

This way you’ll be able to cover a variety of possible user journeys for customers relying on Microsoft Edge in IE with both manual and automated testing. We also encourage you to take a look at the detailed Internet Explorer desktop app retirement FAQ posted by Microsoft.

Once you have the browser running, you can set up different policies that allow you to run all the sites from your intranet in IE mode. So how can enterprises manage quality for customers using Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge in IE Mode?Įnsuring quality is still possible, even for these customersįirst, make sure that you’re running at least these versions of Windows and have downloaded Microsoft Edge. Updating Your Tests for Microsoft Edge on IE ModeĪutomated cross-browser tests in mabl are a fast, easy way to scale your testing strategy across the major browsers and ensure every customer has a delightful experience on your website. The browser works with a Chromium engine by default, but you can now launch any URL in “IE Mode,” which would switch to the Trident MSHTML engine, the very same engine used by IE11. IE Mode in Edge allows users to shift away from the now-unsupported IE desktop app to the newer Microsoft Edge experience while still respecting legacy applications.

To bridge the gap between IE and Edge, Microsoft has introduced a novel solution: IE Mode. Despite IE’s fall from dominance, many organizations still rely on IE-based websites and applications - Microsoft found that enterprises have an average of 1,678 legacy apps based on Internet Explorer.

At its peak, IE accounted for a whopping 96% of web browser usage, meaning that many web applications were built primarily - or even exclusively - to function best on that browser. Of course, outright retiring Internet Explorer isn’t truly possible. Exploring the Edge of Quality User Experiences If your customers are heavily represented in that 1.65%, you need a cross-browser test strategy that assures they have a positive user experience, even as Microsoft transitions users from Internet Explorer to Microsoft Edge. Within the 1.65% of Internet Explorer loyalists are enterprise users that can only use Microsoft products at work, customers relying on web apps that only work on IE 11, and perhaps a few consumers still yearning for the 2000s-era Internet. But as every QA professional knows, general consumer trends matter far less than the behavior of your actual customers. From this point onward, there will be no more new IE updates, no more IE11 desktop app, and a gradual redirect from the IE11 app to Microsoft Edge for all devices.įor the 98.35% of consumers relying on other browsers, this shift is largely a non-event. Last week marked the end of an era: Microsoft officially retired Internet Explorer as a separate browser and folded it into Microsoft Edge.
