Build 2019: New feature for Microsoft Edge, R.I.P. IE 11

[German]At the Build 2019 developer conference, Microsoft also gave some information about upcoming features for Microsoft Edge – and at the same time heralded the end of Internet Explorer announcing an IE mode in Edge.

In December of last year, Microsoft announced that it would use the open source Chromium project in the further development of Microsoft Edge for the desktop. I had blogged about that within the article Does Microsoft kill Edge for a chromium based browser?  As part of Build 2019, Microsoft has now announced a bunch of new features for the upcoming version of the browser under Windows 10.

IE R.I.P. – Edge gets IE mode

Internet Explorer 11 is still widely used in enterprise environments – too many applications requires this browser. On the other hand, Microsoft has not developed this browser further for a long time, but relies on Microsoft Edge – now with the chromium engine. 

The IE mode for the Microsoft Edge browser was announced for this target group. This mode is aimed at more than 60 percent of companies that use multiple browsers today. IE mode integrates Internet Explorer as a tab in Microsoft Edge. This allows companies to run old websites and Internet Explorer-based applications in a modern browser. Edge will use the Internet Explorer rendering engine to do this. Microsoft will integrate IE directly into Edge for this purpose, so companies will not be forced to use IE directly for old internal websites.

(IE mode in Edge, Source: Microsoft, Click to size)

The Verge has published this article with an interview with Joe Belfiore about Edge Chromium. In the animated GIF image shown above you can see that the IE mode in the Edge is automatically called when you switch to a corresponding web page. The mode can be recognized by a blue e-symbol in the address bar in front of the URL.

This new IE mode has been developed exclusively for companies, according to Belfiore in The Verge interview. Belfiore admits that it is a big step to get companies to use Edge Chromium instead of a combination of Chrome and Internet Explorer. “We have a regularly updated browser for you that runs on Windows 7 and the Mac that does things like the IT customization of the new tab and Microsoft Search as well as the built-in IE,” says Belfiore The Verge.

According to The Verge, Microsoft also wants to allow companies to customize the new Edge Chromium tab. These include a custom company logo, the ability to load some websites into the top tabs, and integration with Microsoft Search and Office 365.

Collections in Edge

Collections is another new feature in Edge Chromium and is aimed at the flood of information on the web. Through Office integration, the new feature allows users to collect, organize, share, and export content more efficiently.

(Collections in Edge, Source: Microsoft/The Verge, Click to zoom)

According to The Verge users can more easily collect text, images and information from the Internet in a note. But the Collections feature goes beyond a simple note creation feature. In collections, Microsoft links the images that users drag and drop into these collections, and even text via references back to the original websites. Users can then email these collections to friends or family, or export them immediately to Word or Excel.

Privacy Tools in Edge

There are new privacy tools in Edge Chromium that give the user more control and transparency when using the browser. Additional control tools allow users to select three different levels of privacy in Microsoft Edge: unrestricted, balanced, and strict.

(Edge Privacy Tools, Source: Microsoft/The Verge, Click to size)

Depending on which option users choose, tracking of usage behavior for third parties will be limited accordingly. The following video introduces the planned Edge features.

(Source: YouTube)

Microsoft plans to introduce the new functions step by step. In addition to improved web compatibility for Edge users, Microsoft also intends to ensure that developers who have created Chromium compatible websites will also benefit from the same compatibility in Microsoft Edge without additional effort. More details about the new features for Microsoft Edge can be found in the Developer Blog. The latest browser preview builds can be downloaded from the Microsoft Edge Insider website.

Windows 10: No keyboard recording in Chromium browsers

Apart from the new announcements for Build 2019, I came across another topic at neowin.net. Even in incognito mode, where the Chromium Edge browser leaves no data traces, Windows 10 logs every keystroke. This should stop in the future – because according to the article Microsoft works on turning off the capture of keystrokes in future for incognito mode. Let’s hoped that this feature will also make it into the browser’s release.

By the way, a background article on why Microsoft suddenly crushed the Edge at the end of 2018 and relied on the Chromium Engine can be found in this The Verge article.

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