Microsoft kills off legacy Internet Explorer installs
Microsoft has confirmed that it is to cease support for all but the newest version of its last-generation browser Internet Explorer in January next year, telling customers to upgrade prior to that date to keep receiving security patches.
Introduced to rival Netscape Navigator and the subject of numerous anti-competitive lawsuits, Internet Explorer's days are numbered. The launch of Windows 10 brought with it Microsoft Edge, a next-generation browser built on a new rendering engine which is selected by default - though corporate customers retain a copy of Internet Explorer 11 for legacy sites unsupported under the new engine. It's true that Edge brings with it plenty of new features, but those who have made the shift complain of a lack of support for things easily done in Internet Explorer - even ignoring the previously-mentioned compatibility issues with legacy sites and corporate intranets.
Time marches on, however, and Microsoft isn't going to keep the Internet Explorer line alive forever. In a recent announcement, the company confirmed that it is to start the process of putting its once and former primary browser out to pasture with the retirement of all but the most recent release. From the 12th of January 2016, security patches will no longer be offered for versions prior to Internet Explorer 11.
For users on operating systems below Windows 7, that means upgrading both the browser and the operating system on which it runs - or switching to a third-party browser. For anyone on Windows 7 or higher, simply upgrading to Internet Explorer 11 is enough to continue receiving security updates - at least until Microsoft has improved the legacy compatibility of Edge enough to stop offering two distinct browser products to its users.
'The latest version of Internet Explorer will continue to follow the component policy, which means that it follows the support lifecycle and is supported for as long as the Windows operating system for which it is installed on,' Microsoft has stated in defence of its shift. 'Focusing support on the latest version of Internet Explorer for a supported Windows operating system is in line with industry standards.'
Despite the company’s new focus on the Edge browser, Microsoft does still have Internet Explorer knocking around with plenty of users. In an effort to keep pushing forward with the browser, Microsoft recently announced that by next year, it will no longer be supporting older versions of IE, urging users of the browser to upgrade to the latest version in order to receive security updates.
Internet Explorer is still widely used, particularly in schools and businesses here in the UK and other parts of the world but if those users don’t update to Internet Explorer 11 before the 12th of January, they will be left open to malicious attacks and exploits that Microsoft won’t be patching up.
Obviously Microsoft also highlighted the other reasons to upgrade to Internet Explorer 11, or even the Edge browser, as both offer improved performance and security by design. Enterprise users can be slow to update at times due to fear of any software incompatibilities, but Microsoft solved this problem with IE 11, which has a legacy mode, allowing for compatibility for older web-based apps.
Paid technical support for older IE browsers will also end on the 12th of January, so even paying customers will need to move on in order to stay up to date security-wise. There has been a huge rise in cyber crime over the last few years, so being as secure as possible is generally a pretty good idea.
End of Life notifications for Older versions Internet Explorer
Microsoft will be showing end of life notifications for older versions Internet Explorer. Anything below IE 11 will be 'motivated' to update to the new version.
How Microsoft will deliver the notifications is not clear yet. But a new "End of Life" upgrade notification feature that will be delivered in the January 12, 2016, cumulative security update for each of the following Internet Explorer configurations:
On Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows 7 Service Pack 1 x64 Edition
Internet Explorer 10
Internet Explorer 9
Internet Explorer 8
On Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 x64 Edition
Internet Explorer 10
Internet Explorer 9
Internet Explorer 8
Note For environments in which the migration to Internet Explorer 11 is incomplete, you can disable the notification feature by configuring a registry key.
It has been a long time coming but Microsoft is finally pulling the plug on several older versions of its browser, Internet Explorer. IE versions 8, 9 and 10 all reach end of life next Tuesday, which means there will be no more fixes, patches or security improvements.
There is a patch scheduled to go out on the 12th of January that will let users of Internet Explorer know if they need to update to the latest version of switch to another browser. This also doubles as good news for developers, as they will also no longer need to support these older versions of Internet Explorer.
Obviously, since older versions of Internet Explorer are now hitting the ‘end of life’ period, they can also act as a security risk, so if you know anyone who happens to use an older version of Internet Explorer, you should encourage them to switch to a more secure, modern browser.
This also means that Internet Explorer 11 is the last version of the browser left and even that may eventually be completely replaced by Microsoft Edge eventually as more users adopt Windows 10.
As it was forewarned last week, Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 are retired as of today; Microsoft will be focusing on Internet Explorer 11 and its Edge browser going forward.
You can still use the old browsers of course, but you'll be vulnerable to viruses and the like, and be nagged by Microsoft to update. Head here to download Internet Explorer 11 or Edge, or update through your browser (older versions may not let you, though).
Internet Explorer soon will be a thing of the past. Starting today, Microsoft will stop supporting Internet Explorer versions 7, 8, 9 and 10 on most operating systems, its biggest step yet toward phasing out one of the most contentious pieces of software ever written.
Microsoft has been distancing itself from the Internet Explorer brand since March, when it launched the Microsoft Edge browser, but it isn’t quite dead. Edge runs only on Windows 10, so Redmond will continue backing a few versions of Internet Explorer on older operating systems it still supports. But it’s still a big departure. Historically, Microsoft has kept several versions of Internet Explorer current each supported version of Windows. Starting today, it will support only the latest version of IE that an operating system can run. It will not create new security patches for the older versions, leaving anyone who doesn’t upgrade vulnerable to new hacks or attacks.
That could be a huge hassle for organizations that use custom-built applications that run correctly only on older browsers. But it could be a boon to web developers and designers still trying to find ways to make websites good on older browsers. Newer web browser still have their quirks, and sites might look different from one browser to the next. But these differences are small compared to how Internet Explorer mangled web pages in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
By insisting on following its own path with IE rather than follow generally accepted standards, Microsoft dictated web design by years. That probably drove many aspiring web developers careers that didn’t require trying to figure out why the margins between images looked different from one browser to another. Keeping too many old browsers in circulation contributed to that mess. Thankfully, the time has come to move on. The Bad Old Days
Because Internet Explorer didn’t stick to the guidelines established by World Wide Web Consortium the organization that establishes standards for web technologies, it often would display web pages in ways that made them look entirely different from other browsers, such as Netscape, Opera or, later, Firefox. Desperate designers cobbled together ways of making sites work across multiple browsers, but a complex layout sometimes required numerous workarounds. And Internet Explorer 6 was notorious for security vulnerabilities that Microsoft was sometimes slow to patch.
But if it was so bad, why was it so widely used? Most people blame Microsoft’s practice of pre-installing Internet Explorer with Windows starting in 1997, which contributed to a lengthy antitrust suit. Since many users didn’t know other browsers existed and PC vendors had bulk licensing agreements that prevented them from selling computers with alternates pre-installed, Microsoft effectively muscled out the competition.
But that’s not the whole story. Microsoft still bundles Internet Explorer with Windows, yet by most measures it has fallen behind Google Chrome as the world’s most widely used browser. That’s in part because designers and developers have spent years encouraging users to download alternative browsers. But in the late 1990s, countless sites proudly displayed “best viewed on Internet Explorer” banners.
“People don’t remember this, particularly web developers, but there was a time when Microsoft made the best web browser in the world,” JavaScript expert and frequent Internet Explorer critic Douglas Crockford told InfoQ in 2010. “IE 6 was by far the best and continued to be the best browser in the world for many years after, but the other browser makers have all gotten ahead of them.”
That’s an exaggeration. Netscape 6 and Opera 5, both of which were excellent, arrived before Internet Explorer 6. But it’s true that Internet Explorer was ahead of the curve for a few years. Netscape users had to wait three years between the release of Netscape Navigator 4 in 1997 and Netscape Navigator 6 in 2000 (the company ended up skipping Navigator 5 in order to completely rewrite the software). Meanwhile, though Internet Explorer wasn’t very standards compliant, it was quick to add new features in the late 1990s. Developers who wanted to take advantage of cutting edge design and interactivity features had little choice but to use Internet Explorer and encourage their users to do so as well.
But by the time Mozilla, an organization started by former Netscape employees, released the first version of Firefox in 2004, it was Internet Explorer’s turn to seem hopelessly outdated. Long Hard Road Out of Hell
When Internet Explorer 7 finally arrived in 2006, it was better than its predecessor, but still not standards compliant, so designers kept jumping through hoops to have pages render correctly. Not until Internet Explorer 8 landed in 2009 did Microsoft offer a browser that passed standards test Acid2, a widely used measure of how well browsers complied with the standards of the day, and the company lagged in adopting other standards, such as the 3D graphics technology WebGL. By the time Microsoft caught up to the rest of the browser market, the damage to Internet Explorer’s reputation had already been done.
But the biggest problem for Microsoft was that Internet Explorer 6 refused to die. Large organizations that spent vast sums building custom applications that worked only on older versions of Internet Explorer refused to upgrade. Many consumers didn’t know any better, or ran pirated copies of Windows and couldn’t download updates. As a result, Microsoft continued supporting Internet Explorer 6 until April 8, 2014, more than a decade after its release.
To keep that from happening again, Microsoft won’t update anything older than Internet Explorer 9 on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, Internet Explorer 10 on Windows Server 2012, and Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 7, Windows 8, and those versions of Windows Server that can run it. The move likely will expose outdated browsers to more security risks. But in the long run it will drive adoption of newer, better browsers.
With most of the old versions of Internet Explorer dead and buried, Microsoft hopes it can finally move beyond the sorry legacy of its early versions. Edge is a fresh start, with a new name, a new code base and a new boss. Microsoft can’t undo the the damage it did, but it can end the madness.
Microsoft recommends updating to IE 11 even if you don't use IE
Microsoft finally retired Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 yesterday, after previously encouraging everyone to upgrade to Internet Explorer 11.
There's another reason to do so, even if you don't use Internet Explorer, according to Microsoft Senior Software Development Consultant Pat Altimore, who notes components of the browser are tied into the operating system.
"There are many components that constitute the browser," he writes. "Most of the components are part of the operating system including the JavaScript / HTML rendering engine (MSHTML.dll), the Web Browser control (ieframe.dll), and the Windows Internet Protocol Handler (WinInet.dll). The browser application (IExplore.exe) uses these OS components for script execution, rendering, HTTP requests, etc. When you upgrade the browser, you potentially upgrade all of these components."
Conversely, not upgrading could affect things outside of IE that require HTML display or execution of particular scripts, for example.
"[It] could result in some Windows components not being serviced," explains Altimore. "To ensure applications using components (e.g. Web Browser control) are fully patched, update to the latest version of IE and apply future cumulative IE updates."
Essa tem muita piada. Que estupidez. Para eles, o cancro do internet explorer, a parte péssima do windows, é obrigatória para que o todo funcione correctamente...?
Nem comentei, devido à estupidez...
Só faz sentido na logica do IE estar entranhado até ás raízes no SO e ser parte integrante do mesmo, ou seja, faz parte da visão da M$ em querer ter o total dominio da Internet dando um browser integrado num SO, com todas as desvantagens que isso possa ter, a começar por actualizações, versões novas e por aí fora.
Nem comentei, devido à estupidez...
Só faz sentido na logica do IE estar entranhado até ás raízes no SO e ser parte integrante do mesmo, ou seja, faz parte da visão da M$ em querer ter o total dominio da Internet dando um browser integrado num SO, com todas as desvantagens que isso possa ter, a começar por actualizações, versões novas e por aí fora.
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