It has finally happened. The process of decommissioning the old trusty Internet Explorer has begun.
Microsoft announced on the 17th of August that Micrsoft 365 will lose its support for Internet Explorer on August 17th, 2021. This is a quite tremendous change for many organizations, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Internet Explorer will be phased out eventually. Also, the “old” Edge will reach its end of life March 9th, 2021.
Back when Windows 10 launched, there were a lot of buzz around the new, improved, browser Edge. However, it never took of (I however really liked it). A lot of business systems where built back when Internet Explorer was the thing and not always have the effort been put into adopting it to modern web.
With Windows 10, something called Enterprise Site Mode list was introduced, which was basically a XML list of sites where if you tried to go to them using Edge you would get redirected to Internet Explorer since that site was on your “not compatible” list for Edge.
We used this to a limited extent at my previous employer, but Internet Explorer was the default browser since we had no clue what other systems would have issues if we transitioned to Edge (or Chrome for that matter).
However, that was a few years ago and a lot has happened to Edge and there is a new Chromium (Chrome) based version out which is really good! And if you are a fan of the Chrome browser, but don’t want to have yet another browser installed to confuse your users, the new improved Edge is the way to go. It’s Chrome, but in a Microsoft shell (and you have Azure AD support without any extension).
But what does this all mean?
It means that it’s time to take the bull by its horn and start moving away from Internet Explorer as the default browser. The death of Internet Explorer is yet not announced in any shape or form but losing support for Microsoft 365 services is a major step in that direction.
The first step you need to take is to change into modern browser as the default for all your users. Since I’m a Microsoft advocate, I would suggest looking at the new Edge if you haven’t done so yet.
The new Edge comes for all supported Windows platforms, but also macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS. You could have the same browser for all corporate web interactions on all platforms (and of course directing mobile devices traffic using Application Protection Policies).
Also, deploying Microsoft Edge out to your clients is easy. If you are using Microsoft Intune to manage your devices, Edge for Windows is part of the “App type” to make it even easier to deploy.
What is your default browser today and are you looking to shift to the new Microsoft Edge?
Comment below!
