Web Sites and a Plug-in Free Web
The transition to a plug-in free Web is happening today. Any site that uses plug-ins needs to understand what their customers experience when browsing plug-in free. Lots of Web browsing today happens on devices that simply don’t support plug-ins. Even browsers that do support plug-ins offer many ways to run plug-in free.
Metro style IE runs plug-in free to improve battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers. Previously, we wrote about how we use IE’s Compatibility View List to make sure sites that have a plug-in free experience for other browsers provide that same experience to IE10 users. This post describes a way for sites that continue to rely on plug-ins to provide consumers browsing with Metro style IE the best possible experience.
Developers with sites that need plug-ins can use an HTTP header or meta tag to signal Metro style Internet Explorer to prompt the user.
HTTP Header
X-UA-Compatible: requiresActiveX=true
META Tag
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="requiresActiveX=true" />
Metro style IE10 detects these flags, and provides the consumer a one-touch option to switch to IE10 on the desktop:
In addition to respecting these X-UA-Compatible flags specified by the developer, the Compatibility View List can also specify a site that needs to run in the desktop.
This mechanism provides a short-term mitigation. The desktop browsing experience and most plug-ins were not designed for smaller screens, battery constraints, and no mouse. Providing an easy way to the Windows desktop is the last resort when no comparable plug-in free fallback content exists.
A plug-in free Web benefits consumers and developers and we all take part in the transition. IE10 makes it easy to provide the best possible experience while you migrate your site.
—John Hrvatin, Program Manager Lead, Internet Explorer
Comments
Anonymous
January 31, 2012
What about sites like Netflix? They can't switch to HTML5 video because their content providers won't license their IP for DRM-free distribution. Whatever the rights and wrongs of DRM, this puts those sites in a awkward position. It seems likely that content will disappear from the web and only be available through apps. Or maybe that's the idea here?Anonymous
January 31, 2012
I'm afraid that, even if you were right to ask everyone to move away from plugins, it does not mean that the world will follow you. But, okay, let's see how things are headed.Anonymous
January 31, 2012
Plus, if you're making your browser advertise itself as "iPad" or "FireFox", you should support prefixed properties for the browser, too. Do you do that?Anonymous
January 31, 2012
Maybe the point is that like on the iPad Netflix should write an app?Anonymous
January 31, 2012
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January 31, 2012
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January 31, 2012
Can you AUTO-DETECT as well and show this prompt? The header approach is very nice BUT requiring billions of old sites to add this header is asking alot!!!Anonymous
January 31, 2012
Right, as others have said - if you need to extend the browser then write an app. The UX is better anyway.Anonymous
January 31, 2012
So IE10 is incompatible with the internet? Nice. I think this move is very bad for the future of the internet It encourages (and often requires) things to be built as apps rather than websites, which once again locks applications into specific OS's and kills the openness of the web. The user as well as the user experience, pays a heavy toll with this approach, one we can't get back once we start down the road. Microsoft and IE need to be more responsible than this.Anonymous
January 31, 2012
I am so happy about this. Long live the apps!Anonymous
January 31, 2012
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January 31, 2012
Well said Tyler!Anonymous
January 31, 2012
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January 31, 2012
Plugins can be made opt-in for each loading of a webpage. Though plugins are installed in browser, they should not load into webpages automatically. "This page requires xyz plugin - allow/block/hide" notice will come every time a webpage that needs plugins loads. This format will help in phone browsers too.Anonymous
January 31, 2012
Are you familiar with Lawrence's Law: http://www.lawrenceslaw.com/Anonymous
January 31, 2012
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January 31, 2012
Please provide us with a "New Download" (or Create Download) button in IE's download manager, so the user can enlist the download by manually entering the URL to save a file, resource or the entire webpage within the download manager. Also, introduce the paste shortcut Ctrl+V in download manager for a single entry and Ctrl+Shift+V for batch entries.Anonymous
January 31, 2012
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January 31, 2012
just use another browser if microsoft ever stops using desktop ie and if microsoft ever stops having the desktop environment it is time to dump microsoftAnonymous
January 31, 2012
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January 31, 2012
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January 31, 2012
@N. Sun, So by your logic both iOS and future Android users cannot access the web well, but in reality it doesn't seem the case.Anonymous
January 31, 2012
hummmm.... plugin-free... Silverlight... interestingAnonymous
January 31, 2012
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January 31, 2012
So...how do you play games on websites such as ArmorGames or Kongregate? You wait for developers to rewrite everything in JS/.NET/C++ and submit an app for Win8? Great! ...get real.Anonymous
January 31, 2012
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January 31, 2012
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February 01, 2012
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February 01, 2012
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February 01, 2012
@IETeam Please look into the Back button issue. I am getting this problem very often. I navigate to a page. Then, I click Back and nothing happens. When I click and hold the Back button, I find that, before the previous "actual" page, there are lots of entries for (I think) all the ads and AJAX requests that might have been generated in this page. I have to manually click-and-hold and choose the previous proper page to go to it. It is really frustrating!Anonymous
February 01, 2012
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February 01, 2012
When is WebGL coming to IE?Anonymous
February 01, 2012
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February 01, 2012
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February 02, 2012
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February 02, 2012
Will IE10 support windowless plugins? I currently support such a plugin (ActiveX) that does not display a window, but is used to interface to our application. Web page clients can use the plugin to get data from the application and process/render that data however they like (using HTML5 canvas, for example). Thanks very much.Anonymous
February 02, 2012
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February 02, 2012
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February 02, 2012
Can the current browser IE 9 be fixed so it supports the current version of the History specification before rushing on to the next yet to be delivered version. DOM manipulation performance also that matches the current version of Chrome. These will be the tests of valuable applications delivered in a browser that are possible using current plug-ins and that do not seem possible with existing browser software. Remember the old IBM advert when ecommerce came to the web pointing out the difference between a flaming gif which looked good but was totally useless v being able to perform a business transaction.Anonymous
February 02, 2012
What happens if this occurs on an ARM based processor based tablet?Anonymous
February 02, 2012
How is internationalization / localization coming along so as to be able to parse, format and display date times and currencies correctly for the user? A write up of the current state of this would be helpful.Anonymous
February 02, 2012
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February 02, 2012
There's a reason why for years and years the tablet solutions never caught on, and then suddenly the iPad waltzes in and sells millions - they didn't try and run a desktop system on a tablet. Apple could see that it needs to be a completely different OS. Wake up and smell the coffee - time is running out...Anonymous
February 02, 2012
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February 02, 2012
For those of you who believe building native apps for each OS is economic I would consider Facebook's IPO at $100bn today; a business model built around the browser and web. This is nearly half MSFT's total market cap and with 800 million users. In China 6 million new users come online to the web each week at present.Anonymous
February 02, 2012
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February 02, 2012
Great! Now fix photosynth.netAnonymous
February 02, 2012
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February 03, 2012
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February 03, 2012
@vierkant I don't think it is accurate to say Adobe as a company is marginalized. Its value has increased by 17.5% in the last 6 months out performing the DOW and Microsoft. Apple does make aesthetically well designed hardware true. However as software company this does show that adopting a mantra as you say, of native only is the just future, is folly. I mean, as a OS vendor you are rather biased to say that aren't you? After all you want to attract great developers and software to give purpose to your platform. However as a developer and as a software application company it is not as clear cut these days. Can you say being able to switch on your new 60” Sony TV and access for all intents and purposes a native app running from the cloud or wherever is customer satisfaction I would say it has to be yes. If you then switch on your little Nintendo DS running an ARM processor and access this and the same data yes too. This can be all done today and whether it is going to get bigger and better we will have to see… (some recent POCs have been shared with Microsoft to show this is possible from Azure)Anonymous
February 03, 2012
Also @vierkant regarding "delivering customer satisfaction, performance, UX, taking advantage of new technology as it becomes available, customizing experience and delivering quality" as an example it is interesting to see how the Financial Times has chosen to move away from a native app and offer a new, faster, more complete app for the iPad and iPhone which is available via your browser rather than from an app store. Described by them as "A better, faster app." The maths would appear simple, why develop for one platform when you can develop for two for pretty much the same investment cost and there is little to stop you customizing specifically for a particular OS device, should you wish as they have done. Touch, zoom, fluid fast, no plugins, offline access and super rich content. (No I don't work for the FT). Is this the trend for the future or the exception? http://apps.ft.com/ftwebapp/Anonymous
February 03, 2012
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February 03, 2012
I have to break the bad news to you that silverlight is nothing but HTML, XAML and .NET, which are very much available when you create a XAML based app for win8 The is no better way to learn XAML then by creating silverlight application. Have fun developing silverlight applications. Http://Silverlightfun.comAnonymous
February 03, 2012
@benaw, webapps are indeed great (where they require plugins). I love them. Certainly, putting your content behind a "paywall" or requiring login is a no brainer for most content. However, the issue that was raised, and which I was specifically addressing was DRM. I am not sure that the FT content contains particular DRM on each and every piece of content -- just payment to get into the site or webapp.Anonymous
February 03, 2012
sorry, where they "don't require plugins"Anonymous
February 03, 2012
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February 03, 2012
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February 04, 2012
No plugins means no ad block, eh? I don't want to live on this planet anymore.Anonymous
February 04, 2012
IE9 don't work very good within my wordpress theme that I worked so hard, but my theme works in another browsers and IE8. I'm very sad with the new IE. I don't like this, cause it is a poor version.Anonymous
February 05, 2012
Just because you messed up doesn't mean IE9 is worse than IE8.Anonymous
February 05, 2012
No ad Block ? What ad do u wanna block if there is no FlashPlayer plugin ?Anonymous
February 05, 2012
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February 05, 2012
@Steve the technology has to do the job too. Some requirements may be quality of service requirements like performance, responsiveness and also cost factors such as speed of development with time to market and also total cost of ownership, so maintainability, tooling and testability are all criteria. It easy to compare the present with a vision of the future but is it a fair comparison?Anonymous
February 06, 2012
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February 06, 2012
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February 06, 2012
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February 06, 2012
@Ben If I was a Silverlight developer... I'd be brushing up on my HTML5 skills and getting as far away from Silverlight as I could (wouldn't want my Resume to be heavy with that info) The majority of apps these days on phones/tablets will run just fine in HTML5. Native gives more raw power... true... cause you're basically writing in C... but who wants to do that?... especially if you need to support all your users... desktop, tablet, and phone (across many devices/vendors/brands) The beauty in HTML5 (just like the Web in general) is that it just works... everywhere... if you write your site/app/game properly it just works... no need to re-write or be a master in (.Net for window, Java for android & blackberry, ??? for symbian/nokia, objective-c for iOS, ???? for mac, and ??? for linux) you just need to know HTML. Microsoft failed developers (even those in the MS fanboy club) with Silverlight - I'm just glad that chapter is over.Anonymous
February 06, 2012
Btw if you were a Silverlight developer too, perhaps you would't be so narrow-minded.Anonymous
February 07, 2012
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February 09, 2012
It's always obvious who is a serious programmer here and who is just swept up by the current hype and has no true experience. Anybody who says HTML5 "just works" or that you "write once and it works everywhere" is the latter. All browsers are different, and even with a spec each will be implemented differently (and even with a spec, odds are that some browsers will diverge: see Microsoft, Apple vs. Google on the video spec). Thus, HTML will always have instances where it works differently between browsers--this is something that can't be disputed because of the very nature of having different companies implement their own browser. Bring in the real-world fact that many people need to have applications work in older browsers, and you're especially guaranteed that you're going to have to tweak your HTML to make sure you get the same experience in all browsers/versions/OSes. Add in javascript (even with jQuery) and CSS, and you're going to spend most of your time just getting even the most simple functionality working in the full matrix. This is where plugins come in as indispensable--especially on serious LOB applications where users wouldn't even want to use in a touch interface environment no matter how popular they are (Visual Studio, many true business apps, etc.). Unlike HTML, Silverlight is a true write-once and work everywhere (PC, Mac, even Linux) in both web application form AND desktop application form (with absolutely no code changes). HTML, javascript, CSS is fine for trivial applications. But if you need to write serious LOB applications that work on anything but the smallest browser matrix, you're going to need a large team to build, test and maintain. Unfortunately, a lot of higher ups at Microsoft don't know this and are thinking the same as other un-informed individuals around here. Thus the work on Silverlight has stopped. Luckily, they've declared support for another decade, and luckily Silverlight already does more right now than HTML5 ever will--including working in IE7, etc. Luckily, those smart enough to use Silverlight for their applications can still support them for quite a while; in fact, SL will be supported almost as long as HTML5 will not be suitable as a true, fully available platform (2022, as dictated by the actual HTML5 authors). But even then, odds are that development tools for html-based projects still won't be up to par with today's compiled language tools (just basing on the fact that HTML has been out for how long now and still doesn't have tools, testing, etc. anywhere close to what C#, etc. has in just the last few years). -A developer who spends a lot of time in HTML. Is it just me, or do all people named "Steve" have a really false sense of reality when it comes to plug-ins and HTML? I've counted at least three thus far. I'd be happy to XP pair with any of them to show them how things work at the developer's level (the level that Microsoft used to care about).Anonymous
February 09, 2012
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February 12, 2012
@Edward Smarter developer didn´t use HTML :)