If you look at the market shares of individual desktop browsers with the assumption that you don't think of two different versions of the same browser as one browser, but as two, you will find that older versions of Internet Explorer are still very widespread, while other browsers have the latest version. What is the reason for this? The developers want everyone to have the latest version of everything if possible. Is it realistic? What prevents the current state of affairs from moving closer to this vision?
In the last part , I recalled the history of Internet Explorer and drew one lesson from it – two principles that the browser should follow in the same way as the mathematical calculation of invariants. If one of these principles is violated, the browser will no longer meet the expectations of its users. In this episode, however, I will not look at the browser as a user, but as the management of a company. It has completely different requirements for the browser.
Security Policy
While each user determines their own security policy, companies cannot afford to allow every employee to do anything. An ordinary employee usually does not have enough knowledge to correctly assess all the risks of their interventions in the system for the entire organization. From time to time, I hear how some employees were not careful, they did this and that on the computer, as a result of which the whole company collapsed. The company’s management can never find such a situation funny, so measures are introduced to ensure that the mistakes that everyone makes from time to time have as few consequences as possible, ideally none. Group Policy Management is used for this purpose.
Carefully plan your update
Intranet
There are several web servers, and quite a few, that are not connected to the Internet. They are accessible only from the network of the business company that operates them. This network usually extends across all its branches, so such a web application can function as a business application, as well as a desktop application. This creates a specific link for companies. One browser is used for both the Internet and the intranet.
Monopolies
Enterprise applications must work. Constantly and continuously. When a user comes across a page that doesn't work, they're with a competitor in seconds. But this is not the case in the corporate network. While it optimizes the application for end users for likability, the application for enterprises optimizes for functionality. And when an application works, there is really no reason to change anything. When something needs to be changed, it is because of the compatibility of new things with the old ones. And the price of new things will also reflect the price of replacement for old things. So guess whether the established system will take precedence, or the application that is being considered for possible deployment.
Training
From a certain number of employees, the cost of familiarizing them with the new system exceeds the purchase price of the system itself. So not only must strict software compatibility be maintained, but it is desirable that the user interface does not change. In practice, this means that it is almost impossible to replace an established system.
Support
When two systems work together, there is no need to solve anything, because it costs time and employees need to be paid for it. When a third system is deployed and it turns out that there is a mistake in one of the first two, it is natural to try to fix the error. But it rarely works. Either because repairing the first system breaks the second, or because the system cannot be repaired at all. Either the employee who created it no longer works for the company, or the company that supplied it no longer exists.
Savings
According to research commissioned by Microsoft from Forrester, 96% of businesses use one version of IE for a long time because it saves them money. For large enterprises, this can save up to $400,000 per year for each application. It is therefore not surprising that every browser update needs to be planned in advance and think about whether it is worth it at all. In addition to price, 4 factors come into play that influence each other. Internet Explorer, Applications, Hardware and Windows.
ActiveX
ActiveX is an interface through which an add-on can extend the browser. For example, Adobe Flash has three zero-day vulnerabilities on its score in the last month. I gave up trying to publish an article about each of them and instead just reminded them how to disable these supplements. ActiveX allows a lot, practically allowing you to control the entire browser, read and edit the displayed pages in it, and so on. But ActiveX was not designed for the Internet as we know it today. ActiveX allowed things that were not possible with HTML at that time. The most famous is probably Microsoft.XMLHTTP, which got into JavaScript as XMLHttpRequest. Another is ActiveMovie, which is inserted into the HTML as object with the identifier 22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95 and allows video playback. The same object is used by Windows Media Player. Today, this is done by the video tag. Internet Explorer must still support ActiveX. I've even heard of a case of one enterprise application where logging in is done in Flash.
How to upgrade
Enterprise Mode
Enterprise Mode is the enterprise mode of Internet Explorer. In this mode, Internet Explorer maintains backward compatibility with older versions, even in areas that were no longer supported by newer versions. The goal was to create a modern browser that retains the functionality of IE 8. For example, ActiveX blocking is not active in this mode and CSS Expressions are supported.
Enterprise Mode Site List Manager
In order to replace all versions of IE from version 8 onwards with the latest one, it is necessary to set a render mode for each application.
Site Discovery Toolkit
Since it’s clear that no one can know what mode apps are rendered in, there’s a tool called Site Discovery Toolkit. It sends data about which page was rendered in which mode to System Center Configuration Manager. It then shows how to set up the Site List Manager. It is available for IE8, IE9, IE10 and IE11.
Rendering modes
Why does only IE have render modes?
Because Safari, Firefox, Chrome and Sko use different mechanisms for backward compatibility. The biggest impact is probably the CSS feature box-**sizing, which ensures compatibility with old websites. This requires intervention in the page, but there is competition on the Internet that forces the operator to make this change.
Will Microsoft add more rendering modes to IE?
It won't. Versioning only works if there is something to version. It is not possible to version against many browsers. Simply because if the version number for a browser is incorrect, it will only be reflected in it. So in that case, one browser will always be disadvantaged and the others will be advantaged. And this is a game that browser manufacturers do not want to accept. And Microsoft, with its IE reputation, is not at all
Edge
The current rendering modes will therefore live out in Enterprise Mode and all of them will be replaced by only one new rendering mode. It’s called Edge and instead of versioning, it will use the same mechanisms that other browsers use.