Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs(wired.com)
wired.com
Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs
https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-removing-internet-explorer-from-pcs/
220 comments
>and replace them with compatibility shims
christ can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this out and inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met with ruination? Its so bombastic the US Justice department hauls your pepsi sipping CEO in for a round of slouching, hand-waving antitrust litigation but somehow you manage to make it out by smirking through interviews and the grace of a nation thats just awakening to the dawn of the internet.
then fast forward 20 years later, your dumpster-fire web browser with all its lock-in and exploits still exists in the OS but the average user sees it as nothing more than a glorified blue icon to immediately download what has become your direct competitors far more competent and meaningful execution of browser software.
So you sunset the horrorshow that was IE in favour of your competitors browser engine to power your new browser but the haggard burro of a thing you call an OS is so inextricably encumbered by your blues-traveler era nineties myopia you now need a team of H1B's to start writing shims and the burger from lunch feels like its starting to come back up...
...now eight years later whatever frankenstein browser you convinced yourself was a good idea to build is still nowhere near as popular as your competitors, and thats after you added built-in gaslighting to your search engine to dissuade anyone from even searching for your competitors browser. you even came up with your own prefix to force links in your daytime infomercial of an OS to open directly in your new pet browser but people still dont want to use it. heck, you routinely reset their default browser and the only thing its managed to do is galvanize what by all indicators is a nearly white-hot detest for your pet chrome that has 45 seconds of unavoidable fullscreen lecture on first load, built in ads and tours, and a weird buy now pay later feature.
christ can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this out and inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met with ruination? Its so bombastic the US Justice department hauls your pepsi sipping CEO in for a round of slouching, hand-waving antitrust litigation but somehow you manage to make it out by smirking through interviews and the grace of a nation thats just awakening to the dawn of the internet.
then fast forward 20 years later, your dumpster-fire web browser with all its lock-in and exploits still exists in the OS but the average user sees it as nothing more than a glorified blue icon to immediately download what has become your direct competitors far more competent and meaningful execution of browser software.
So you sunset the horrorshow that was IE in favour of your competitors browser engine to power your new browser but the haggard burro of a thing you call an OS is so inextricably encumbered by your blues-traveler era nineties myopia you now need a team of H1B's to start writing shims and the burger from lunch feels like its starting to come back up...
...now eight years later whatever frankenstein browser you convinced yourself was a good idea to build is still nowhere near as popular as your competitors, and thats after you added built-in gaslighting to your search engine to dissuade anyone from even searching for your competitors browser. you even came up with your own prefix to force links in your daytime infomercial of an OS to open directly in your new pet browser but people still dont want to use it. heck, you routinely reset their default browser and the only thing its managed to do is galvanize what by all indicators is a nearly white-hot detest for your pet chrome that has 45 seconds of unavoidable fullscreen lecture on first load, built in ads and tours, and a weird buy now pay later feature.
This is a very strange comment.
Personally... I absolutely understand exactly how they ended up in this situation. There are actually several good reasons to embed the browser into the OS, the top two easily understood ones are...
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1. They've put a lot of work into the browser, and they've shared many components of it with other tooling. EX: Internet EXPLORER and EXPLORER the file system browser don't share their name by mistake. They're so similar I can load the same COM addin in both.
2. From a pure usability perspective, it makes a boat load of sense to prevent a user from accidentally uninstalling the last browser on the machine. When dealing with edge cases and possible support calls, making sure that the user has at least one application that can download files from the web is pretty damn reasonable. Safari is also not removable... for similar reasons.
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Further - I think it's actually a fairly good credit to MSFT that they're bothering with shims at all, and are maintaining a good chunk of compatibility for applications that were written literally decades ago.
Both Google and Apples's approach to this would literally be: "We're so sorry, that's no longer supported and you're f*#$ed. Go upgrade, get your vendors to upgrade, or eat shit."
MSFT isn't writing shims because they still need them... they're writing shims because they have enterprise customers who want them, and they actually give a fuck about that.
Personally... I absolutely understand exactly how they ended up in this situation. There are actually several good reasons to embed the browser into the OS, the top two easily understood ones are...
---
1. They've put a lot of work into the browser, and they've shared many components of it with other tooling. EX: Internet EXPLORER and EXPLORER the file system browser don't share their name by mistake. They're so similar I can load the same COM addin in both.
2. From a pure usability perspective, it makes a boat load of sense to prevent a user from accidentally uninstalling the last browser on the machine. When dealing with edge cases and possible support calls, making sure that the user has at least one application that can download files from the web is pretty damn reasonable. Safari is also not removable... for similar reasons.
---
Further - I think it's actually a fairly good credit to MSFT that they're bothering with shims at all, and are maintaining a good chunk of compatibility for applications that were written literally decades ago.
Both Google and Apples's approach to this would literally be: "We're so sorry, that's no longer supported and you're f*#$ed. Go upgrade, get your vendors to upgrade, or eat shit."
MSFT isn't writing shims because they still need them... they're writing shims because they have enterprise customers who want them, and they actually give a fuck about that.
Microsoft only cares about legacy support if it means the vast majority of customers. I will give you an example: go to a top tier research institution for biology, and sort your cells with the fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS). You might have to now burn that data onto a cd rom, because the software running the six figure instrument was written in 2002 for windows XP, and for reasons only known to microsoft, this software is no longer able to run on modern windows. So now IT has to airgap the desktop sitting by the machine, and the only way they let you get data off according to policy is through CD rom, not usb because that breaches the gap. The vendor for the instrument has no incentive to update that software either; they'd rather you dish out another half million dollars for a new sorter.
There are hundreds of instruments like this in any given research institute, all because Microsoft decided unilaterally that software that ran fine 20 years ago is clearly useless and doesn't need to run anymore on modern hardware that receives security updates.
There are hundreds of instruments like this in any given research institute, all because Microsoft decided unilaterally that software that ran fine 20 years ago is clearly useless and doesn't need to run anymore on modern hardware that receives security updates.
Would you expect a 20-year-old MacOS to run on a modern MacBook? Why not?
Would you expect a 20-year-old Linux to install just fine on a modern PC? I remind you that this was the era of RHEL 3! I had trouble getting RHEL 6 running in a virtual machine just recently.
Meanwhile XP will run on most modern PCs, it’s just not supported. That means no security patches.
The mistake here is not Microsoft’s.
The mistake is your organisation’s for buying a half-million-dollar device with no support plan from the vendor for its control OS.
Would you expect a 20-year-old Linux to install just fine on a modern PC? I remind you that this was the era of RHEL 3! I had trouble getting RHEL 6 running in a virtual machine just recently.
Meanwhile XP will run on most modern PCs, it’s just not supported. That means no security patches.
The mistake here is not Microsoft’s.
The mistake is your organisation’s for buying a half-million-dollar device with no support plan from the vendor for its control OS.
I would expect a bash script I wrote 20 years ago to run on a new linux machine I buy today, yes. I'm not asking for windows XP to be installed, I am asking for these modern machines to let me run the code the machine I was sold 15 years ago let me run. This whole march to reduce compatibility is kind of stupid imo. Let me buy a mac that can run 32 bit software still!
Windows does run most stuff that you throw at it still unless the software made some boneheaded assumptions that violated basic API rules.
Software using a lib I wrote in 1998 doesn't work anymore but it's because I took a bad shortcut that made DOS-era assumptions, fixing/recompiling it would be the right course of action but I haven't had the time (also not sure where all the sources are).
On a contrary note, my first USB-Wacom pads STILL work after 20 years, it's not just software but a vendor that cared about it's software long enough to make 64bit drivers that still works.
As you said, the vendor isn't interested in upgrading the software and there is where the blame is, MS tries to keep backwards compatibility but some things has had to go for performance and/or security reasons over the years and those usually broke rules (or were tied to HW, Linux has dropped 386 and 486 after all).
Software using a lib I wrote in 1998 doesn't work anymore but it's because I took a bad shortcut that made DOS-era assumptions, fixing/recompiling it would be the right course of action but I haven't had the time (also not sure where all the sources are).
On a contrary note, my first USB-Wacom pads STILL work after 20 years, it's not just software but a vendor that cared about it's software long enough to make 64bit drivers that still works.
As you said, the vendor isn't interested in upgrading the software and there is where the blame is, MS tries to keep backwards compatibility but some things has had to go for performance and/or security reasons over the years and those usually broke rules (or were tied to HW, Linux has dropped 386 and 486 after all).
I've recently seen code from 1998 running on a 64-bit Windows Server 2016 cloud-hosted virtual machine just fine.
Respectfully you have no idea what you're talking about. These half-million dollar devices (often more expensive than that) were the ONLY option at the time to perform certain kinds of experiments. Not exactly a choice.
Respectfully you have no idea how complex an OS is and how completely nonsensical it is to expect 100% backwards compatibility for 2 decades later. There is a reason software gets sunsetted: most of it is irrelevant 20 years later and holding on to it makes everything much more complex than it already is. Especially for a consumer OS like windows, where you can expect the vast majority of people to upgrade.
If this is some multi-million dollar device then maybe keeping it up to date with windows should have been part of the deal...
Did you know windows is basically known for excellent backwards compatibility? https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/24/strategy-letter-ii...
If this is some multi-million dollar device then maybe keeping it up to date with windows should have been part of the deal...
Did you know windows is basically known for excellent backwards compatibility? https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/24/strategy-letter-ii...
I'm not sure what part of my comment you're responding to because I wasn't referring to anything related to backwards compatibility. I was responding to the other commenter asserting that biotech companies have somehow made an incorrect judgement call by purchasing certain types of instrument. In reality these vendors assume you're going to keep the system air-gapped forever, some don't even (officially) support joining their control PCs to a domain. Anecdotally I've found that in a lot of cases unless you're dealing with strange custom drivers usually the vendor-provided PCs can be replaced with new computers running the same control software (sometimes in compatibility mode if needed) and still operate the instrument.
So the vendor refuses to sell a support plan and requires you to purchase a brand new machine? That does sound monopolistic and abusive but I don’t see how Microsoft is to blame.
Basically, yes this is how it goes. And I agree that it's not Microsoft's fault.
As a device builder creating those machines (well, industrial CNCs, but similar idea) I don't have many options when trying to build something with a useful life of 20+ years. I just received an order for another machine in a lineup that started with some using Heidenhain controls from the early 90s, we ripped out those controllers and replaced them with models running a custom black box RTOS based on Motorola DSP 56002 chips on ISA cards that were on Windows 98 and Windows XP motherboards, then that company got aquihired and they stopped making those cards, there was a brief foray into PowerPC and now we're installing Arm processors running surprisingly modern Linux 4.9 with preempt_rt. We're talking to these motion controllers using VB6 running on a bunch of Windows 7 PCs with a few compatibility hacks enabled, and I'm installing new fanless PCs with Windows 10 LTSC 21H2, which claims support until 2032-01-13. If it's not running those relatively public, well-documented systems, it's likely a PLC or robot containing a proprietary ASIC running some WindRiver RTOS, and completely subject to the whims and survivability of that product line.
I love my customer's maintenance department, they're unusually thorough and attentive to preventative maintenance, greasing and oiling and replacing wear items, root-causing failures and keeping the machines in good working order for decades. But when you keep fixing each individual small part that breaks, eventually the market moves on and you have to throw all the replaceable parts away and start over. The process requirements haven't changed, the weldments and castings aren't broken, it's just that you can't replace a failed servo drive or Core 2 motherboard or ISA card because the supply chain gave up on them 10 years ago. There's no great advantage of Windows 10 LTSC and a 64-bit Arm controller over Windows 98 with 56002 ISA cards except that I can buy the former today and I can't buy the latter because no one makes them anymore.
There is no control OS or hardware supply chain that lasts as long as military, industrial, or scientific equipment can be made to last. Fanuc and others try with massive vertical integration and a "never deprecate anything" mantra, but they don't run their own semiconductor fabs to guarantee production of chips for stuff that doesn't keep up with the rat race.
Yes, I'll keep supporting my company's gear for as long as possible, but sometimes the answer is that I need to throw away 4 working servomotors, drives, a controller, and a PC, and invest 600 engineering hours into making this machine do the exact same thing it did last week, because that 5th drive blew the IGBT and took out the controller and no one can get a replacement. Customers don't like to issue $100k invoices when a $1k subcomponent dies...because that $1k quote was from 2008, and it's now literally priceless.
I love my customer's maintenance department, they're unusually thorough and attentive to preventative maintenance, greasing and oiling and replacing wear items, root-causing failures and keeping the machines in good working order for decades. But when you keep fixing each individual small part that breaks, eventually the market moves on and you have to throw all the replaceable parts away and start over. The process requirements haven't changed, the weldments and castings aren't broken, it's just that you can't replace a failed servo drive or Core 2 motherboard or ISA card because the supply chain gave up on them 10 years ago. There's no great advantage of Windows 10 LTSC and a 64-bit Arm controller over Windows 98 with 56002 ISA cards except that I can buy the former today and I can't buy the latter because no one makes them anymore.
There is no control OS or hardware supply chain that lasts as long as military, industrial, or scientific equipment can be made to last. Fanuc and others try with massive vertical integration and a "never deprecate anything" mantra, but they don't run their own semiconductor fabs to guarantee production of chips for stuff that doesn't keep up with the rat race.
Yes, I'll keep supporting my company's gear for as long as possible, but sometimes the answer is that I need to throw away 4 working servomotors, drives, a controller, and a PC, and invest 600 engineering hours into making this machine do the exact same thing it did last week, because that 5th drive blew the IGBT and took out the controller and no one can get a replacement. Customers don't like to issue $100k invoices when a $1k subcomponent dies...because that $1k quote was from 2008, and it's now literally priceless.
The trick is to make the controller board swappable and an independent set of products.
E.g.: If you make 30 different kinds of industrial machines, have one controller board as an additional product for a total of 31 SKUs.
When the controller board is too old and no longer supported, make a new SKU that is backwards compatible with the old machines.
E.g.: Some televisions allowed the entire controller board to be swapped out, upgrading the TV's OS and HDMI ports with new capabilities. The panel and the case stayed the same.
Similarly, a CNC router or whatever is "just" some analogue wires that go into a digital board. Make the digital board swappable.
A similar mistake that I see is customers that are used to "archive grade paper" asking me how long digital backup tapes last. That's the wrong question!. The important thing is to be able to copy from old tapes to new tapes with full fidelity, which digital technology enables, but analogue technology does not. You can retain data indefinitely with digital media that lasts just a few years. Instead of trying to scrounge up some old floppy or CD readers, just copy the data to BluRay, then cloud storage, and then... whatever.
E.g.: If you make 30 different kinds of industrial machines, have one controller board as an additional product for a total of 31 SKUs.
When the controller board is too old and no longer supported, make a new SKU that is backwards compatible with the old machines.
E.g.: Some televisions allowed the entire controller board to be swapped out, upgrading the TV's OS and HDMI ports with new capabilities. The panel and the case stayed the same.
Similarly, a CNC router or whatever is "just" some analogue wires that go into a digital board. Make the digital board swappable.
A similar mistake that I see is customers that are used to "archive grade paper" asking me how long digital backup tapes last. That's the wrong question!. The important thing is to be able to copy from old tapes to new tapes with full fidelity, which digital technology enables, but analogue technology does not. You can retain data indefinitely with digital media that lasts just a few years. Instead of trying to scrounge up some old floppy or CD readers, just copy the data to BluRay, then cloud storage, and then... whatever.
Any reason communication with these kinds of machines hasn't been built on top of something like CAN or Ethernet?
It is, we're now installing CiA 402 or "CAN in Automation CANopen Drives and Motion" servos (which didn't exist at the time the first ones were built) running on an EtherCAT real-time protocol stack. That will hopefully make replacing servos in the future relatively seamless.
Unfortunately, though, just using a CAN or Ethernet physical layer doesn't solve the problem of the https://xkcd.com/927/ standards proliferation of industrial protocols: Some customers require CIP motion over Ethernet/IP (a dog-slow Rockwell proprietary protocol), there's old MACRO fiber optic rings, Sercos III (and prior serial protocols), a dozen high-speed serial standards for communicating with absolute encoders, and, of course, good old-fashioned hardwired digital I/O - which might be either analog velocity/torque or step and direction, RS422 differential or single-ended, etc. etc. etc.
You'd hope that you could just plug something that spoke CAN or Ethernet into something else that has the same physical interface, and the two would work together. Sometimes, you get lucky and that works out. But the ever-forward march of industry leaves behind a graveyard of yesteryear's abandoned products and protocols.
Unfortunately, though, just using a CAN or Ethernet physical layer doesn't solve the problem of the https://xkcd.com/927/ standards proliferation of industrial protocols: Some customers require CIP motion over Ethernet/IP (a dog-slow Rockwell proprietary protocol), there's old MACRO fiber optic rings, Sercos III (and prior serial protocols), a dozen high-speed serial standards for communicating with absolute encoders, and, of course, good old-fashioned hardwired digital I/O - which might be either analog velocity/torque or step and direction, RS422 differential or single-ended, etc. etc. etc.
You'd hope that you could just plug something that spoke CAN or Ethernet into something else that has the same physical interface, and the two would work together. Sometimes, you get lucky and that works out. But the ever-forward march of industry leaves behind a graveyard of yesteryear's abandoned products and protocols.
> and for reasons only known to microsoft, this software is no longer able to run on modern windows.
The reason is most likely... because the driver relies on APIs that were insecure and removed in the XP-Vista transition!
> The vendor for the instrument has no incentive to update that software either; they'd rather you dish out another half million dollars for a new sorter. > There are hundreds of instruments like this in any given research institute, all because Microsoft decided unilaterally that software that ran fine 20 years ago is clearly useless and doesn't need to run anymore on modern hardware that receives security updates.
So it's Microsoft's fault that the vendor won't update it's software?
Didn't this "elite institution" get a support contract for the machine?
Would they expect the driver and software to still work if it had been written for a PowerMac G5, running Mac OS X Panther?
Would a binary compiled 20 years ago even have a remote chance of running on Linux?
The reason is most likely... because the driver relies on APIs that were insecure and removed in the XP-Vista transition!
> The vendor for the instrument has no incentive to update that software either; they'd rather you dish out another half million dollars for a new sorter. > There are hundreds of instruments like this in any given research institute, all because Microsoft decided unilaterally that software that ran fine 20 years ago is clearly useless and doesn't need to run anymore on modern hardware that receives security updates.
So it's Microsoft's fault that the vendor won't update it's software?
Didn't this "elite institution" get a support contract for the machine?
Would they expect the driver and software to still work if it had been written for a PowerMac G5, running Mac OS X Panther?
Would a binary compiled 20 years ago even have a remote chance of running on Linux?
>Would a binary compiled 20 years ago even have a remote chance of running on Linux?
Yes. As long as it includes all its dependencies, it should work because the kernel never deprecates system calls.
Yes. As long as it includes all its dependencies, it should work because the kernel never deprecates system calls.
It depends on which 20 years you’re talking about. Some of us here have been using Linux long enough to remember the change in the late 90s to use elf format. I don’t think a Linux from after the change can run anything from before.
What about the ABI?
What about it?
I don't think kernel ABI is compatible between versions.
So unless the vendor distributes the source for the driver interfacing with the machine, it shouldn't run on modern releases.
So unless the vendor distributes the source for the driver interfacing with the machine, it shouldn't run on modern releases.
We're not talking about drivers, we're talking about applications. You can take an application compiled back in 2005 and run it on a modern Linux machine, as long as the machine architecture is the same.
I assumed the machine would require a custom driver. Else it's extremely unlikely the app was broken as early as 2006 (so on Windows Vista) without their research group having some sort of support contract. Software would have been barely 4 years old at that point.
Your vendor didn't provide you with free updates to match changes in the larger OS ecosystem. Then you get mad at the larger OS for not supporting the niche software of your vendor.
BTW neither the vendor nor the OS maker is the problem. You are. Your entitlement that the world should grind to a halt to wait for you is.
Is having a unix philosophy on software entitled? Then I guess I am then.
Unix philosophy on software ? Let's be real here.
Command line Posix stuffgenerally works and Linux stuff works because Linus insists it should.
But what about the whole glibc debacle from about a decade ago? Entire distros broke compatibility.
And let's not get started with *nix GUI framewors and apps, those break compat more often than I change my socks :-)))
Command line Posix stuffgenerally works and Linux stuff works because Linus insists it should.
But what about the whole glibc debacle from about a decade ago? Entire distros broke compatibility.
And let's not get started with *nix GUI framewors and apps, those break compat more often than I change my socks :-)))
Sounds like the writer of the software is equally at fault, and the sysadmin could have been more creative.
I see no reason why the data collection can't be managed by a highly portable console app running inside a VM or dos emulator or the legacy PC can't be kept behind a firewall that only lets data out.
I see no reason why the data collection can't be managed by a highly portable console app running inside a VM or dos emulator or the legacy PC can't be kept behind a firewall that only lets data out.
> I see no reason why the data collection can't be managed by a highly portable console app running inside a VM or dos emulator or the legacy PC can't be kept behind a firewall that only lets data out.
Having been in this exact situation at a research institution with expensive equipment and Windows XP only software before - support.
Helpdesk and lower levels of back-end only pay a certain amount so turn over constantly, and “those PCs have had hot glue put in their ethernet jacks and USB ports and burning CDs is the only way to get data out” is a hell of a lot easier to reliably keep going than some esoteric system of VMs and firewall rules.
The people in the lab have way more tolerance for having to burn CDs than they do for firewall changes stuffing up their process and taking a while to figure out and resolve!
Having been in this exact situation at a research institution with expensive equipment and Windows XP only software before - support.
Helpdesk and lower levels of back-end only pay a certain amount so turn over constantly, and “those PCs have had hot glue put in their ethernet jacks and USB ports and burning CDs is the only way to get data out” is a hell of a lot easier to reliably keep going than some esoteric system of VMs and firewall rules.
The people in the lab have way more tolerance for having to burn CDs than they do for firewall changes stuffing up their process and taking a while to figure out and resolve!
>or the legacy PC can't be kept behind a firewall that only lets data out
Only because I had the same thought and I feel like you might know more, is there an example of software that does this securely?
Only because I had the same thought and I feel like you might know more, is there an example of software that does this securely?
OpenBSD. The documentation is good too. The social engineering of getting campus IT to approve your solution might be harder though.
The only way to continue supporting all those things is to never change anything. Even if all the APIs are still around, are they going to be bug-compatible?
My friend was working at Microsoft on JavaScript engine bugs for Internet explorer last year. He was telling me they had a contract with a large insurance company to support ie, and that because he found out about the contract his job feel a little less useless.
So it seems like to me they do care about legacy support.
Maybe you just need to pay for it
So it seems like to me they do care about legacy support.
Maybe you just need to pay for it
> Google and Apples's
... and Linux (well, Ubuntu specifically). I'm staring down the need to upgrade from Ubuntu LTS 20.04 to Ubuntu LTS 22.04 because some software I maintain now relies on GLIBC v2.32, which is an absolute bear to back-port. The party line is "So just upgrade," but there's no guarantee my hardware is compatible with Ubuntu LTS 22.04 because the vendor doesn't support that config and I'm not really interested in dealing with all the joys of figuring out every fiddly-widget little config on a laptop to make it work myself.
Microsoft is nearly unique in caring that much about backwards compatibility. It's the value-add they bring to the market these days relative to the competition.
... and Linux (well, Ubuntu specifically). I'm staring down the need to upgrade from Ubuntu LTS 20.04 to Ubuntu LTS 22.04 because some software I maintain now relies on GLIBC v2.32, which is an absolute bear to back-port. The party line is "So just upgrade," but there's no guarantee my hardware is compatible with Ubuntu LTS 22.04 because the vendor doesn't support that config and I'm not really interested in dealing with all the joys of figuring out every fiddly-widget little config on a laptop to make it work myself.
Microsoft is nearly unique in caring that much about backwards compatibility. It's the value-add they bring to the market these days relative to the competition.
> ...but there's no guarantee my hardware is compatible with Ubuntu LTS 22.04 because the vendor doesn't support that config...
So it's your vendor who doesn't care about backwards compatibility - Linux does. Whatever hardware you have, once it was supported, it will stay this way until it is really ancient, and even then you will have special builds that will support it. That's the beauty of open source (or even source available) licenses. No corporate interests that would render your solution obsolete. [0]
[0] assuming your hardware doesn't need some binary blobs (khm nvidia khm) to work
So it's your vendor who doesn't care about backwards compatibility - Linux does. Whatever hardware you have, once it was supported, it will stay this way until it is really ancient, and even then you will have special builds that will support it. That's the beauty of open source (or even source available) licenses. No corporate interests that would render your solution obsolete. [0]
[0] assuming your hardware doesn't need some binary blobs (khm nvidia khm) to work
(a) Of course it needs binary blobs. This is the real world where medium- to high-performance machines need binary blobs. The GNU dream never materialized.
(b) If Ubuntu (and I'm going to say "the Linux ecosystem in general") cared about backwards compatibility in the same sense Windows does, a minor-version bump to glibc wouldn't introduce API breakages that mean I can't build a codebase that's doing nothing new and special on my machine right now purely because a 31-subver bumped to a 32. They aren't doing anything new in the code; their JNI dependency just bumped up and so they bumped up the whole codebase's requirements.
That's fine, but it's not The Windows Way. The Linux Way doesn't think about compatibility issues like that in anything like the same way. It's a source-code-and-patch-it-yourself world. The approaches are completely alien to each other.
(b) If Ubuntu (and I'm going to say "the Linux ecosystem in general") cared about backwards compatibility in the same sense Windows does, a minor-version bump to glibc wouldn't introduce API breakages that mean I can't build a codebase that's doing nothing new and special on my machine right now purely because a 31-subver bumped to a 32. They aren't doing anything new in the code; their JNI dependency just bumped up and so they bumped up the whole codebase's requirements.
That's fine, but it's not The Windows Way. The Linux Way doesn't think about compatibility issues like that in anything like the same way. It's a source-code-and-patch-it-yourself world. The approaches are completely alien to each other.
glibc goes to great lengths to ensure binary backwards-compatibility. If a binary interface has to change it uses symbol versioning to keep around the old interface - for example if you have a program compiled against glibc2.2 on x86-64 that calls timer_create(), it will call through the function __timer_create_old() that provides the old interface when run on a system with a newer libc.
The reverse scenario that seems to be what you have - where you compile against a newer library version then run it on an older one - is forwards-compatibility which is a different kettle of fish. Even on Windows it's not like you can compile against the latest DirectX and run it on an older Windows?
The reverse scenario that seems to be what you have - where you compile against a newer library version then run it on an older one - is forwards-compatibility which is a different kettle of fish. Even on Windows it's not like you can compile against the latest DirectX and run it on an older Windows?
> several good reasons to embed the browser into the OS
It was actually a great feature (memory may be failing at this point), and it seemed like the filesystem viewer was IE presenting a filesystem view. If you typed an http or https URL, the window would turn into an HTML renderer window. This made it possible to build their mail and newsgroup reader apps as filesystem views. Mail was nothing but a folder full of email message files. News was, surprise, a folder full of newsgroups. Those viewers were responsible with synchronizing the folder with remote services.
I would love if Gnome would allow pluggable views in Files: a mail reader for maildir folders, a music player for folders full of audio files, and so on.
It was actually a great feature (memory may be failing at this point), and it seemed like the filesystem viewer was IE presenting a filesystem view. If you typed an http or https URL, the window would turn into an HTML renderer window. This made it possible to build their mail and newsgroup reader apps as filesystem views. Mail was nothing but a folder full of email message files. News was, surprise, a folder full of newsgroups. Those viewers were responsible with synchronizing the folder with remote services.
I would love if Gnome would allow pluggable views in Files: a mail reader for maildir folders, a music player for folders full of audio files, and so on.
> I would love if Gnome would allow pluggable views in Files
This is essentially what Gvfs is for except basically nobody uses it, at least in the ways you describe, because forcing non-FS things into the shape of a FS usually doesn't work very well. So instead Gvfs gets used for relatively simple things that naturally map onto the FS concept well, like mounting archive files, browsing FTP, etc.
This is essentially what Gvfs is for except basically nobody uses it, at least in the ways you describe, because forcing non-FS things into the shape of a FS usually doesn't work very well. So instead Gvfs gets used for relatively simple things that naturally map onto the FS concept well, like mounting archive files, browsing FTP, etc.
Gvfs would allow a folder of messages to show the continents of, say, an IMAP server as a set of files, but what I would like is the reverse - to have a different presentation for a folder full of emails.
Yes sounds right - I remember in the deep dark past somehow getting Steam to show the contents of C:\Program Files\ in the Store window. This was obviously back when Steam was Windows only and before it used embedded Chrome.
christ can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this out and inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met with ruination?
>This is a very strange comment.
In around 2001 when MS was being tried for antitrust, they claimed that IE couldn't be decoupled from the OS because it would break the os. I believe that is what the OP is alluding to. I believe an unassociated professor managed to decouple it later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
>This is a very strange comment.
In around 2001 when MS was being tried for antitrust, they claimed that IE couldn't be decoupled from the OS because it would break the os. I believe that is what the OP is alluding to. I believe an unassociated professor managed to decouple it later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
The era in which Microsoft forced IE into the OS was purely about anti-competitiveness and their own fear of being caught off guard on this whole internet fad.
The only reason we need IE shims at all is because MS botched their overall internet strategy. Had they made a truly competitive browser and supported common standards, and the user's ability to choose their browser, none of this would be needed.
The only reason we need IE shims at all is because MS botched their overall internet strategy. Had they made a truly competitive browser and supported common standards, and the user's ability to choose their browser, none of this would be needed.
Notepad.exe is forced into the OS. Is that anti-competitive too? If it's okay to have an app be a frontend for an OS provided text edit control why not the same with a webview control?
> making sure that the user has at least one application that can download files from the web is pretty damn reasonable.
And, indeed, you can't remove Windows Update. Nor (in more recent versions) the Add or Remove Features component in Control Panel— er, sorry, the Settings app. So long as you can still re-install Internet Explorer without a web browser (which I think you have always been able to, ever since the days IE came in a box), there's no reason to stop you removing it.
Microsoft did have legitimate reasons to integrate the browser engine in Windows 95, what with the whole Active Desktop, HTML Application, the-web-is-the-future schtick they were going for. But that isn't one of them.
And, indeed, you can't remove Windows Update. Nor (in more recent versions) the Add or Remove Features component in Control Panel— er, sorry, the Settings app. So long as you can still re-install Internet Explorer without a web browser (which I think you have always been able to, ever since the days IE came in a box), there's no reason to stop you removing it.
Microsoft did have legitimate reasons to integrate the browser engine in Windows 95, what with the whole Active Desktop, HTML Application, the-web-is-the-future schtick they were going for. But that isn't one of them.
A weird comment that deserves more upvotes.
that's one thing I genuinely admire Microsoft for - the effort they put into maintenance
It's not Microsoft as a whole though: the OS team goes above and beyond in maintenance, Office team did nothing of that, Azure team doesn't seem to be keen on that either.
I somewhat agree, but even that is only for capitalistic reasons.
If they didn't have the massive backwards compatibility, corporate users would essentially be free to choose a new OS platform every few years. By maintaining deep legacy software support, they make it easy for their customers to stay addicted to Windows.
MS is not doing this for your benefit, or out of some kind of dedication, it's pure capitalism.
If they didn't have the massive backwards compatibility, corporate users would essentially be free to choose a new OS platform every few years. By maintaining deep legacy software support, they make it easy for their customers to stay addicted to Windows.
MS is not doing this for your benefit, or out of some kind of dedication, it's pure capitalism.
Sure, but I think this is an example of markets working well. Customers don’t want to have to adapt to a new platform every year and are willing to pay for that service. Microsoft recognizes that desire and provides backward compatibility. Microsoft charges a price above what it costs to provide the service but below what their customers are willing to pay. Both parties win. Seems like a good thing.
Rarely have I seen "both parties win" used in describing dealing with Microsoft.
There is tons of documented history of their anti-competitive behavior and deceptive practices. It is not very often that a CEO of a company in a market that is "working well" is called to testify in front of Congress.
There is tons of documented history of their anti-competitive behavior and deceptive practices. It is not very often that a CEO of a company in a market that is "working well" is called to testify in front of Congress.
You seem to have changed the topic. As the previous poster was saying, them doing this particular thing for money is not bad. It's good. The fact that you're for some reason pulling in unrelated things that Microsoft has done presumably means you agree, but it's a mystery as to why you don't want to say so.
> even that is only for capitalistic reasons
That's a good thing. People wanting to pay for your stuff is a good sign that it's valuable to them, and thus worth doing.
That's a good thing. People wanting to pay for your stuff is a good sign that it's valuable to them, and thus worth doing.
> inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS
Well, it's kind of explicable: It was at about that time Microsoft rolled out HTML Help, so they needed an HTML rendering engine on every PC to be able to read the documentation.
Using a web browser as your native app's rendering engine is what all the cool kids are doing these days, so in a way they were just 15 years ahead of the curve.
Well, it's kind of explicable: It was at about that time Microsoft rolled out HTML Help, so they needed an HTML rendering engine on every PC to be able to read the documentation.
Using a web browser as your native app's rendering engine is what all the cool kids are doing these days, so in a way they were just 15 years ahead of the curve.
> Using a web browser as your native app's rendering engine is what all the cool kids are doing these days, so in a way they were just 15 years ahead of the curve.
As others have said parts of explorer were using mshtml for the user interface. However it wasn't just Microsoft. Third party vendors used mshtml as a component to render their UI! You can find samples around still, e.g . https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/6845/Implementing-snap-...
Most memorably, Norton Antivirus 2003 (I think) was one such application. The entire UI was in fact written in HTML with lots of callbacks into c++ code.
So in many ways... Electron isn't all that new of an idea :)
As others have said parts of explorer were using mshtml for the user interface. However it wasn't just Microsoft. Third party vendors used mshtml as a component to render their UI! You can find samples around still, e.g . https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/6845/Implementing-snap-...
Most memorably, Norton Antivirus 2003 (I think) was one such application. The entire UI was in fact written in HTML with lots of callbacks into c++ code.
So in many ways... Electron isn't all that new of an idea :)
This is one of the reasons a lot of people see the Microsoft anti-trust suit as a mistake (in that it wasn't based on any sound legal theory, and history has shown that every MS competitor just did what MS did and didn't get smacked for it; essentially, the government stepped on the neck of one private company in an asymmetrical way because the administration at the time didn't like their face.)
Microsoft's antitrust suit was mostly about illegal business practices, wide bullying of vendors and OEMs to block conpetition. How was it not based on sound legal theory ?
[Edit: I'm actually thinking of the EU lawsuit that was probably broader and better managed than the US one. Memories are now vague, it took me a while to even remember US and EU had different suits, but sure th US one was a lot worse in many aspects as Microsoft was on their home turf.]
> every MS competitor just did what MS did and didn't get smacked for
If you believe this, is the fault on those who smacked MS or the regulators who didn't smack the later violations ?
Is your argument that a crime shouldn't be punished in the past if people fail to punish it later in the future ?
[Edit: I'm actually thinking of the EU lawsuit that was probably broader and better managed than the US one. Memories are now vague, it took me a while to even remember US and EU had different suits, but sure th US one was a lot worse in many aspects as Microsoft was on their home turf.]
> every MS competitor just did what MS did and didn't get smacked for
If you believe this, is the fault on those who smacked MS or the regulators who didn't smack the later violations ?
Is your argument that a crime shouldn't be punished in the past if people fail to punish it later in the future ?
> Is your argument that a crime shouldn't be punished in the past if people fail to punish it later in the future ?
Not precisely, but I do believe punishing one corporation and then not punishing their competition starts to smell a lot like using the force of the law to create an unfair market disadvantage.
Not precisely, but I do believe punishing one corporation and then not punishing their competition starts to smell a lot like using the force of the law to create an unfair market disadvantage.
I agree with your point, having let Apple and Google run so long without any intervention is unfair. The hammer should have fallen a long time ago, and yet the EU seems to be the only entity with a chance at breaking the status quo.
Was it because they wanted cooperation on surveillance and other law enforcement projects from the winner-who-had-taken-all?
100 pct. They blew their powder on this, gave tech antitrust a bad name and let stuff 1000x worse go unchallenged for decades and now we are where we are.
> …you now need a team of H1B's to start writing shims…
This was uncalled for. You could’ve just said engineers.
For those of us in an unending battle with a broken immigration system every day of our lives for over a decade, this really rubs the wrong way.
This was uncalled for. You could’ve just said engineers.
For those of us in an unending battle with a broken immigration system every day of our lives for over a decade, this really rubs the wrong way.
Hmm, I didn't feel like they were insulting the H1Bs themselves, just insulting the fact that Microsoft hires a ridiculous amount of them so they can treat the workers like crap and force them to do unpleasant grunt work like this
Agree with other poster - I think he's criticizing the tech industry's abuse of workers who are immigrants, and their motivation to do so that's based on greed and profits and the power imbalance.
Some HN comments are down right elitist bordering on xenofobic, assuming that only westerners must be responsible for writing the "good" consumer facing software everyone loves, and that the "boring" corporate software everyone hates or sees no use for must be written by unskilled immigrants from third world countries.
MS chooses H1B's specifically because they can abuse and exploit them, forcing long hours with the threat of deportation upon termination. Turning a blind eye to that kind of abuse of power only allows it to continue.
The US's immigration system is not "broken". It's working exactly as designed. If you don't like the way that country is treating you, then why are you so eager to go there and endure that abuse?
> It's working exactly as designed.
I am fairly confident that you have no idea what you are talking about.
None other than Adolf Hitler himself admired how "The American Union categorically refuses the immigration of physically unhealthy elements, and simply excludes the immigration of certain races..” [0].
If you are aware of how to immigration system specifically puts some people in a short line that takes 3 months to clear, and others of a specific national origin in a different line that takes decades to clear, with all other factors being exactly equal, and still believe that the system is working exactly as designed, we have a problem.
[0]. https://www.timesofisrael.com/american-laws-against-coloreds...
I am fairly confident that you have no idea what you are talking about.
None other than Adolf Hitler himself admired how "The American Union categorically refuses the immigration of physically unhealthy elements, and simply excludes the immigration of certain races..” [0].
If you are aware of how to immigration system specifically puts some people in a short line that takes 3 months to clear, and others of a specific national origin in a different line that takes decades to clear, with all other factors being exactly equal, and still believe that the system is working exactly as designed, we have a problem.
[0]. https://www.timesofisrael.com/american-laws-against-coloreds...
>If you are aware of how to immigration system specifically puts some people in a short line that takes 3 months to clear, and others of a specific national origin in a different line that takes decades to clear, with all other factors being exactly equal, and still believe that the system is working exactly as designed, we have a problem.
Then I guess we have a problem. The system is working exactly as it's designed. Maybe you don't like it, maybe you think it's racist or unfair or whatever, but you need to take it up with the people who designed the system. It's working just the way they want it to.
The only big problem I see here is that you seem to think that everyone (including national leaders and wealthy interests who pay them) wants the same kind of immigration system as you do.
Then I guess we have a problem. The system is working exactly as it's designed. Maybe you don't like it, maybe you think it's racist or unfair or whatever, but you need to take it up with the people who designed the system. It's working just the way they want it to.
The only big problem I see here is that you seem to think that everyone (including national leaders and wealthy interests who pay them) wants the same kind of immigration system as you do.
Money :-)
And probably a large population of immigrants so that people don't feel so out of place.
And we can ignore that part and still call out stupidity and evil.
And probably a large population of immigrants so that people don't feel so out of place.
And we can ignore that part and still call out stupidity and evil.
It's not stupidity, though it could be evil. If America's government wanted to "fix" the system, they would. But the system seems to work well for the companies that use it, so is it broken?
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's "broken". It's just like how you have to use 3rd-party software to file your taxes and the IRS doesn't just pre-fill forms for you like in other countries. This isn't "broken": it's like this by design, because Intuit lobbied Congress to pass a law forbidding the IRS to make things easier for taxpayers.
Anyway, if your only reason to move to America was money, then it seems silly to complain about being mistreated as an immigrant. You're getting what you signed up for: more money, and with it, more headaches. If you wanted a better lifestyle and better government, you would have picked a different country. And being solely motivated by money seems to me to be a form of evil in itself (evil as in pure selfishness, not evil as in laughing at others suffering).
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's "broken". It's just like how you have to use 3rd-party software to file your taxes and the IRS doesn't just pre-fill forms for you like in other countries. This isn't "broken": it's like this by design, because Intuit lobbied Congress to pass a law forbidding the IRS to make things easier for taxpayers.
Anyway, if your only reason to move to America was money, then it seems silly to complain about being mistreated as an immigrant. You're getting what you signed up for: more money, and with it, more headaches. If you wanted a better lifestyle and better government, you would have picked a different country. And being solely motivated by money seems to me to be a form of evil in itself (evil as in pure selfishness, not evil as in laughing at others suffering).
He's probably a Midwestern engineer, if you know what I mean.
Or someone not from a coastal state (or Texas).
Or someone not from a coastal state (or Texas).
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> christ can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this out and inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met with ruination?
Elsewhere on HN: Everyone should be forced to install Chrome because I can't be bothered testing against Safari and Firefox.
Elsewhere on HN: Everyone should be forced to install Chrome because I can't be bothered testing against Safari and Firefox.
Try to uninstall Safari from Mac OS or iOS, or Chrome from Android. Tell me how that works out for you.
[deleted]
Google* Android
Android always has a browser you can’t remove. It’s just not always chrome.
The OS needs a browser engine for its WebView, which many apps etc rely on.
On non Google Android releases these can pretty easily be swapped.
Possibly on Google Android as well.
On non Google Android releases these can pretty easily be swapped.
Possibly on Google Android as well.
The out of the box experience with Android is that you can not replace the OS browser.
The fact that you can recompile AOSP to have a different browser is not particularly noteworthy, you could do that for any mandatory component.
The fact that you can recompile AOSP to have a different browser is not particularly noteworthy, you could do that for any mandatory component.
Nobody is talking about recompiling AOSP.
It's a popup dialog.
It's a popup dialog.
People are talking about no browser. Not swapping them
Yes, I understand.
I'm explaining that you need a WebView for basic functionality of many apps.
I'm explaining that you need a WebView for basic functionality of many apps.
but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such that any
attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met with ruination?
The webview control based on the internet explorer engine was rather important. Internet Explorer the application less so.
It's been a long time. I'm trying to remember if they'd rewired things so the Help function actually ran atop the IE rendering agent, or if I'm thinking of MacOSX and Safari.
The CHM viewer used for many help files is a webview, yeah.
You could enter an http address into File Explore in place of the C:\ nonsense, and it would replace the folder view contents with the website. See, embedded at the core. /s
> can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this out
Yup. And I can also imagine all the reasons why you dislike (to various extents, from mild to extreme hate) that. Yet, at the time, everyone was trying to do the exact same thing: capture the desktop. The mechanisms were different, but the end-objective all the same.
There is an alternate universe where we're all running JavaStations. I kinda like this version...
Yup. And I can also imagine all the reasons why you dislike (to various extents, from mild to extreme hate) that. Yet, at the time, everyone was trying to do the exact same thing: capture the desktop. The mechanisms were different, but the end-objective all the same.
There is an alternate universe where we're all running JavaStations. I kinda like this version...
And yet the desktop was somewhat captured not by IE+ActiveX controls but by Ajax technologies, another invention of IE. (And Flash, to another extent) Oh what days were those...
Today we are all basically running JavascriptStations.
Today we are all basically running JavascriptStations.
Hubris? No such thing at that time. They had to find a way to get things done, which were breaking all the time. Imagine node breaking something every release but a web browser. There was little choice then, compared to too many options today. Firefox was able to be a bit more of a stable presence than the rest in that time.
Devs had to manage every incompatibility between every tag implementation in every browser, especially ways to gracefully downgrade for older and older versions of IE especially in early B2B SaaS. Ironically, these skills have turned out to be incredibly valuable now for other applications for optimizing user experiences even if they're anonymous.
It was that way for a long time that made browser makers learn the hard way why compatibility was a good thing and would not be less competitive.
Looking forward to safari is everything on iOS going away soon.
Thankfully such opinions of the past have to live with the fact that modern javascript apps in many ways, with AJAX calls were invented by Microsoft, no less for the online version of Microsoft Outlook.
Devs had to manage every incompatibility between every tag implementation in every browser, especially ways to gracefully downgrade for older and older versions of IE especially in early B2B SaaS. Ironically, these skills have turned out to be incredibly valuable now for other applications for optimizing user experiences even if they're anonymous.
It was that way for a long time that made browser makers learn the hard way why compatibility was a good thing and would not be less competitive.
Looking forward to safari is everything on iOS going away soon.
Thankfully such opinions of the past have to live with the fact that modern javascript apps in many ways, with AJAX calls were invented by Microsoft, no less for the online version of Microsoft Outlook.
>the average user sees it as nothing more than a glorified blue icon to immediately download what has become your direct competitors far more competent and meaningful execution of browser software.
One of the marketing style slagging quote, "Internet Explorer. The most used browser to download another browser." I remember the first time a buddy said that to me, and it has aged oh so well.
One of the marketing style slagging quote, "Internet Explorer. The most used browser to download another browser." I remember the first time a buddy said that to me, and it has aged oh so well.
[deleted]
Hilarious! That's one way to describe history of three decades of that company.
Here, here.
To top it all off, the next generation of techies think the company that did this is one of the good ones and voluntarily use their software(VSCode?).
To top it all off, the next generation of techies think the company that did this is one of the good ones and voluntarily use their software(VSCode?).
What an amazing read.
Describing the "nudges" as gaslighting is very funny indeed
That was a great read.
> daytime infomercial of an OS
I'm not sure how you managed to write this post but I'm totally on board with the linguistic energy of it
> daytime infomercial of an OS
I'm not sure how you managed to write this post but I'm totally on board with the linguistic energy of it
75% of PCs I had the pleasure today to „patch“ didn’t have IE Mode at all in edge, but still removed IE. Fun times.
IE mode has been around for ages, either push it through MDM or GPO.
Windows home edition, we don’t control those PCs, the clients buy them themselves.
For those who experienced IE being forced on computers, simply entertaining the idea of it being forced off computers without choice is not just click-baity but also a special coming full circle moment.
Besides, every step towards an OS being something a user doesn't own or control, either for their own good, or users who can't help themselves, is another step towards lasting demand for usable Linux. '
It's nice that Ubuntu is starting to feel like MacOSX when it started to become usable for the many and not just the few.
Besides, every step towards an OS being something a user doesn't own or control, either for their own good, or users who can't help themselves, is another step towards lasting demand for usable Linux. '
It's nice that Ubuntu is starting to feel like MacOSX when it started to become usable for the many and not just the few.
Edge is shipped with Server 2022, assuming because Windows Admin Centre doesn’t support the only browser that 2019 came with out of the box
Does this include MSHTML (Trident), or just the iexplore.exe binary?
[deleted]
> Which you should
... have done a long time ago.
... have done a long time ago.
If people have genuine use cases (or even simply have a preferred remembered experience experience for how something complicated works like an elderly person) I see no reason why they "should" upgrade, and why instead we shouldn't at least try to provide those users a mediocre amount of support.
For the average Grandma who just wants to use Hotmail and Facebook, learning Edge is actually a monumental undertaking
For the average Grandma who just wants to use Hotmail and Facebook, learning Edge is actually a monumental undertaking
A genuine use case for IE11 on Windows Server platforms, which is what I was talking about, would mostly be 'masochism and a penchant for malware'.
If your average grandparent runs Windows Server, learning a new browser every now and then would be the least of their problems, IMHO.
If your average grandparent runs Windows Server, learning a new browser every now and then would be the least of their problems, IMHO.
Aren't we getting close to where somebody reading this forum has quite tech savvy grandparents yet? When will this "someone's grandparent" trope just retire too?
For the elderly, this is why:
https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-26/p...
I'd much rather Grandma have to learn to do something slightly differently than to hear about how Grandma had her bank account information stolen by some JavaScript malware.
For those with genuine use cases (I.e. ancient software that doesn't even work with the compatibility shims) I agree that there should be some way to run IE11 and older (and with only themselves to blame if they get pwned by ignoring the risks).
https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-26/p...
I'd much rather Grandma have to learn to do something slightly differently than to hear about how Grandma had her bank account information stolen by some JavaScript malware.
For those with genuine use cases (I.e. ancient software that doesn't even work with the compatibility shims) I agree that there should be some way to run IE11 and older (and with only themselves to blame if they get pwned by ignoring the risks).
> I'd much rather Grandma have to learn to do something slightly differently
This attitude is responsible for more harm than any other single idea in software development.
Do not break your users.
You think you have a choice here but what really happens is Grandma stays on old software forever because the beatings have taught her to never update anything. And the really sad part is that she's right.
This attitude is responsible for more harm than any other single idea in software development.
Do not break your users.
You think you have a choice here but what really happens is Grandma stays on old software forever because the beatings have taught her to never update anything. And the really sad part is that she's right.
Grandma just buys the iPad because it just works and stays up to date without risk of malware while Windows is left a rotting mess of garbage because they are too afraid to change anything.
Most iOS updates are invisible. The ones that aren’t cause some consternation. My parents were both thrilled when I showed them how to put the address bar back at the top of Safari.
> For the average Grandma who just wants to use Hotmail and Facebook, learning Edge is actually a monumental undertaking
I don't know what value of "grandma" is subject to being averaged, but this feels needlessly hyperbolic.
I don't know what value of "grandma" is subject to being averaged, but this feels needlessly hyperbolic.
On my grandmother's computer I did the "install this site as an app" function for the sites she uses and they open up in frameless windows. The only browser controls available to her are back and refresh. Highly recommend.
Does this work with back button high jacking that is so common?
Assuming Grandma is passably familiar with IE11 already for Facebook and Hotmail, I doubt the switch to edge is "monumental".
The most important items are all pretty close to their old positions. Odds are she is going to Yahoo to search for Hotmail or Facebook anyway.
The most important items are all pretty close to their old positions. Odds are she is going to Yahoo to search for Hotmail or Facebook anyway.
No. IE needs to be renamed "ActiveX Web App Engine" and no longer be associated with the concept of an Internet browser.
Grandma can get an old iPad for Hotmail and Facebook, which is far safer, far less needing of support and what most people are using for those types of things anyway.
Grandma can get an old iPad for Hotmail and Facebook, which is far safer, far less needing of support and what most people are using for those types of things anyway.
> IE needs to be renamed "ActiveX Web App Engine"
Which is effectively what Edge does. It redirects all IE11 COM endpoints to WebView2, which is Chrome-based and should Work Just Fine for the foreseeable future.
Which is effectively what Edge does. It redirects all IE11 COM endpoints to WebView2, which is Chrome-based and should Work Just Fine for the foreseeable future.
It's a good idea to move away from IE, but it's fairly easy to get around the block. When the Edge prompt comes up, roll over the Edge icon on the taskbar and use the X to close the prompt. Then, click on the IE icon to unminimize the IE window.
Other options include, but are not limited to:
* disabling the IE add-on that triggers the prompt (IEToEdgeBHO): you can disable it via group policy [0] or registry [1] and IE will function as normal, or
* running Internet Explorer without add-ons: iexplore.exe -extoff, or
* opening Internet Options, go to Programs tab, click "Manage add-ons", then clicking "Learn more about toolbars and extensions"
I've also seen other ways of launching IE using VBA or other legacy features. Some of these methods also work on Windows 11.
[0]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/ie11-dep..., CLSID: {1FD49718-1D00-4B19-AF5F-070AF6D5D54C}
[1]: https://www.ghacks.net/2020/10/23/internet-explorer-users-wi... (the key type is String)
Other options include, but are not limited to:
* disabling the IE add-on that triggers the prompt (IEToEdgeBHO): you can disable it via group policy [0] or registry [1] and IE will function as normal, or
* running Internet Explorer without add-ons: iexplore.exe -extoff, or
* opening Internet Options, go to Programs tab, click "Manage add-ons", then clicking "Learn more about toolbars and extensions"
I've also seen other ways of launching IE using VBA or other legacy features. Some of these methods also work on Windows 11.
[0]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/ie11-dep..., CLSID: {1FD49718-1D00-4B19-AF5F-070AF6D5D54C}
[1]: https://www.ghacks.net/2020/10/23/internet-explorer-users-wi... (the key type is String)
This is a serious problem for us in my business as our business banking software we are forced to use by our bank in mainland China still only works with IE. I spent an hour last night ultimately inputting shady commands into my registry, to try to force IE to open instead of being hijacked by edge. When an entire industry in a country refuses to upgrade what the hell? Of course I’m pissed the bank hadn’t upgraded but it’s infuriating that Microsoft breaks my processes without my permission.
Korea went deeply down the "custom security" rabbithole too, and many banks there still rely on activeX controls and custom encryption algorithms and other insane bullshit that actively impairs security. It seems to be a regional thing (or at least a developing-country thing).
https://palant.info/2023/01/02/south-koreas-online-security-... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34231364
https://www.forbes.com/sites/elaineramirez/2016/11/30/south-...
This is not unheard-of in the enterprise world in the US either. To name-and-shame, Allscripts Enterprise EHR system still uses active-x controls and is still actively deployed in hospital systems.
The typical deployment will be a sandboxed VDI installation that isn't allowed to directly talk to anything except its EHR server and has to be connected via citrix or similar. It is still insane, of course, but the medical world is another one that moves slow. Probably some stuff in the financial sector too, they like that shit too.
https://palant.info/2023/01/02/south-koreas-online-security-... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34231364
https://www.forbes.com/sites/elaineramirez/2016/11/30/south-...
This is not unheard-of in the enterprise world in the US either. To name-and-shame, Allscripts Enterprise EHR system still uses active-x controls and is still actively deployed in hospital systems.
The typical deployment will be a sandboxed VDI installation that isn't allowed to directly talk to anything except its EHR server and has to be connected via citrix or similar. It is still insane, of course, but the medical world is another one that moves slow. Probably some stuff in the financial sector too, they like that shit too.
I spent two years modernizing one of these IE only apps (moved to chrome/firefox). Sometimes the offending activex control is simply a xml component (literally parsing, xsl, xpath, etc stuff) of a newer version than what was built in at one time. Firefox and Chrome don't handle xml nearly as seamlessly as old IE did. But other times these apps require IE11, but it's actually executing the page in IE6 or 7 compatibility mode. That was the case with mine, Microsoft DHTML Behaviors, the horror, the horror....
South Korea is very much not a developing country and hasn't been one in about 3 decades :-)
I know it's just... weird. SK embarked on a path of rapid industrialization by handing a massive amount of power to corporate conglomerates (chaebols). They're like a developing nation in that respect... they just happen to be a developing nation that is on the forefront of certain high-tech industries. Samsung, LG, Hyundai, and the other chaebols utterly run the political sphere in a sense that is obscene even by western standards.
The president being jailed a couple years ago for being a chaebol pawn is kind of indicative of the whole thing, and nothing has really changed.
On the other hand maybe that's the shadowrun future in store for us all. ;)
The president being jailed a couple years ago for being a chaebol pawn is kind of indicative of the whole thing, and nothing has really changed.
On the other hand maybe that's the shadowrun future in store for us all. ;)
I'm at a US government agency and the system that processes our time and attendance still does not work with Chrome or Firefox - I think it's some kind of security certificate issue? So they tell us to use Edge to fill our our time and attendance. I click some link from our internal home page and it loads up the page in "Internet Explorer Mode," complete with the blue "e" in the address bar.
It's bullshit "security" for banking, it could be that it depends on something that isn't emulated by Edge, like toolbars or some other form of deep browser extensions, not "just" ActiveX.
For all it's worth it could be something as insane as a kernel driver that assumes a certain IE build and hooks into it for "security". Never heard of such things in areas outside of gaming, but won't be remotely surprised. Banking industry is way more backwards than gaming, after all.
For all it's worth it could be something as insane as a kernel driver that assumes a certain IE build and hooks into it for "security". Never heard of such things in areas outside of gaming, but won't be remotely surprised. Banking industry is way more backwards than gaming, after all.
I sympathise with your frustration, but the blame is absolutely with your bank. I mean, finances are like THE thing to be security minded about - the fact they're still using IE is just unacceptable from any lens.
Sometimes the blame is regulations: too many hoops for banks to update their software easily and without adding stupid regulatory liabilities. Regulations added to protect the user, but perversely hinder the user.
Wait, what?
No, regulations do not incentivise bad security practices at all. In fact, they are one of the only tools to enforce good security practices.
No, regulations do not incentivise bad security practices at all. In fact, they are one of the only tools to enforce good security practices.
Sorry, I was unclear.
I am all for good regulations - they are vital for a well functioning society.
However, there are plenty of bad regulations that have perverse outcomes. There are also plenty of regulations due to regulatory capture where the regulations help an incumbent and hinder new entrants. Watch Intuit protect their income at the expense of tax payers. In New Zealand, there are plenty of horrifically inefficient health & safety regulations, because who can argue against saving a life at any cost?
I am against bad regulations that cost society too much without giving enough benefit.
I am all for good regulations - they are vital for a well functioning society.
However, there are plenty of bad regulations that have perverse outcomes. There are also plenty of regulations due to regulatory capture where the regulations help an incumbent and hinder new entrants. Watch Intuit protect their income at the expense of tax payers. In New Zealand, there are plenty of horrifically inefficient health & safety regulations, because who can argue against saving a life at any cost?
I am against bad regulations that cost society too much without giving enough benefit.
That's really on your bank for insisting on using technology which has been sunset for many many years though.
I would contact them and tell them you're considering switching. If they're anything like the banks in North America they'll be freaking out trying to give you deals to stay. They did this for me when I told them that I would switch over trying to force SMS-based 2fa on me.
I'm really not sure about the economic situation in China right now but since they hiked the interest rates banks have been extremely competitive in terms of signup offers here in the past few months. Might be worth considering!
I would contact them and tell them you're considering switching. If they're anything like the banks in North America they'll be freaking out trying to give you deals to stay. They did this for me when I told them that I would switch over trying to force SMS-based 2fa on me.
I'm really not sure about the economic situation in China right now but since they hiked the interest rates banks have been extremely competitive in terms of signup offers here in the past few months. Might be worth considering!
Yeah, MS have a 10 year window to migrate. If you found yourself at the end of 10 years still not migrated, then you’ll only do it when it breaks.
This change has been announced long ago. IT should have identified this issue and taken the steps to enable IE mode on Edge for this specific site a year ago.
MS announced you shouldn’t be using IE several years ago.
> When an entire industry in a country refuses to upgrade what the hell?
Well, I don’t think they can refuse to upgrade any longer if it doesn’t work, right?
Well, I don’t think they can refuse to upgrade any longer if it doesn’t work, right?
Perhaps a virtual machine running windows with the compatible version of IE just for this purpose would be a good option. Take snapshots after it's setup correctly so any sneaky update shenanigans MS pulls can be reverted.
Block Microsoft, and use a virtual machine that you copy before every session.
On VirtualBox it's easy to set the disks as immutable. The machine will come up, write to the disk and, when you reboot, it'll be back into the original state.
More than once I updated the VM only to realize I forgot to make the disk mutable.
More than once I updated the VM only to realize I forgot to make the disk mutable.
And now they'll finally fix it, as they have no other choice. You can thank MS for that.
Microsoft retains the right to break your process without your permission.
The warnings started how long ago? The compatability mode is available and works.
I recently switched to Edge and have been mildly surprised, after turning off all telemetry, having sleeping tabs built-in, which actually work much better than Chrome's and Firefox's (also considering 3rd party extensions), and my browser RAM usage dropping to a "measly" 800MB with 100 tabs open and a non-noticeable delay when I switch to a sleeping tab, seems a much better alternative than using Chrome. Plus sidebar tabs are a huge plus.
You shouldn't be using Internet Explorer at this point but Microsoft shouldn't be breaking your workflow either.
The problem is, that certain old software like Volvo's VIDA needs IE. And while Edge's IE Tab works it's much much slower in loading.
That sounds like a problem for Geely, not Microsoft.
It sounds like a Microsoft problem for me. A "it's my computer, don't fuck around with the stuff on it" kinda problem.
Damn software makers getting uppity about ownership after they've distributed their shit.
Damn software makers getting uppity about ownership after they've distributed their shit.
Microsoft makes it their problem by rug pulling IE
A 10 year rug pull. It wasn’t exactly shocking news.
No, they made it their problem by promising both users and vendors they'd do the dirty work of keeping it compatible. As shown here[0], removing the OS "bloat" that keeps old apps compatible on newer Windows 11 versions vastly decreases resource usage and improves software responsiveness.
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34654649
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34654649
20 years too late :')
But the problem is the old webview crap based on IE is still embedded in the system everywhere. Only yesterday I got a popup from something with the "image missing" icon that clearly originates in IE.
But the problem is the old webview crap based on IE is still embedded in the system everywhere. Only yesterday I got a popup from something with the "image missing" icon that clearly originates in IE.
> Microsoft has fully moved on to its Edge browser. (While nearly everyone else has moved on to Google Chrome.)
Not a major difference - Edge is based on Chromium.
Not a major difference - Edge is based on Chromium.
"The only way to destroy this evil is from within" - our operative setting off on this undercover mission 15 years ago
Micro$oft seems to think that my PC is their PC and they can do whatever they like with it, without even asking.
It's complicated.
They'd really prefer not to be in that position, but they learned the (extremely) hard way in the early days of the Internet that when you have the largest OS install-base (And MS still has like 29%), you have some obligation to the global community to police it. Because Lord knows individual users don't pull upgrades in fast enough voluntarily, and an exploit shared by 29% of computers can be easily weaponized online.
The Internet would be much, much worse if not for the steady drumbeat of OS vendors forcing users to patch vulnerabilities via upgrade pursuasion.
(At least until someone finishes development on that vulnerability-free OS. What did they call it? NonexOStant?)
They'd really prefer not to be in that position, but they learned the (extremely) hard way in the early days of the Internet that when you have the largest OS install-base (And MS still has like 29%), you have some obligation to the global community to police it. Because Lord knows individual users don't pull upgrades in fast enough voluntarily, and an exploit shared by 29% of computers can be easily weaponized online.
The Internet would be much, much worse if not for the steady drumbeat of OS vendors forcing users to patch vulnerabilities via upgrade pursuasion.
(At least until someone finishes development on that vulnerability-free OS. What did they call it? NonexOStant?)
> They'd really prefer not to be in that position
What makes you say this? If I was MS I'd be perfectly happy to effectively own most computers on earth and be able to do anything I want with them.
What makes you say this? If I was MS I'd be perfectly happy to effectively own most computers on earth and be able to do anything I want with them.
They'd really prefer not to be in the position of force-pushing updates because it's a huge pain in the ass to build and maintain the infrastructure to allow it and it generates mostly ill-will and negative press for them (because every user sees the updates, but only a handful of users get their online sites slaughtered by a low-orbit ion cannon made out of compromised Windows nodes).
It is, however, pretty much the price of doing business when the business is "Being a dominant operating system vendor." The other ones breathing that rarified air are Android and iOS, and they're about as strict as Windows regarding updates (with the exception of long-tail Android open source builds that are maintained by whatever vendor cobbled something together, which the core project only has indirect influence over in terms of minimizing ability to exploit it as a common-codebase threat vector).
It is, however, pretty much the price of doing business when the business is "Being a dominant operating system vendor." The other ones breathing that rarified air are Android and iOS, and they're about as strict as Windows regarding updates (with the exception of long-tail Android open source builds that are maintained by whatever vendor cobbled something together, which the core project only has indirect influence over in terms of minimizing ability to exploit it as a common-codebase threat vector).
If you can't open it, you don't own it.
(Optional: "It owns you" ;)
(Optional: "It owns you" ;)
Of course you're the product.
It is. And they are.
Weirdest thing is, they are not "removing" it. It opens normally for a fraction of second and then something closes it and opens Edge instead.
Good. I hope that infernal turd is buried. It has been the number one cost centre for our front end stuff for the last decade and a half.
If "mshtml.dll" is still there, and you can still instantiate instances of it, then MSIE is still there.
Thankfully; there are entire (completely-local) applications designed around MSHTML.
Invoke-WebRequest still depends on some of the internals too probably, but who knows?
That was finally fixed, apparently in PowerShell 6.0, and now -UseBasicParsing is just a noop. Kinda crazy that it ever did this by default, especially considering PowerShell used to alias curl to Invoke-Webrequest, which could lead to surprise JavaScript execution. Definitely one of the worst gotchas in Windows PowerShell.
And forcibly adding edge, edge shortcuts, prompts to use edge, and warnings against using Firefox
I have zero sympathy for those who, by designing an application solely for use with Internet Explorer, put their heads into the lion's mouth, expecting to get their face licked. (Same applies to Safari.)
I’ve never seen an app that only works in Safari.
I was just helping someone who had removed IE from Windows and then couldn't start QuickBooks (from 2016 or so, I think). Not even get to the main page.
My research showed that Intuit had known about this problem for at least 2-3 years, and told people that they would have a fix but never released one, so everyone seemed to end up having to install a new version of QuickBooks, usually with a subscription.
I found a hacky workaround: create a registry key that tells Windows where IE is located (even though it isn't). QuickBooks then starts up just fine, and as long as you don't use the sections that rely on IE (not sure which ones they are, maybe just documentation?), you can use the program just fine.
The people are winding up their business and retiring, so they really didn't want to buy and learn a new version of QB.
My research showed that Intuit had known about this problem for at least 2-3 years, and told people that they would have a fix but never released one, so everyone seemed to end up having to install a new version of QuickBooks, usually with a subscription.
I found a hacky workaround: create a registry key that tells Windows where IE is located (even though it isn't). QuickBooks then starts up just fine, and as long as you don't use the sections that rely on IE (not sure which ones they are, maybe just documentation?), you can use the program just fine.
The people are winding up their business and retiring, so they really didn't want to buy and learn a new version of QB.
Are they even removing it from Windows 7 and other unsupported operating systems?
Nope. In fact I'm still using IE11 on a very old (circa 2003) P4 box with only 2gb ram and win7, mind you I only use it on a very specific websites including HN, pinboard, teddit, invidious, nitter, wikiless and a few others, I've added these filter lists https://filterlists.com/tpl.html plus Spywareblaster.
Are running on that venerable box for any particular reason?
They'd better leave it alone on my obsolete Windows 7 laptop. Until recently, and quite possibly even now, there are cheap band-X IP cameras that can only be configured with an ActiveX plugin.
This feels like when a mining company has to remediate/recreclamate their mine(s) at the end of their useful life rather than leave them there to cause people problems in the future.
IE11 has long since needed to die and I am glad that MS is doing the right thing for the world and cleaning up the mess on its way out!
IE11 has long since needed to die and I am glad that MS is doing the right thing for the world and cleaning up the mess on its way out!
Also discussed on Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShittySysadmin/comments/114s0h0/hel...
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShittySysadmin/comments/114s0h0/hel...
Wired doing some clickbait meme here, but I heard about the news last week.
My question is, who the hell uses IE still...? And don't give me that one in a million guy stuck with it because he's running Windows 2k Server.
My question is, who the hell uses IE still...? And don't give me that one in a million guy stuck with it because he's running Windows 2k Server.
A lot of business intranet software still runs on IE, especially in the far east.
Working in the B2B world, I can tell you that unfortunately many buyers are still running on archaic systems. Many projects still require support for these old browsers. In the B2C sector, there are so many users that the few who don't upgrade are just a tiny afterthought. In the B2B sector, where a single company not upgrading can mean that more than half of your customers can't use your website, it's a whole other issue.
In 1998, Microsoft asserts that their browser was an inherent component of the operating system and could not be extracted. In 2020, Microsoft miraculously defies the impossible! What can't Microsoft do?
Going forward, Microsoft Edge WebView2 will probably be inherent component of Windows, so they will just replace one browser for another.
For the time being, I assume EdgeHTML is still present, since I assume this is used for the compatibility mode in Edge (and for legacy WebViews).
For the time being, I assume EdgeHTML is still present, since I assume this is used for the compatibility mode in Edge (and for legacy WebViews).
Uhhh, how about the fact that it's taken 20+ years and the development of an entirely new browser to finally begin the extraction of IE from the OS?
Well, 22 years of refactor make things possible ;)
Or they were just lying, which they seem to do a lot of.
Windows Explorer was based on IE. It's quite obvious how tight the integration was.
And it was a good idea, to be honest. They've done plenty of anticompetitive shit, but the IE integration into Windows has only ever improved Windows.
And it was a good idea, to be honest. They've done plenty of anticompetitive shit, but the IE integration into Windows has only ever improved Windows.
Already, there is the IE to Edge BHO which forcefully launches a different browser when you attempt to visit a website. You can still turn it off, and proceed to use MSIE.
Will BrowserComponent in .NET still work? Asking for a friend
Wired should know better.
Microsoft is not removing IE from 'personal computers'. MD is removing from machines running Windows.
None of my Linux machines are affected, and damn straight are personal machines.
Edit: for those of you who downvoted, I'm tired of having personal computers meaning only MS windows. There's those of us who are Mac users and Linux users both. By making "PC" as windows only is removing the rest of us.
Microsoft is not removing IE from 'personal computers'. MD is removing from machines running Windows.
None of my Linux machines are affected, and damn straight are personal machines.
Edit: for those of you who downvoted, I'm tired of having personal computers meaning only MS windows. There's those of us who are Mac users and Linux users both. By making "PC" as windows only is removing the rest of us.
Pc means wintel my good dude. Actual personal computers are not seen as "a computer" to lusers. They are workstations. Or devices. But PC (like it was printed on oh so many software boxes) means windows+intel(or unremarkably compatible).
The article didn’t say “from all PCs”. They also don’t remove it from Windows 7 PCs that don’t have Edge installed, for example.
Now that's the dystopian headline I want a print of on my wall. So Long!
Take edge with it, please and thank you
What's wrong with Edge. Been pleasantly surprised by it myself.
Edge was absolutely great. I even recommended it at some point.
Then they started packing more features into it than a shareware application in the 2000s. They even went so far as to bundle code that replaces the checkout form in web shops (breaking some of them, of course). Their disgusting methods to force people to use Edge also turned me off. Something good doesn't need its user base to be forced to use it.
It's a real tragedy. Edgium had some great features and Super Duper Secure mode is the obvious next step in defence in depth for browsers. I just can't trust it anymore.
Then they started packing more features into it than a shareware application in the 2000s. They even went so far as to bundle code that replaces the checkout form in web shops (breaking some of them, of course). Their disgusting methods to force people to use Edge also turned me off. Something good doesn't need its user base to be forced to use it.
It's a real tragedy. Edgium had some great features and Super Duper Secure mode is the obvious next step in defence in depth for browsers. I just can't trust it anymore.
Glad it is working out for you! I already have a browser of choice and would prefer my OS not make those decisions for me.
A web browser is expected and included in every modern desktop and mobile OS I can think of. What is different about Safari on Apple OSes, Chrome on Android and Chromebooks, or Firefox on Linux distros?
At least on Windows it is trivially easy to use a different browser and set it as the default.
At least on Windows it is trivially easy to use a different browser and set it as the default.
The difference is that Microsoft doesn’t just give you Edge as the default, they actively try to get you to switch to Edge if you’re using something else, with random notifications, pop-ups in Settings, making it harder to switch to other browsers, making browser links opened by the OS (i.e. search bar, help) open in Edge, etc…
> At least on Windows it is trivially easy to use a different browser and set it as the default.
No, it's not. On 11 at least, any link that is part of the OS (or at least modern parts of it) will still forcibly open Edge, including anything you search in the start menu. It's not possible to change this without third party software.
No, it's not. On 11 at least, any link that is part of the OS (or at least modern parts of it) will still forcibly open Edge, including anything you search in the start menu. It's not possible to change this without third party software.
> and set it as the default.
For a while...
For a while...
Edge is a great browser, (much better than Chrome), but Microsoft keeps trying to force it onto people, so they start hating it, and rightfully so. If Microsoft wasn’t trying to force it onto people, it would probably be more popular
I think Edge is a better Chrome than Chrome. At least it can show vertical tabs and groups in a way much more easy to understand.
Have you been able to configure it so it doesn't have an enormous Bing search bar in your new tab page? I know you can change search providers, but the new tab page seems to be hardcoded to Bing with no way to change it.
(No, using a plugin/extension to do this doesn't count, IMO.)
(No, using a plugin/extension to do this doesn't count, IMO.)
They keep on trying to force it on people.
The harder they try, the more "NO. FUCK OFF" I get. :/
The harder they try, the more "NO. FUCK OFF" I get. :/
How will new users install Firefox or Chromeium without any browser at all? Someone going to train them in WinGet?
I'd actually say, while we're at it, let's throw out Chrome and Firefox too. I'd add Safari to the list but I think that's taken care of itself.
I've been doing Web applications longer than I'd guess your typical HN commenter has been alive. The main conclusion I have come to is that the Web is a great platform for sharing documents, and a lousy platform for applications.
I've been doing Web applications longer than I'd guess your typical HN commenter has been alive. The main conclusion I have come to is that the Web is a great platform for sharing documents, and a lousy platform for applications.
If I could forcibly remove Internet Explorer from Your PC, I would have already done so. You're welcome.
Good
Netscape finally wins?
Without reading the article, they're obviously doing this to force Edge on people.
Also, without reading the article, I wish they'd done this years ago. Long before Edge :).
Also, without reading the article, I wish they'd done this years ago. Long before Edge :).
On Windows Server platforms, where IE11 is still inexplicably the default experience even in the most recent 2022 editions, you can still enjoy its full functionality, until you explicitly install 'Edge for Business'. Which you should.