Internet Explorer 11 is still not dead and will live another day

Martin Brinkmann
May 19, 2023
Internet Explorer
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Microsoft ended support for its Internet Explorer 11 browser on Windows 10 in 2022. The company then explained that it would remove the browser from Windows 10 systems, stating that it would disable Internet Explorer 11 on most Windows 10 devices in February 2023.

The company revealed as well that it would remove "visual references to Internet Explorer" in the June 2023 update for Windows 10.

A new message on Microsoft's Message Center website confirms that Microsoft has had a change of heart regarding Internet Explorer 11's retirement.

The message, "New details on IE11 desktop application next steps", informs customers that Microsoft won't remove visual references of the Internet Explorer 11 web browser from customer systems. Microsoft wants organizations to remove Internet Explorer 11 visual references whenever they feel it is the right time to do so.

Microsoft says: "Based on customer feedback, Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) visual references, such as the IE11 icons on the Start Menu and taskbar, will no longer be removed by Windows update as previously communicated. Organizations will continue to maintain control over determining the timing to remove IE11 visual references from their devices, if they have not already done so, by using the Disable IE policy"

Systems which still have a copy of Internet Explorer 11 will face a change in the coming months according to Microsoft. The company wants to redirect " a small subset of exceptional scenarios" from Internet Explorer 11 to Microsoft Edge automatically. This is done to make sure that access to these services and sites is still possible and that a "more secure Microsoft browser" is used for access.

Microsoft has not revealed the list of scenarios, but announced that it will provide details in the Windows and Microsoft Edge release notes when the change lands.

Internet Explorer 11 ran out of support on June 15, 2022 on most Windows 10 editions. The browser has not received many updates since then and has been disabled on most non-managed devices with an update released on February 14, 2023.

The web browser remains supported on a small subset of Windows 10 devices, including Windows 10 and Windows 10 Server LTSC versions. The full list of devices is available here.

The change does not affect the majority of home users, but Internet Explorer 11 may still be in use on Windows 10 devices in business and Enterprise environments.

Now You: when was the last time you used  Internet Explorer? (via Neowin)

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Internet Explorer 11 is still not dead and will live another day
Description
Microsoft won't remove visual references to its classic web browser Internet Explorer 11 in June 2023 after all.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Allan S. said on May 22, 2023 at 8:04 am
    Reply

    I am using it right now to read your website. The main reason I use it is to read the RSS feeds because Microsoft will not put it on Windows Edge10.

  2. MoreUserChoice said on May 21, 2023 at 4:21 pm
    Reply

    Why don’t Micro$oft opensource their abandoned Trident Engine so those interested developers can improve or update it to todays web standards aswell as give more user choices of web browsers. Not only Firefox(w/c sadly is turning into google chrome) or possibly monopolized by Google.

    Even Opera’s abandoned Presto Engine should’ve been opensourced aswell instead of being burried & forgotten.

    1. John G. said on May 21, 2023 at 7:58 pm
      Reply

      It’s not a good idea, Trident is unsafe now and hackers can use all its weak points against own W10/11. Please @Martin, it’s very difficult to write a post from Android now because the pop up “Other news” eats more than half the screen while the keyboard is displayed, someone to fix it, please!

  3. Marti Martz said on May 21, 2023 at 12:08 pm
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    Perhaps they’re going to start another campaign like what happened with saveIE6 back in the day? (for those who don’t recall this… https://userscripts-mirror.org/topics/24200).

    Too bad the site url is defunct… now that’s some history… but someone backed it up with the wayback machine at https://web.archive.org/web/20090402144123/http://www.saveie6.com/ YAY!

    1. John G. said on May 21, 2023 at 3:00 pm
      Reply

      Times goes by and every second that goes by a tree starts to burn.

  4. 45 RPM said on May 20, 2023 at 9:28 am
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    The big question and issue is “What about the webbrowser control. That’s IE based and embedded in countless business apps to render HTML content (think graphical reports for one).

    WebView2 isn’t compatible with tons of apps or require all sorts of klugery to make it sort-of work.

    1. John G. said on May 20, 2023 at 2:42 pm
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      WebView2 and Windows Web Experience Pack are both the two worst things ever made. Mostly all the problems with Edge, Weather and Widgets are caused by these annoying software.

  5. John G. said on May 20, 2023 at 6:37 am
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    The new pop up that appears in Ghacks while using the mobile phone is annyoning to the limit.

    1. Yash said on May 20, 2023 at 10:38 am
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      @John G.
      If you’re using uBO in mobile, block sdk.privacy-centre.org globally. Of course there are other solutions as well.

      1. John G. said on May 20, 2023 at 2:40 pm
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        @Yash, thanks! It didn’t work however if all filters are enabled the issue got solved.

    2. John G. said on May 20, 2023 at 6:38 am
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      * annoying, worst annyonace ever here

  6. Fred said on May 20, 2023 at 3:07 am
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    I have very large folder tree of URL files in my %UserProfile%\Favourites directory , and I continue to store all new URLs in these folders. So far, I have been regularly importing them into Vivaldi, Firefox and Edge simply by selecting ‘Import from Internet Explorer’.

    THREE QUESTIONS:

    1. What is Microsoft intending as the future of this %UserProfile%\Favourites directory? It is a ‘Location’ directory!

    2. Vivaldi this week seemed to give trouble importing from IE, so having just imported the URLs into Edge, I exported the Edge bookmarks as HTML, and imported them from there into Vivaldi — easy. Does Microsoft intend that the Edge Browser will continue to import URLs from the %UserProfile%\Favourites folder?

    3. If the Edge browser ever stops importing URLs from the %UserProfile%\Favourites folder, are there third party tools that can do the export to HTML? (Resident on the PC, of course, so that data is not stolen.)

  7. yanta said on May 20, 2023 at 12:09 am
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    Some companies are still building software around IE.

    For Example, Jagex, the developer of Runescape requires IE11 to be installed to be able to install and run the new Jagex launcher.

    The launcher is full of bugs of course. For example, the uninstaller doesn’t work.
    They also released the beta launcher after Microsoft announced IE was dead, and they refuse to comment on whether they will support IE mode in Edge…

    Perhaps things like this are included in this so called “Fringe cases”?

    1. John G. said on May 20, 2023 at 3:06 am
      Reply

      @yanta > “For Example, Jagex, the developer of Runescape requires IE11 to be installed to be able to install and run the new Jagex launcher.”

      It’s very unpleasant that a software company still requires an obsolete browser. However in its website it says that installed IE11 is needed only. So which files of IE11 are exactly needed?

  8. Cobretti said on May 19, 2023 at 7:02 pm
    Reply

    Still use IE11 on my old circa 2003 Compaq (Originally WINXP that i made it into WIN7) PC box since it’s the lightest of any other browser for sites such invidious, nitter, teddit, hacker news and a few others that i frequent, sadly the only TPL lists that still get updates are the Peter Lowe’s List and the Dandelion Sprout’s Anti-Malware, the Easylist filter lists links are all dead/gone.

    https://filterlists.com/tpl.html

    at least Spywareblaster still supports IE

  9. John said on May 19, 2023 at 6:09 pm
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    Microsoft could solve all their problems if they would simply follow through on end of life dates. When it’s dead it’s dead and not keep resurrecting back to some sort of zombie life with software.

    1. Anonymous said on May 19, 2023 at 10:26 pm
      Reply

      Windows would be dead if it was that way.

  10. Brink said on May 19, 2023 at 4:38 pm
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    I think I like IE 11 better than Edge

    1. John G. said on May 20, 2023 at 6:55 pm
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      Edge is better than IE11 so far.

  11. John G. said on May 19, 2023 at 2:52 pm
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    This is the best reason to not downgrade from W10 to W11, there will be too much users of W10 just for leaving them without support. Microsoft is the king of the walking dead software, and probably W10 will get support until 2030. Do you all want to bet something?

    1. Anonymous said on May 25, 2023 at 12:19 am
      Reply

      “This is the best reason to not downgrade from W10 to W11”

      I agree that even Internet Explorer as old as it is is still not as bad a plague as the Edge data vampire, and, uh, and possibly as most of current browsers for the same reason, but I wouldn’t call it the best reason not to downgrade to W11. Wait, maybe I would. Wow. You just made me see the world differently.

      I miss the time when Microsoft was hated for petty reasons. They look so minuscule today. They just didn’t know what evil had the potential to be, back then.

    2. Iron Heart said on May 19, 2023 at 2:54 pm
      Reply

      @John G.

      There is no reason to bet, Windows 10 2019 LTSC is getting support until October 2019. It is already known and public.

      1. Iron Heart said on May 19, 2023 at 4:03 pm
        Reply

        *October 2029, of course

      2. John G. said on May 19, 2023 at 4:32 pm
        Reply

        @Iron Heart, nice point, however 2030 is one year more than 2029, my bet is still valid. Furthermore, I feel lucky today so I raise my bet till the year 2032! :]

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