14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft Edge is Microsoft’s modern bet in the browser market, so Internet Explorer is just an old application with absolutely no future right now.
In other words, if you’re using Internet Explorer, you’d better start considering the switch to Microsoft Edge, as this is the only Microsoft browser that’s getting love these days.
The Redmond-based tech giant is trying to make the experience overall as straightforward as possible, and as part of its commitment to the new Edge, it also developed a way to automatically redirect Internet Explorer users to the new browser whenever an incompatible site is loaded.
What this means is that Internet Explorer can now automatically launch Microsoft Edge if you point the browser to a website that doesn’t support it.
You must be running Microsoft Edge stable version 87 or later for the whole thing.
“Many modern websites have designs that are incompatible with Internet Explorer. Whenever an Internet Explorer user visits an incompatible public site, they get a message that tells them the site is incompatible with their browser, and they need to manually switch to a different browser,” Microsoft explains.
“The need to manually switch to a different browser changes starting with Microsoft Edge Stable version 87. When a user goes to a site that is incompatible with Internet Explorer, they will be automatically redirected to Microsoft Edge. This article describes the user experience for redirection and the group policies that are used to configure or disable automatic redirection.”
How the whole thing works is pretty straightforward. As noticed by BornCity, a support document published by Microsoft reveals that the company has created a list of all websites that are considered to be incompatible with Internet Explorer. When the browser detects that the user tries to load it, Internet Explorer checks to see if Microsoft Edge 87 is installed on the device. If it is, IE launches Microsoft Edge and loads the said page in the browser.
A notification is shown on the screen to let users know that the website they tried to load does not support Internet Explorer. Interestingly enough, once Edge is loaded, the browser also imports all browsing data from Internet Explorer, essentially preparing a full-time migration toe the new browser.
“On redirection to Microsoft Edge, users are shown the one-time dialog in the next screenshot. This dialog explains why they're getting redirected and prompts for consent to copy their browsing data and preferences from Internet Explorer to Microsoft Edge. The following browsing data will be imported: Favorites, Passwords, Search engines, open tabs, History, settings, cookies, and the Home Page,” Microsoft explains.
“When a site is redirected from Internet Explorer to Microsoft Edge, the Internet Explorer tab that started loading the site is closed if it had no prior content. Otherwise, the active tab view goes to a Microsoft support page that explains why the site was redirected to Microsoft Edge.”
While it’s pretty clear that the purpose here is to move users to Microsoft Edge, Microsoft explains that when you’re done with the incompatible page, you can just return to Internet Explorer for your browsing needs, as long as you load compatible websites.
Microsoft has also announced three group policies for IT admins that can be used to enable automatic redirection to Microsoft Edge:
- RedirectSitesFromInternetExplorerPreventBHOInstall
- RedirectSitesFromInternetExplorerRedirectMode
- HideInternetExplorerRedirectUXForIncompatibleSitesEnabled
The migration to the Chromium engine, the same one that’s powering Google Chrome and several other high-profile browsers, allowed Microsoft Edge to become a cross-platform offering. So in addition to Windows 10, Microsoft Edge can also be installed on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and macOS. More recently, the Redmond-based software giant also released a preview build of Microsoft Edge for Linux, with the stable version expected in the coming months.