Internet Explorer users will be redirected to Microsoft Edge if incompatible sites are opened

[Karlston]

Internet Explorer users will be redirected to Microsoft Edge if incompatible sites are opened

 

Internet Explorer is still widely used, especially in corporate environments. The browser won't receive feature updates anymore but Microsoft will release security updates for it for years to come.

 

One of the issues that Internet Explorer uses may encounter is that more and more websites may not display correctly or at all in the browser. New browser technologies get added to modern browsers all the time but not to Internet Explorer.

 

Microsoft is aware of that and decided that the best course of action is to redirect incompatible sites that are opened in Internet Explorer to the company's own Microsoft Edge web browser. To be precise, it works only if the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser, version 87 or newer, is installed on the system, at least according to Microsoft. The redirection worked also on a system with Edge 86 Stable -- the current stable version installed -- and Edge Canary. Whether the availability of the Canary version played a role here is unclear at this time.

 

 

Microsoft maintains a list of sites that it considers incompatible, and it will redirect those sites to the new Microsoft Edge browser automatically.

 

Edge is opened or put into focus, and an overlay is displayed when the redirection happens for the first time. It informs you that the website that you opened in Internet Explorer is not compatible with the browser, and that the new Edge is compatible.

 

An option to import browsing data and preferences from Internet Explorer is provided and enabled by default. Uncheck the option if you don't want that to happen. The only other option that is provided is to "continue browsing". A temporary banner at the top is displayed as well, but it is barely readable until you activate the continue browsing button.

 

It states that some websites are incompatible with Internet Explorer, and that Microsoft recommends to use the new Microsoft Edge for all web browsing.

 

Meanwhile, in Internet Explorer.

 

 

An error page is displayed in Internet Explorer stating that the site in question is incompatible and cannot be opened in the browser.

The website you were trying to reach doesn't work with Internet Explorer

 

You've been redirected to Microsoft Edge where you can continue your browsing uninterrupted.

Microsoft created three policies to manage redirects from Internet Explorer to the Microsoft Edge web browser. The new policies will be available as ADMX file updates by October 26, 2020 according to this Docs page.

• RedirectSitesFromInternetExplorerRedirectMode -- Disable this policy to disable the automatic redirection functionality from IE to Edge.
• RedirectSitesFromInternetExplorerPreventBHOInstall -- The automatic redirects require a Browser Helper Object nammed IEtoEdge BHO. This policy can be enabled to uninstall (or not install) the BHO in IE. Users continue to receive incompatibility messages but they won't be redirected automatically.
• HideInternetExplorerRedirectUXForIncompatibleSitesEnabled -- When enabled, users won't see the redirection banner or the first-time overlay. User data is not imported. In other words, redirects happen without notification in Edge.

 

 

Internet Explorer users will be redirected to Microsoft Edge if incompatible sites are opened

 

[steven36]

Microsoft drives users to the Edge: Internet Explorer to redirect to Chromium-based browser in November

 

'Hey, you folks heard that there's this virus starting to spread?' – IE, probably

 

 

 

Microsoft will forcibly push users off Internet Explorer and onto Edge next month, depending on the websites they visit.

 

Users will find that after they download and install the latest version of Edge, version 87, if they open one of a 1,000-plus websites declared to be “incompatible” with Internet Explorer, the page will automatically open in Edge instead.

 

The sites in question vary from Apple.com, Twitter, and YouTube to much smaller ones – the full list is available online. El Reg is not on the list, but then again, it appears most or all of the media isn't.

 

It’s not clear how Microsoft decides which to add to the list or how often it updates the list with new ones, though the policy has already caused plenty of problems in the four-month test lead-up, with users complaining that the Edge version of the site they were pushed to is the one that doesn’t work, while the Explorer version does.

 

The code that forces the shift is in a Windows DLL file named ie_to_edge_bho.dll, and works as an Internet Explorer plugin. Even though it is downloaded with Edge, it is loaded via a registry key inside Internet Explorer, with the result that users will not be able to go back to viewing certain websites in Explorer.

 

The code that forces the shift is in a Windows DLL file named ie_to_edge_bho.dll, and works as an Internet Explorer plugin. Even though it is downloaded with Edge, it is loaded via a registry key inside Internet Explorer, with the result that users will not be able to go back to viewing certain websites in Explorer.

 

There are workarounds if you don't want to use the Chromium-based Edge: Microsoft has provided a guide for sysadmins to apply group policies that will allow the redirect to happen with a warning, or without a warning, or stop the redirect altogether. Non-enterprise customers that want to stop the redirect will either have to dig around in the registry or uninstall Edge.

End of support

The move from test program to fully fledged redirect rollout coincides with the official start to the end of Microsoft’s support for Internet Explorer 11.

 

Beginning November 30, 2020, the Microsoft Teams web app will no longer support IE11. From August 2021, the remaining Microsoft 365 apps and services will no longer support IE11. And from March 2021, the Microsoft Edge Legacy desktop app (non-Chromium version) will not receive new security updates.

 

In between, users will find more and more things stop working on IE11. But perhaps the biggest shift for the average user will come next month when websites they use every day are redirected to Edge.

 

It also means that if you specifically designed your website to work with Internet Explorer, something that used to be common during the browser wars, it’s time to rebuild it to work on Chromium.

 

Source