Phenquestions
Work on the Chromium-based version of Microsoft Edge continues. Microsoft has published beta versions of the upcoming web browser for various operating systems up until now. The company uses the same classifications as Google to differentiate between different test versions.
Microsoft Edge Canary is the cutting edge version; other beta versions are Microsoft Edge Dev and Beta. The final version has not been released yet and many expect its initial release when Microsoft releases the first feature update of 2020 for Windows 10.
Tip: here are 8 ways in which Microsoft Edge Chromium is better than Google Chrome.
Microsoft revealed plans for the Enterprise version of Microsoft Edge recently on the Microsoft Edge Dev blog. A roadmap highlights features that are available already in Enterprise versions of Edge and features that will be available soon or in the future.
The features will be Enterprise-exclusive and one of the listed features is support for Internet Explorer mode.
Put simply, Internet Explorer mode is designed to load certain resources such as internal websites using Microsoft's Internet Explorer rendering engine automatically in Microsoft Edge. A one-browser solution that makes things more comfortable for users and less error-prone at the same time as it is no longer required to use two-browsers for that purpose.
Internet Explorer mode is a compatibility mode to load webpages that require certain technologies, e.g. ActiveX or Browser Helper Objects, to avoid compatibility issues.
Microsoft Edge cannot load these by default because it does not support certain technologies that Internet Explorer supports.
IE Mode requires that administrators enable the policy "Configure Internet Explorer integration" and define the sites that should be loaded automatically in the mode. Two options, loading all Intranet sites or specifying sites using the Enterprise Site List XML, are available.
Internet Explorer mode was available in non-Enterprise versions of Microsoft Edge previously, and part of the confusion surrounding it came from that integration.
Techdows managed to get an answer from Microsoft about it. Microsoft stated that the entry was added to these versions for "internal debugging purposes only". The company removed it when IE mode was released officially.
That menu entry was always intended only for internal debugging purposes, and we've removed it now that IE mode is formally released. IE mode is a enterprise-only feature. Only the admin controls whether a site ends up in IE mode or not (this is key to the security model).
Administrators of Enterprise machines can check out the official IE Mode guide on the Microsoft Docs website. Note that IE Mode is only available on Windows 10 devices running at least Windows 10 version 1809.
Internet Explorer remains an option on Windows 10 and previous versions of Windows. Web developers may use it to test webpages and everyone else may use it to load Internet sites just fine. It is certainly possible that public sites will only load in Internet Explorer.
