Edge is dead! Long live Edge!

It is with somewhat of a quiet whimper that Microsoft’s Edge browser is shuffled off into the ever increasing list of unsupported Microsoft products. Well not really ‘gone’, more reborn. 

The original Edge browser that came out with Windows 10 in 2015 was retired on March 9th this year. It is fair to say Edge never really caught on as the defacto browser whether at home or within organisations – the former mainly going with Google’s Chrome and the latter sticking with Internet Explorer. The new Microsoft Edge (yes, they kept the name) is now based on Google’s own Chromium open source (yes, as used by Chrome). Well if you can’t beat them…

The really ‘interesting’ part to this update is not Microsoft capitulating and falling in with Google, no, rather the decision to actively remove the old Edge installation during the April 2021 Microsoft patch cycle! Yes folks, actually taking the old, unsupported browser off as many devices as possible in an attempt to mitigate any further usage, security risks, confusion etc.

This got me thinking – can you imagine if Microsoft or other software vendors actively disabled their unsupported software thus removing the potential risks associated with continuing to use it? 

Windows XP extended support expired in April 2014 with any and all patches for security or compatibility ceased from that date, yet today an estimated 0.7% of Windows installations are running XP. Oh well, big deal you might say, the workstation still functions and continues to perform the tasks for which it was provisioned – but it is a big deal! 

The XP operating system code has been around since 2001 (with a few service packs over the years) but those seeking to maliciously utilise the platform have had 8 years of that platform remaining unchanged to exploit it. What compounds the issue is third party security tools either don’t function on XP anymore or offer only very limited support. Even just one XP based workstation on a company network is possibly the single most critical exposure to a hack.

Only 0.7% you say? A hacker only needs to find 1 machine in the 8,400,000 XP devices still running around the world…

The Windows 7 operating system was (is) extremely popular, especially among the business community due to the user friendly interface and being inherently stable –  transition away from it has been slow since its end of life date in January 2020 (and not helped by the pandemic). There are an estimated 200,000,000 installations still in active use of this operating system that was released in 2009. Hackers have had 12 years to get to know how it works and now Windows 7 is at its most vulnerable – unsupported.

Next on the Microsoft hit list is Internet Explorer (IE) which is still used by many employees throughout the world including many of our customers. IE was first released back in 1995 and the last version (IE11) was released in 2013. Microsoft have maintained basic support for their IE browser software to ensure ‘legacy compatibility’ but now IE11s time is coming… Support for Microsoft Teams in IE11 ended in November 2020 and Office 365 support in the browser ceases August 2021. It will continue as supported on current Windows platforms on which IE11 was released but the end is nigh.

In a previous blog post, we discussed the balance between maintaining updates to the latest and greatest versus early adoption potentially creating more issues than they address.

The products we supply and support all offer full compatibility with modern browsers such as MS Edge Chromium and newer operating systems such as Windows 10 / Microsoft Server 2019 / IBM i 7.4 whilst maintaining backwards compatibility wherever possible. We will always strive to offer best endeavours when it comes to supporting ‘expired’ software versions but we cannot guarantee that newer features will be introduced to these older versions or if we could even reinstall to a legacy workstation platform in extreme cases.

Should you need to discuss the compatibility levels of your current installation prior to upgrading from Windows XP (yes, we know it is out there), Windows 7, IBM i 5.* / 6.*, we would welcome the opportunity to help or advise so contact us here via support. We will always endeavour to provide a transparent and honest appraisal of the platform limitations and upgrade paths available, providing the best service / outcome for you as our customer.

#PacSolUK #MicrosoftEdge #Chromium #IBMi #MicrosoftWindows #support #softwaremaintenance

Toby Gilbertson, Customer Services Manager. March 2021