Microsoft is taking further steps to kill off the antiquated Internet Explorer in favor of its new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser.
Microsoft has been recommending users switch from Internet Explorer for years, yet it still has an almost 5% market share in browser use.
Starting soon, if not already started for many, Microsoft will be taking more active measures to push people away from Internet Explorer.
Automatic redirects to Microsoft Edge for incompatible sites
Starting in recent versions of Microsoft Edge, when Internet Explorer visits an incompatible site, the browsing session will automatically be launched in Microsoft Edge to continue the browsing session.
The list of incompatible sites is managed by Microsoft and currently contains 1,156 sites, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, ESPN, Yahoo Mail, and many others.
This redirection is done through an Internet Explorer Browser Helper Object (BHO) named "IEtoEdge BHO," as shown below.
The following files associated with the BHO are located under the C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\[Edge_version]\BHO folder:
ie_to_edge_bho.dll
ie_to_edge_bho_64.dll
ie_to_edge_stub.exe
When browsing the web, the BHO will check if a website is incompatible with Internet Explorer. If it is, the BHO will automatically open the site in Microsoft Edge, which will display a message stating, "This website doesn't work with Internet Explorer!" as shown below.
When showing the alert, Microsoft Edge will also prompt users to migrate their Internet Explorer settings, data, and cookies to Microsoft Edge.
"The following browsing data will be imported: Favorites, Passwords, Search engines, open tabs, History, settings, cookies, and the Home Page," Microsoft explains.
Even if they choose not to migrate their data, they can still click the 'Continue Browsing' button to view the website in Microsoft Edge.
While browsing the sites that are incompatible with Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge will display a banner prompting the user to set their default browser to the newer modern browser.
When the site is opened in Microsoft Edge, the IE tab for the incompatible site will be automatically closed if it had no content. Otherwise, it will be redirected to a Microsoft support page explaining that the "website you were trying to reach doesn't work with Internet Explorer."
On October 26th, Microsoft will introduce new group policy templates that allow users to control this redirection behavior, described in detail in a recently added support document.
- RedirectSitesFromInternetExplorerPreventBHOInstall - Allows you to prevent the installation of the "IEtoEdge BHO" in Internet Explorer.
- RedirectSitesFromInternetExplorerRedirectMode - Lets you disable the Internet Explorer redirects to Microsoft Edge.
- HideInternetExplorerRedirectUXForIncompatibleSitesEnabled - Allows admins to disable the redirection alert shown in Microsoft Edge.
While Microsoft's support document states that this redirection will start with Microsoft Edge 87, being released around November 17th, in BleepingComputer's tests, the redirect is already occurring in Microsoft Edge 86.0.622.51.
Microsoft services lose IE support in November
In addition to the redirects, Microsoft also plans on disabling support for Internet Explorer in various services offered by Microsoft.
In an August blog post, Microsoft also stated that Microsoft Teams would no longer support Internet Explorer 11 starting on November 30th.
Microsoft will ultimately end all support for Internet Explorer across all its services on August 17th, 2021.
For those who continue to need Internet Explorer support, users will be able to use Microsoft Edge's Internet Explorer Mode for backward compatibility.
H/T BornCity.com
Update 10/26/20: Updated article with further technical analysis by BleepingComputer, as redirect feature was discovered to be live by @campuscodi.
Update 10/30/20: Microsoft told BleepingComputer that Internet Explorer will still be able to login to Microsoft accounts on November 13th. Updated the article accordingly.
Comments
Sam Gunn - 3 years ago
Is there anybody at Microsoft that I can email? If I'm forced to use ME, then I will use Firefox, or Opera. I will not use ME. Make ME like IE, then I would use ME. But I don't like the way it is now.
Chris Cosgrove - 3 years ago
Nobody, including MS, is forcing you to use Edge although it is in many respects a very good browser and certainly in some regards better than Google's Chrome.
kenhall5551 - 3 years ago
About time. Over the years, IE has been a crappy browser and the least secure one to boot. Edge is MUCH better although I use Firefox and Brave. RIP Internet Explorer
olie480 - 3 years ago
WebDevs be like "Yeet!!!"
geogherkins - 3 years ago
The new Chromium Edge is fine, I like it. But before dropping support of IE11 when will Microsoft first update its own web infrastructure to work on anything but IE? I refer specifically to https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Home.aspx which requires ActiveX in IE11 in order to download updates. How ironic. Microsoft has become so big and unwieldy that the left-hand does not know what the right-hand is doing!
An-Tax - 3 years ago
The 'Insights' feature of Outlook requires ie to load the plugin from within outlook.
Bit of an oversight :') ( pun intended )
Jan_van_Veldhuizen - 3 years ago
What does the end of support for IE mean to the built-in browser in Outlook (the Outlook Today page). You can add your own page by using the WebVierwUrl property of Outlook folders. It uses the outlwvw.dll to launch html pages, but that dll is using IE, basically...