WebProNews

Tag: Internet Explorer 11

  • Internet Explorer 11 Gets Enterprise Mode

    Microsoft announced that it has launched an update to Internet Explorer 11 with an Enterprise Mode feature aimed at helping businesses keep up to date with software, service, and device releases. It’s available on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. Microsoft says it provides better compatibility for older versions of IE and tools to manage which Web apps use it.

    “Businesses can benefit from the modern Web standards, better performance, and increased security of our latest browser, while extending existing investments in legacy Web apps. And by decreasing dependencies on older versions, Internet Explorer is helping customers stay up-to-date with Windows 8.1, services like Office 365, and devices like the Surface Pro 2,” say IE program manager lead Kevin Miller and product marketing manager Fred Pullen in a joint blog post.

    “Many businesses are experiencing tension between today’s Web apps and services—which may require modern standards like HTML5 and CSS3—and older Web apps and services, designed for older versions of Internet Explorer,” the add. “Legacy apps often represent a significant investment and have long, multi-year lifecycles, effectively making these customers dependent on an older version of Internet Explorer until they can upgrade these Web apps to modern Web standards.”

    Enterprise Mode

    They note that many businesses are still using Internet Explorer 8, and that IE 11 with Enterprise Mode can provide better backward compatibility. They get into more technical details about how it does this in the post.

    You’ll also learn more about the feature from this session from Microsoft’s Build conference called “Better APp Compat with Enterprise Mode for Internet Explorer 11” when it becomes available.

    A Windows 8.1 update for iE 11 is available for download, with automatic updates starting April 8th for Windows 7 and 8.1. A Windows Phone 8.1 version was also announced. More on the browser itself here.

    Images via Microsoft

  • Internet Explorer Thinks Its Time To Rethink The Modern Web

    Internet Explorer has come a long way since it became the butt of every Internet browser joke back in the mid-2000s. While it’s still looked down upon by those who use any other browser, Microsoft has transformed what was once an objectively bad browser into a pretty good one. Heck, it has even has its own official magical girl mascot – no other browser can claim that.

    It’s with that in mind that Microsoft is kicking off 2014 with its Rethink campaign for Internet Explorer. While we’ve had some laughs with the company’s previous “Browser you loved to hate” campaign, it now wants to focus on what Internet Explorer 11 can bring to a user’s Web experience. With support for pretty much every modern Web technology, including WebGL, Internet Explorer 11 wants to win hearts and minds this year.

    In the latest promo video, Microsoft points to all the Web apps that show off the power of Internet Explorer 11. Unsurprisingly, most of the apps are games as the complex 3D rendering made possible through WebGL just shows how far Internet Explorer has come.

    So, what’s next for Internet Explorer? Microsoft says that 2014 has it “more excited than ever at the possibilities,” but doesn’t provide any specifics on what it may be working on. While it may have just been a promotion, I wouldn’t complain if Microsoft decided to bring back SkiFree in 2014.

    Image via internetexplorer/YouTube

  • Internet Explorer 11 Now Hits Window 7 Officially

    Internet Explorer 11 has now been launched for Window 7 users too. Earlier, Microsoft had promised that the new Explorer will arrive on Windows 7, so this isn’t a big surprise. IE11 is the default browser of Windows 8.1. Starting Thursday, users of Window 7 who decided to remain behind in the launch of Windows 8 (later 8.1) will now enjoy the features of IE11 as well.

    Although there isn’t much difference between IE11 from its previous versions, IE11 is a worthy upgrade for anyone using Windows 7. However, Microsoft says that the javascript engine of IE11 is almost 10% faster than IE10 and 30% faster than browsers like Chrome and Firefox.

    The new Explorer also supports most of the newest apps and plugins like HTML5 video without plugins as well as the latest version of WebGL. There are other subtle upgrades to IE11 that will create the feeling of faster browsing. Improvements include its prefetching capabilities as well as updates to F12 developer tools for Microsoft. One drawback, however, is that IE11 doesn’t support Google’s SPDY protocol.

    Another interesting feature of IE11 is its enhanced security features that are capable of blocking socially engineered malware. According to the NSS Labs study, Internet Explorer can block about 99 % of malware while Firefox blocks only 4% and Chrome blocks only 70% of the socially engineered malware. Similar percentages apply in terms of blocking phishing attacks. In short, IE11 offers advanced JavaScript performance, better security and ensures greater compatibility and interoperability.

    According to Internet Explorer group program managers Rob Mauceri and Sandeep Singhal, Microsoft will begin automatically  updating Windows 7 customers to IE11 in the weeks ahead, starting today (Thursday) with customers running the IE11 Developer and Release Previews,” Users can download the new Internet Explorer 11 from Microsoft’s website.

    (image from Microsoft.com)

  • Internet Explorer 11 Adds Better Accessibility Features For The Blind

    The blind and visually impaired are criminally overlooked as technology progresses. There’s been a few improvements to how computers behave to help those with visual impairments, but you could easily argue that not enough is being done to improve accessibility. Microsoft must feel the same way as it’s adding a number of improvements to its latest browser to address these issues.

    Microsoft announced today that Internet Explorer 11 will ship with new accessibility features for the blind and visually impaired. Most of these new features take advantage of Windows Narrator to alert visually impaired users of when mistakes are made, or that they’re on the right track when typing in a foreign language.

    First up, IE11 will now screen readers to alert users to the following:

  • Auto-correct: Internet Explorer auto-corrects misspelled words. For example, if a user types “teh” in English, it will be corrected to “the.” IE11 adds a new notification so screen readers can inform users that auto-correct is happening.
  • Backspace: As a user types, the screen reader announces each keystroke. However, simply hearing ‘backspace’ announced is not particularly helpful because it is hard to know what is being deleted. IE11 notifies the screen reader which letter was deleted, so it can be announced.
  • Formatting: When reading or writing an email or other Web content, users need to understand the formatting of the message, not just the raw text. IE11 provides more detailed notifications to screen readers, so users can better understand the content they are reading or editing. For example, Microsoft Narrator says “bold” and “end bold” to let the user know that a section of text was emphasized with bold styling. You can try it out for yourself in Microsoft Narrator by enabling Verbose Mode using Caps Lock + A.

    • You can see this in action below:

    The other big change are for those users typing in an East Asian language on an English keyboard. Here’s how it works:

    Input Method Editors (IMEs) are used to type East Asian languages using a typical English keyboard. For example, using the Japanese IME, a user can type a Japanese character phonetically (“su”), and the IME will display a list of candidates for the corresponding Japanese character (す). With IE11, screen readers can now read the candidate characters to the user.

    You can see this in action below:

    All the above improvements will be available in Internet Explorer 11, which launches with Windows 8.1 on October 17.

    [Image: internetexplorer/YouTube]

  • Microsoft Brings SkiFree Back For Internet Explorer 11 Promo

    Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it was bringing back Windows 95 pack-in game Hover as an HTML5-powered Web-based game to show off the capabilities of Internet Explorer 11. That’s all well and good, but I think many of us would have preferred it if Microsoft brought back another one of its more beloved pack in games – SkiFree.

    In a twist of luck, Microsoft has started up a campaign called #NewAndImproved to hammer home the idea that Internet Explorer 11 is the best thing ever. While that may not be the case, the ads that accompany it certainly are. For instance, here’s what Microsoft envisions a new and improved version of SkiFree would look like:

    I personally enjoyed the actual skiing aspects of SkiFree, but I can’t deny it – a game starring the infamous yeti could be the best game ever made. Unfortunately, it’s not real and probably won’t be unless some SkiFree superfan approaches Microsoft about making a sequel. I’d be all for it, but I don’t know if we could deal with a new generation of children growing up in fear of yetis.

    As an added bonus, Microsoft also came up with a way to make brushing your teeth more fun. Can’t say I’m a fan, but some toothbrush manufacturer is probably now kicking his/herself over not coming up with something like it sooner:

    [Image: internetexplorer/YouTube]

  • Internet Explorer 11 Release Preview Now Available On Windows 7

    For the past few months, Windows 8.1 Release Preview users have been able to test drive the latest Internet Explorer – IE11. Now Windows 7 users are getting that same opportunity.

    Microsoft announced today that the Internet Explorer 11 Release Preview is now available on Windows 7. The latest iteration of Microsoft’s browser claims to be 30 percent faster than other browsers. It also supports the latest Web technologies, including native WebGL.

    To coincide with the launch of IE11 Release Preview, Microsoft has released another ad as part of its Browser You Loved To Hate campaign. Unlike previous ads that sought to inject a little humor into Internet Explorer’s past reputation, this latest ad features “what ten people and a dog think about Internet Explorer.” Spoilers: They seem to like it.

    The cynical among you will think that Microsoft just went with those that liked Internet Explorer 11 for your ad, and you would most likely be right. That doesn’t invalidate all the work Microsoft has been putting into Internet Explorer though. With IE11, Microsoft seems to have finally caught up with Chrome and Firefox in terms of HTML5 support with WebGL support being the biggest addition.

    If you want to see how IE11 performs against other browsers for yourself, check out Microsoft’s PirateMarrrk benchmark. It will test your browser’s HTML5, JavaScript and Scalable Vector Graphics performance.

    [Image: Microsoft]

  • Is Native WebGL Support Coming To Internet Explorer 11?

    For all of its talk of supporting open Web standards, Internet Explorer 10 still lacked one important part of the open Web ecosystem – WebGL. Sure, you could add it with a plugin, but Microsoft refused to add native support while Mozilla and Google do amazing things with it. That all may change, however, with Windows Blue.

    Fremycompany reports that Internet Explorer 11, as seen in the recent leak of Windows Blue, contains hints in its code that Microsoft will finally be adding native support for WebGL. The only problem is that it’s not entirely functional yet:

    I didn’t get webgl working, even by trying using iesl, hlsl and other combinations. So, it seems like WebGL interfaces are defined but not functional at this time.

    As CNET points out, Microsoft did have a good reason to keep WebGL out of Internet Explorer until now. The company called it out as a security risk, and was concerned that malicious actors could hijack browsers using the technology. Still, this latest hint of incoming support may mean that Microsoft has patched up all the security holes it was concerned about.

    There’s not much more to go on at this time beyond the initial hints, but it would be incredibly advantageous for the Web if Internet Explorer finally added native WebGL support. It’s quickly becoming one of the more important open Web standards as more people use it to make games and other graphic intensive content on the Web without plugins.

    We’ve reached out to Microsoft to see if the Internet Explorer team is working on native WebGL support. We’ll update this story if they get back to us.