Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#51

Post by PreInternet01 » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

nimbius wrote: post #45

PreInternet01 wrote: post #5

More correct albeit less clickbaity headline: recent builds of Microsoft Edge will uninstall any remnants of Internet Explorer from your PC and replace them with compatibility shims, so most legacy apps should continue to work as-is. 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 explicit…

>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…

> 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...

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#52

Post by MarkusWandel » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 6:09 PM UTC

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.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#53

Post by unxdfa » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 6:11 PM UTC

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.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#54

Post by lockhouse » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 6:17 PM UTC

athorax wrote: post #29

skc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Edge. Been pleasantly surprised by it myself.

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.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#55

Post by pantulis » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 6:21 PM UTC

PreInternet01 wrote: post #51

nimbius wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> 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 versio…

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.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#56

Post by andrepd » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

nimbius wrote: post #45

PreInternet01 wrote: post #5

More correct albeit less clickbaity headline: recent builds of Microsoft Edge will uninstall any remnants of Internet Explorer from your PC and replace them with compatibility shims, so most legacy apps should continue to work as-is. 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 explicit…

>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…

What an amazing read.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#57

Post by pantulis » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 6:23 PM UTC

teroszsegv wrote: post #37

sys32768 wrote: post #11

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?

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#58

Post by pantulis » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 6:24 PM UTC

skc wrote: post #13

athorax wrote: post #7

Take edge with it, please and thank you

What's wrong with Edge. Been pleasantly surprised by it myself.

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.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#59

Post by tsimionescu » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 6:24 PM UTC

lockhouse wrote: post #54

athorax wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> and set it as the default.

For a while...

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#60

Post by horsawlarway » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 6:25 PM UTC

nimbius wrote: post #45

PreInternet01 wrote: post #5

More correct albeit less clickbaity headline: recent builds of Microsoft Edge will uninstall any remnants of Internet Explorer from your PC and replace them with compatibility shims, so most legacy apps should continue to work as-is. 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 explicit…

>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…

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...

---

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.