Stop using Internet Explorer; that's the plea from one Microsoft developer.
Eric Lawrence, principal program manager, worked as a developer on IE7 through IE10 before moving to Google to work on Chrome. He rejoined Microsoft in 2018 to work on Edge, helping to develop the Chromium-version that has just shipped. And that's the one he wants you to use.
"It’s with love that I beg you… please let Internet Explorer retire to the great bitbucket in the sky," Lawrence writes on his blog. "It’s time. It’s been time for a long time."
There are reasons some companies still keep using IE, notably that they have apps or architectures built atop that browser. On the latter point, Lawrence notes: "Companies in the trust space should not be built atop insecure technologies."
For apps, Lawrence notes that the new version of Edge has an IE mode. "You can configure your users so that Edge will use an Internet Explorer tab when loading those sites, directly within Edge itself," he explains.
While that still has risks, he admits, it's reduced versus running an entire instance of IE.
"Any use of an ancient web engine poses some risk, but IE Mode dramatically reduces the risk, by ensuring that only sites selected by the IT Administrator load in IE mode," he writes. "Everything else seamlessly transitions back to the modern, performant and secure Chromium Edge engine."
Microsoft unveiled the Chromium-based version of its Edge browser earlier this month, and IE was retired back in 2015, though version 11 is still supported for recent versions of Windows.
However, according to Net Applications' Market Share figures, 7.4% of web users are still on IE — two percentage points more than Microsoft's Edge, which was first released in 2015. That's despite frequent zero-day flaws being spotted in the older browser.
