             | your enterprise app requires IE11. Otherwise, your company
             | is probably going to be able to pull the plug at some point
             | in the next 2 years, depending on your specific customer
             | base.
        
         | ilkkao wrote:
         | I think it will. Just tested the IE mode, you need to manually
         | enable it for every time. I think it's annoying enough.
        
           | Kneecaps07 wrote:
           | In an AD environment, you can push out a centralized list
           | that is easy to update. We've found that IE Mode
           | unfortunately works very well. I wish it didn't work so well
           | because it allows us to keep these IE sites around
           | indefinitely.
        
             | joshmanders wrote:
             | While it keeps existing IE11 compatible sites around
             | indefinitely, it stops everyone else from having to support
             | IE11 because that's the default and only browser IT allows
             | on the machine.
        
               | [deleted]
        
         | Foe wrote:
         | This is what I love about Microsoft. While Google is eager to
         | go ahead and cancel Google Cloud Print and say "find an
         | alternative before next month", Microsoft would be the company
         | to announce it'll be cancelled in 2023, extended support lasts
         | until 2029, and you can buy Extended Warranty 365+ for Business
         | that lasts until 2067.
        
           | hangonhn wrote:
           | I think that's what happens when your root is in enterprise
           | software or at least some of your heritage is in enterprise.
           | I have no great love for MSFT but I agree with you about
           | their willingness to support things well past their expected
           | expiration. IIRC they even went so far as to detect programs
           | that used some "bugs" in earlier versions of Windows and
           | emulated those same buggy behaviors just for those programs.
        
             | thatfunkymunki wrote:
             | https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2hwlrk/new_win
             | d... comes to mind, which explains (at least partially) why
             | Windows 10 came directly after Windows 8.1
        
       | shaicoleman wrote:
       | FYI, You can send an email to Microsoft requesting the your
       | website will automatically reopen in Edge when someone visits it
       | with IE
       | 
       | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/web-platform...
        
         | wrikl wrote:
         | TIL - this is cool!
         | 
         | Do you know if there's a way to see that XML list they mention
         | anywhere publically? I can't find a link to it on that page.
         | 
         | I guess it should be possible to spin up IE11 in a VM on macOS
         | and inspect the network, but would be nice to take a look and
         | see which sites are on there.
        
           | xsc wrote:
           | https://edge.microsoft.com/neededge/v1
        
             | wrikl wrote:
             | Perfect, thank you.
        
       | jl6 wrote:
       | Do we expect legacy TLS versions to remain supported under Edge's
       | compatibility mode? I note MS deferred the end-of-support in IE11
       | for TLS 1.0/1.1 last year and haven't announced a new end date.
        
       | ksec wrote:
       | Despite the decline of Mozilla and Firefox in recent years, it
       | managed to outlive Internet Explorer!
       | 
       | And I still remember the print ad with the launch of Firefox 1.0.
       | 
       | M$ still have a lot to do to redeem themselves.
        
       | wdb wrote:
       | Maybe it will finally force people to upgrade away from IE11 in
       | the Finance/Wealth industry.
        
       | mrlonglong wrote:
       | Can't they just take it behind the shed and put it out of its
       | misery already.
        
       | nikanj wrote:
       | Edge can't be automated via COM the same way IE could. I wonder
       | what MS is offering as an upgrade path
        
         | saulr wrote:
         | Edge supports WebDriver: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
         | us/microsoft-edge/webdriver-ch...
        
           | nikanj wrote:
           | Looks like the customer would have to download the Edge
           | driver from Microsoft, picking the right version (and
           | supposedly update the drivers as Edge auto-updates).
           | 
           | That's a complete non-starter, compared to automating IE that
           | just requires our .exe to create an IE object via
           | CoCreateInstance(CLSID_InternetExplorerMedium ...), and no
           | additional installation by the customer organization.
        
         | lstamour wrote:
         | The desktop application is deprecated. The guts of the Trident
         | engine will live on forever... probably.
        
         | dheera wrote:
         | FireFox?
        
           | nikanj wrote:
           | Do you have any links to documentation for automating FF?
        
             | cpeterso wrote:
             | Some options for automating website tests in Firefox:
             | 
             | WebDriver: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
             | US/docs/Web/WebDriver
             | 
             | Marionette: https://firefox-source-
             | docs.mozilla.org/testing/marionette/I...
             | 
             | Puppeteer:
             | https://www.infoq.com/news/2020/04/puppeteer-3-firefox-
             | suppo...
             | 
             | I haven't used these tools, so I don't know which is "best"
             | or why so many different tools are needed. :)
        
       | mmastrac wrote:
       | That's a real end of an era. Internet Explorer's legacy engine is
       | going to be relegated to old grayhair horror stories. Not unhappy
       | it's going away, but it feels like a big chapter is closing.
        
         | coldpie wrote:
         | Rest in peace, <!--[if lte IE 6]>
        
         | JohnBooty wrote:
         | relegated to old grayhair horror stories.
         | 
         | The real shame of IE's passing is that we'll forget the lessons
         | we learned and therefore repeat that particular disaster. It's
         | already happening. I'd be happy to relegate the nightmare of IE
         | to old war stories... except the same thing is happening today!
         | Different method, nearly the same end result.
         | 
         | We nearly lost the damn open web to the horror of IE6 and the
         | peak "embrace, extend, extinguish" version of Microsoft.
         | 
         | Now, of course, we're happily creating another browser
         | monoculture and handing the web over to Google. This time,
         | we're doing it with a smile instead of a grimace.
         | 
         | Unlike IE6's reign of incompetent terror, Chrome is actually a
         | competent browser. Techies are embracing the takeover instead
         | of fighting it. It's guaranteed to succeed.
        
           | petre wrote:
           | You forgot about Safari, although it's not as atrociuos as IE
           | was.
        
           | reificator wrote:
           | > _Unlike IE6 's reign of incompetent terror, Chrome is
           | actually a competent browser. Techies are embracing the
           | takeover instead of fighting it. It's guaranteed to succeed._
           | 
           | IE6 was also a good browser. It didn't _stay_ a good browser
           | over the 5-10-15 year lifespan it had (depending on who you
           | ask) but at the time of release it was easily the best.
        
             | JohnBooty wrote:
             | Arguably the best user experience in some ways- relative to
             | other browsers at the time it "felt fast". Partly because
             | it used native widgets instead of XUL like Mozilla, and
             | also probably because various parts of it probably were
             | loaded when Windows booted up.
             | 
             | But it was pretty bad in other ways: security, stability,
             | etc.
        
             | rstupek wrote:
             | Unquestionably the best at the time.
        
           | gogopuppygogo wrote:
           | Chromium is open source...
           | 
           | Seems like a better approach in every way than the old
           | mosaic/trident closed source mess.
        
             | JohnBooty wrote:
             | There are obvious benefits to Chromium being open-source,
             | but you're kidding yourself if you think that gives you an
             | ounce of control over the direction of web standards and
             | the web as a whole.
             | 
             | Sure, you can look at (most of) Chrome's source code, and
             | fork it all day long if you want. But it will amount to
             | little when it comes to actual control of the web. You
             | simply won't have the marketshare to steer the direction of
             | the web standards themselves.
             | 
             | The end result will be the same as we suffered with IE's
             | dominance: _de facto_ control of the web by a single
             | entity.
             | 
             | But at least the ride to hell will be nicer.
        
       | andrewclunn wrote:
       | From a business standpoint, getting businesses who are dependent
       | on IE 11 to adopt Edge is a great idea. This will certainly help
       | Microsoft's browser share. On the other hand, A LOT of IE users
       | do so because they are running version of Windows that themselves
       | are no longer supported. I'm going to be very wary of what my
       | grocery store's POS system is running on in about a year.
        
       | userbinator wrote:
       | I hope someone finds a way to use its interface with a better
       | rendering engine, which I think is the best part of IE - no
       | infantile HUGE buttons, patronising error messages, or other
       | dumbed-down things, just a serious UI with good ideas like per-
       | zone trust security settings and user stylesheets built-in. It
       | also doesn't have gobs of phone-home "telemetry".
       | 
       | (Firefox is a close second but is clearly starting to become
       | user-hostile too... and now you may realise much of why they want
       | to kill IE and dumb down Firefox: herding users is easier when
       | they're turned into obedient and docile consumers, instead of
       | masters over how they decide to consume your content.)
        
         | qbasic_forever wrote:
         | I am genuinely curious, what do you think is the end game of
         | this apparent conspiracy by browser creators to reduce the
         | intelligence of users through simplified user interfaces? They
         | will convince them to buy more things... somehow? And that
         | benefits the browser creators... somehow?
        
           | superjan wrote:
           | It is undeniably happening. One benefit is you ship the same
           | UI for all screens. For several billion people, the power
           | user features mostly serve to shoot themselves in the foot,
           | and then they blame the browser manufacturer. On their phone
           | the software either works, or it does not without
           | explanation, in which case you need an expert, and for most
           | people this is perceived as an improvement. Desktop software
           | development is pushed in the same direction. Fewer people
           | complain, and its a lot simpler than doing fine grained
           | settings and informative error messages.
        
       | xnx wrote:
       | The most important feature any browser ever included was auto-
       | update. If IE had included this, things would be quite different.
        
         | joecool1029 wrote:
         | It sorta did through Windows/Microsoft update. They just didn't
         | focus on releasing major editions often or at all for Windows,
         | but it got security patches and minor point releases all the
         | time.
        
           | cesarb wrote:
           | Actually, IIRC the very first versions of Windows Update were
           | an ActiveX control. You had to use IE to run it, so from a
           | certain point of view, that was IE updating itself.
        
             | chungy wrote:
             | The very first version was a native application for Windows
             | 95 and 98 (First Edition). It was retired in short order in
             | favor of the ActiveX page.
        
               | cesarb wrote:
               | Interesting. Do you know of anywhere that has screenshots
               | of that native application, for curiosity's sake? When I
               | first used Windows Update in Windows 9x, it was already a
               | (very slow) ActiveX applet.
        
         | tpmx wrote:
         | It's kinda weird to see Edge having its own auto-update system
         | on Windows. (Which of course has a system-wide auto-update
         | system called Windows Update.)
         | 
         | Makes me think of this:
         | https://ritholtz.com/2013/07/organizational-charts-of-amazon...
        
       | tims33 wrote:
       | It is nice to see the long internet nightmare known as Internet
       | Explorer come to a conclusion.
       | 
       | What is the next thing we should wish to see die on the internet?
        
         | sedatk wrote:
         | Its failures aside, some of the things that Internet Explorer
         | have brought to our life:
         | 
         | - DOM
         | 
         | - CSS (first browser to support CSS, to be more specific)
         | 
         | - Events
         | 
         | - IFRAMEs
         | 
         | - AJAX
         | 
         | - favicon.ico
        
         | coldpie wrote:
         | Browsers funded by ad companies.
        
         | petepete wrote:
         | AMP and cookie pop-ups are top of my list.
        
       | stevencorona wrote:
       | I work on a SaaS app in the healthcare space where IE11 is the
       | preferred browser, and was getting worried watching all of our
       | favorite tools begin to completely drop IE11 support (Tailwinds,
       | Bootstrap) - effectively punishing us for the sins our customers
       | IT orgs.
       | 
       | This brings me hope. But only a little. I'm sure they'll find a
       | way to keep running it.
        
         | mrweasel wrote:
         | >in the healthcare space where IE11 is the preferred browser
         | 
         | Do you know why that is?
         | 
         | I noticed that there are prominent links to a Korean and
         | Japanese version, presumably because Internet Explorer is still
         | used to a large extend in those two countries. Korea had some
         | crypto stuff that only worked in IE, but that was years ago.
         | Why haven't those markets moved on more modern browsers?
        
           | otterpro wrote:
           | I worked at a hospital about 10 years ago, and at that time
           | only IE was available on our PC. PC workstation was locked
           | down for security reason and users were not allowed to
           | install 3rd party software without approval (including
           | chrome, etc). Also Chrome's browser extensions were security
           | concerns (esp for medical records, HIPPA regulations, etc) It
           | was also a time when IE was used in enterprise for mostly
           | legacy web app that was written long ago. We were also using
           | command line apps (TUI-based) at that time, mostly for nurse
           | and doctors, but we were migrating to the fancy web apps.
           | 
           | As for Korea, IE was mostly for ActiveX, but now most Korean
           | website supports modern browsers ie Chrome.
        
             | ampdepolymerase wrote:
             | Do modern healthcare TUIs support UTF-8?
        
             | ocdtrekkie wrote:
             | > users were not allowed to install 3rd party software
             | without approval (including chrome, etc)
             | 
             | This should be, and always should be, the case. Chrome is
             | such a bad actor in allowing userspace install, we mark it
             | as malware to prohibit unauthorized installation. Chrome
             | Enterprise policies don't seem to be able to disable this,
             | marking it as malware is the only way out...
             | 
             | That said, we offer two modern browsers to everyone in our
             | environment, Edge and Firefox.
        
           | wrs wrote:
           | Same as anywhere else, I suppose: because changing it costs
           | time/money and has no obvious value. In regulated areas like
           | health care there can also be a recertification or audit
           | support cost if you change something.
        
         | ehutch79 wrote:
         | Isn't IE11 support a potential HIPPA violation?
        
           | Ensorceled wrote:
           | How? Like, what part of HIPPA do you think applies to the
           | browser the app is running in?
        
         | axelthegerman wrote:
         | Only hope is more and more services actually having the balls
         | to drop IE11, e.g. Office 365.
         | 
         | Imagine Google would not support IE11, I'm sure the pressure to
         | upgrade these browser would be much higher (not sure about the
         | health care space though)
        
           | nicoburns wrote:
           | This announcement is a much better hope: IE11 being replaced
           | by edge, which will also have a modern rendering engine,
           | which will be only one anyone needs to support.
        
       | technion wrote:
       | Just to be clear here: retired for windows 10.
       | 
       | People talking about certain spaces (eg healthcare) where Citrix
       | on windows server is the norm are going to support ie11 for the
       | lifespan of windows 2019. So don't pop the cork just yet..
        
       | dspillett wrote:
       | _> Internet Explorer 11 desktop application will be retired ...
       | on ..._
       | 
       | Woo. And, indeed, hoo.
       | 
       |  _> for certain versions of Windows 10_
       | 
       | Ah. And there begineth the weasle words. I'm guessing there will
       | be significant organisations in finance/wealth management (our
       | general area) and other industries that will still demand IE11
       | support for some time after that date.
       | 
       | I think first a combination of our move towards "more smaller
       | clients, not being beholden to a few large ones", the reducing
       | budgets if those big clients, and the fact the others are more
       | up-to-date, will mean we'll be able to say "Support IE11 or will
       | go elsewhere? OK then, see you around." long before IE11 really
       | exits the industry. Whether the company will have the balls to go
       | through with that, is something I'll find out in future, but I'm
       | allowing myself a little hope.
        
         | zamadatix wrote:
         | Reality is much simpler - as mentioned directly below that
         | section "Note: This retirement does not affect in-market
         | Windows 10 LTSC or Server Internet Explorer 11 desktop
         | applications." and those version already have precommitted
         | support lifecycles that extend well past this date. Nobody
         | needs to ask/push for an extension, that's what those versions
         | exist for and support is already committed to nearly 2030.
        
       | acheron wrote:
       | And yet when I see a site that asks you to use Chrome I know that
       | the true spirit of IE lives on.
        
         | parenthesis wrote:
         | The other day I had a website accuse me of using an outdated
         | version of Safari (I was using Firefox version 88).
        
           | luke2m wrote:
           | The other day I had Google Drive tell me not to use IE (I was
           | using Epiphany)
        
         | skeeter2020 wrote:
         | "Please apply using Chrome, as applications are only supported
         | using Chrome on desktop."                  -- lever.co job
         | posting
         | 
         | sigh...
        
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