top | item 31753475

Internet Explorer 11 has retired and is officially out of support

455 points| alexobenauer | 3 years ago |blogs.windows.com

206 comments

order

wolframhempel|3 years ago

I started my career 2008 building real estate and stock news websites. Back then, sooooo much of my days were spent making things "IE compatible" using techniques like:

- creating sprite sheets of transparent png corners and sides that one could arrange in a table around an element to create drop-shadows and rounded corners

- putting single pixel, transparent gifs at the end of floated containers because clearfix used a "before" CSS selector that earlier IEs didn't know about.

- writing CSS rules like -ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=75)"; to make something semi-transparent...

And so much more. Back then, we were certain we'd open a bottle of champagne once IE is not a requirement anymore.

Today, fortunately, I have a different Job and Microsoft makes different browsers. But looking back, I wouldn't have believed this day to arrive.

xhrpost|3 years ago

Imagine having a piece of software where you have 95% global market dominance, a near complete monopoly. And then decide not to update said software in the slightest (other than security fixes) for 6 straight years. Kind of mind blowing.

space_ghost|3 years ago

I strongly remember using Firebug in Firefox (mind-blowing tools, for the time) in ~2008 and having to debug issues in IE, which had the equivalent of a Check Engine Light for debugging.

dheerajvs|3 years ago

I won't be able to celebrate for a long time to come. I have to support running an Outlook add-in in Outlook 2016 on Windows, which uses the IE11 rendering engine.

skittleson|3 years ago

I remembered these days as well. There wasn't a lot of resources out their either. Getting everything pixel perfect was the goal. HTML emails were extra tricky since they displayed differently in each client.

vermaden|3 years ago

> (...) Microsoft makes different browsers.

They are not.

They just took Chrome and added their logo and theme around.

jrochkind1|3 years ago

MOSTLY.

> Windows releases where Internet Explorer will still be available after June 15, 2022, include Windows 7 ESU, Windows 8.1, and all versions of Windows 10 LTSC client, IoT, and Server.

> "The Internet Explorer (IE) 11 desktop application will end support for Windows 10 semi-annual channel starting June 15, 2022," Microsoft says on the IE11 lifecycle page.

> As Microsoft further explains, "for supported operating systems, Internet Explorer 11 will continue receiving security updates and technical support for the lifecycle of the Windows version on which it is installed."

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/internet-exp...

I gotta say... MS is serious about long-term support commitments and backwards compat!

Sunspark|3 years ago

I've never quite understood this MS policy of "ending support" but continuing support anyway for extended support contract customers or for specific versions, etc.

The way I look at it, MS obviously is actually continuing to support the product, they are just choosing not to make it available to most people. It's still supported, just not for everyone.

I feel that if security patches are still being produced, they should be released as opposed to expecting people to use nothing, or roll their own by getting patches from a third party.

They could be released as "donations" to the public good from the big customers.

pavlov|3 years ago

There was a time in 1998-99 when Internet Explorer 4 / 5 was actually the best browser by far. Netscape 4 was unstable and had completely botched all the fancy new features: its implementation of CSS (brand new at the time) was so bad that even font sizes didn't work right, its homegrown "layers" API for JavaScript DOM access was awful, and many web developers were wishing they could somehow get away with only supporting IE.

25 years after the release of IE4, I'm just glad both of those browser codebases are now dead.

IE was really done in by Microsoft's "Longhorn" OS project. After Windows XP, Microsoft was planning a very ambitious update that would completely reset core APIs. File systems would be largely replaced by an OS-level database, and the Win32 GUI API would be replaced by an XML-based UI framework codenamed Avalon.

A new Avalon browser would ship with the OS, and thus IE + HTML would become legacy technologies as Microsoft confidently assumed most developers would flock to building their web apps in Avalon instead.

To Microsoft strategists, it seemed that they had succeeded in containing the web: Netscape was dead, Mozilla had almost no users, Apple was shipping their IE in Mac OS X, Google wasn't on Microsoft's radar, and the HTML standard process was stalled. So while a lot of content was being delivered as HTML4, there didn't seem to be any reason left for Microsoft to invest in IE — they'd already nailed the browser, owned the market, and would push Avalon as the next step.

Fortunately, Longhorn failed. Some parts of the project eventually shipped years late as Windows Vista. Avalon became WPF + XAML and still exists in Windows, but the dream of a XAML browser replacing IE was dead.

hulitu|3 years ago

> There was a time in 1998-99 when Internet Explorer 4 / 5 was actually the best browser by far

Only as a preview for web 3. Netscape, even when crashing, was faster and more user friendly. Error messages in IE were surrealistic. Unfortunately those are today standard in todays browsers.

Tabular-Iceberg|3 years ago

> There was a time in 1998-99 when Internet Explorer 4 / 5 was actually the best browser by far.

Especially the Mac version of IE 5. Tasman was such a breath of fresh air. I never understood why they didn't use that engine everywhere.

philliphaydon|3 years ago

First time I ever wanted to embed an image into a HN comment. This image is so fitting!

https://i.imgur.com/MgGvQHH.png

john567|3 years ago

This is so fitting because even if Microsoft is deprecating and giving up on this monstrosity the executable is still sitting there. Serving legacy web apps that should have been abandoned a long time ago...

user_7832|3 years ago

I was not sure what that would be, but it got a solid chuckle out of me, thanks for lifting my mood!

tiborsaas|3 years ago

If you have some time between two cocktails while celebrating, do your visitors a favour and add this meta tag to your <head>:

    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/ie_standards/ms-i...

This will make IE very insisting to upgrade to Edge if possible.

electroly|3 years ago

That's not what that is. "Edge" there doesn't mean Edge the browser, it means "latest"; it predates the Edge browser by many years. It has nothing to do with the Edge upgrade. It switches IE into the latest document mode that it supports. For IE11, it just puts it into IE11 mode.

simongray|3 years ago

Thank you for that tip.

psim1|3 years ago

IE may have been problematic from a tech point of view, but I'll eulogize that IE was important in advancing the web. The OS-integrated browser meant that in 1995, users had a full Internet stack readily available on their home PCs -- the widespread launch of Web 1.0. Later, IE was the pioneer of XMLHttpRequest, the beginning of Web 2.0. For these, we can say thanks, Microsoft! (for everything else, see other comments)

warning26|3 years ago

People often forget that in the IE4 days, IE was leagues beyond Netscape. It had far better CSS and JS support, and you could do things that wouldn't be possible in Netscape for years.

That said, it all came to an end after Microsoft "won" and disbanded the IE dev team, resulting in that era of stagnation we all remember.

anthk|3 years ago

> users had a full Internet stack readily available on their home PCs

No.

err4nt|3 years ago

Being in web development since 2004, I both thought the day would never arrive, and would have arrived a lot sooner than 2022. Tech-wise, there were times when IE was advanced, often in non-standard ways, but it was innovative. There are other ways where it was a major thorn in the side of every web developer and required much extra attention and care. And yet, since about 2014 or 2015, the world of web standards had caught up to and surpassed IE in every area. So here's to a surprisingly bittersweet farewell

zdragnar|3 years ago

Back in the early 2010's, one of our more amusing interview questions for front-end developers was "What is your favorite thing about Internet Explorer?".

We never really used the answer against anyone if they couldn't think of anything, but the advent of XHR and other improvements offered was something a lot of developers had already forgotten about, and it was interesting to see various responses and reactions.

intrasight|3 years ago

I started doing web development back in Netscape - adding graphics extensions. I think it was 1995.

But I really dug into SPA/AJAX web apps in 2000 - building enterprise stuff. They were all "IE6 apps". IE6 was basically my X-windows. No other browsers were supported, and there as no pushback from customers back then. Only one of those apps made the transition to IE11.

Last year I explained to my current client that our big enterprise reporting app had to move off IE11. And I was really surprised how much pushback on got on that.

open-paren|3 years ago

I argue that moving it “out of support” doesn't mean anything for what browsers you have to support. Users and businesses still using IE11 aren't exactly those that are on the top of their IT policy game, so I doubt they will be jumping when the browser is “no longer supported by Microsoft.”

wakeupcall|3 years ago

You can now brag that the software is out of support.

Which yeah, doesn't mean absolutely anything for existing software that is still working and requires the old version to run. If by any chanche you need to support that configuration, the "official" deprecation simply means "good luck!" and a pat on the back.

Just like XP, I've seen plenty of shops with custom software that still requires XP+IE6+activex that still get active development, because a total rewrite is out of the question when changes are small (and that is totally understandable as well).

The poor folks though will need to containerize and isolate everything from any network though to keep it somewhat safer. If they do that at all.

yashap|3 years ago

Official deprecation like this helps companies say “sorry, we don’t support IE11 anymore either, you’ll have to upgrade.” Not all companies will do this, but plenty will.

phpisthebest|3 years ago

A couple of weeks back and edge update forced many many many users to Edge earlier than expected, if your tried to launch iexplorer.exe it would go to edge instead

IEMode in Edge also works very well

So if these companies are getting windows updates at all, or edge updates at all is somewhat not optional

wonderbore|3 years ago

Is this Groundhog Day? How many more times will IE be declared dead? Official support is irrelevant if the browser is still stubbornly used by users. Most websites have moved on more than 5 years ago.

This news is meaningless. This confirms it:

> For supported operating systems, Internet Explorer 11 will continue receiving security updates and technical support for the lifecycle of the Windows version on which it is installed.

From https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/faq/internet-expl...

oaiey|3 years ago

In conservative IT businesses like hospitals this date is a deal breaker: No more security updates. In consequence IT will switch it off immediately. Guess why edge has an IE Mode.

timeimp|3 years ago

Does anyone work in an “enterprise” environment who have been dreading this day?

Any apps / mainframes / industrials systems that needs IE to run?

isp|3 years ago

All versions of Windows Server are (for now) unaffected, i.e., Internet Explorer 11 continues to run [1].

There is also "Internet Explorer Mode" in Edge, which uses iexplore.exe under the hood.

Additionally, if somebody were _really_ desperate to launch iexplore.exe itself, then there are unsupported means to do so.

For example, via manually modifying the registry key "NotifyDisableIEOptions" under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\

My favourite hack though, which should not be used by anyone ever, is launching via the COM object interface, which bypasses the registry key check [2]. I have personally verified that this works(!)

[1] https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/i...

[2] https://twitter.com/aaaddress1/status/1523590203658862592

izzydata|3 years ago

At my office we use this software called Application Lifecycle Management that still requires Internet Explorer. Apparently they made some kind of containerized IE launcher for it. I suppose that was easier than porting it to a modern browser.

kemotep|3 years ago

I support an EMR running on AIX that is accessed through a Java Web applet that only works with Internet Explorer. Since you cannot install Java in any other modern browser, IE mode works on Windows 10 but not 11. The menus and setting you need to configure just do not exist in Edge and without the full Internet Options menu from IE, the site cannot load.

The vendor allegedly has an update coming soon to allow other browsers to work.

night-rider|3 years ago

If there are legacy systems that would be too expensive to tear down and modernise, then some form of regulatory fine should be implemented to stop this. There is no excuse for running IE anywhere these days, especially now after this news which puts the final nail in the coffin.

PaulWaldman|3 years ago

We frequently encounter legacy industrial automation applications that use IE inside an ActiveX container. There are a few third-party apps that attempt to bundle Chrome or Edge inside an ActiveX object, but we've had limited success.

gertlex|3 years ago

HP Alm seemed to require IE where I work in the past 6 months. I told the person asking me to use HP Alm that I had no way of installing IE, with insinuations that the ask was BS.

Probably outdated version or not a hard requirement...

electroly|3 years ago

We have one third party app that requires IE. I opened Visual Studio, dropped a WebBrowser control onto a form, and voila: I've got IE again, even on Windows 11. I pushed the app out and it works great. I figure we've got years until this breaks again.

AdmiralAsshat|3 years ago

I support an enterprise Java app that uses SWT, and some clients may still be using IE for the embedded i-frames, depending on their OS. But I think we have a way of overriding the registry and forcing the IE version, if it comes to that.

daigoba66|3 years ago

FWIW I don’t think this changes anything, as those same usages often run on out-of-support versions of Windows too that are never updated. It usually doesn’t matter - if it works, then it works.

raxxorraxor|3 years ago

I used it to authenticate against some webdav intranet sites hosted on Sharepoint Online. Formerly on a SSO standard windows AD integrated system you needed to open internet explorer once. It did some arcane voodoo in the background you didn't need to do anything with it, just close it again. But if you did that you could connect to Sharepoint sites through the file explorer via webdav. This process needed to be repeated every other week when the arcane voodoo authentication needed to be refreshed.

baud147258|3 years ago

the software I'm working on still supports IE, but after years of pushing for it, in 2020 management let us start work on supporting Chrome/Edge. Though we'll have to see how our automated testing suite will be impacted by those redirections (FTA: "opening Internet Explorer will progressively redirect users to Microsoft Edge with IE mode."), because we're still testing with IE, though that's also planned to be phased out this summer.

frumper|3 years ago

Edge has an IE mode

thetinguy|3 years ago

Yes I use some ancient version of sharepoint and the edit in word button only worked in IE.

ehPReth|3 years ago

not dreading it, but we do have a couple of older photocopiers (with no fw updates) that won't let us do things like add emails to the address book without IE

smm11|3 years ago

I need it to access my firewall.

Yeah.

layer8|3 years ago

I’ve still been using IE11 up to now by default (for the websites it still renders adequately, with Firefox as a fallback — there’s a “Open current page in Firefox” add-in), for the following reasons:

- crisper and higher-contrast font rendering on low-DPI monitors

- Ctrl+N/Ctrl+K clone the current tab into a new window/tab including its history, letting you “fork” the tab and effectively navigate a history tree. Edit: And, maybe more importantly, opening a link in new window/tab also clones the history.

- generally good keyboard usage, e.g. for the history tab (you can for example always blindly hit Ctrl+H, Home, Enter to go to the last visited page, something which is more fiddly in other browsers)

- larger viewport height than possible on Chrome/Firefox/Edge (after hiding the toolbar and status bar, configuring tabs to be on the address bar, etc.)

- allows yellow search highlighting (which Firefox doesn’t on light backgrounds)

user_7832|3 years ago

On a similar note IE and legacy Edge (non-chromium) had/still have unparalleled snappy scrolling (on touchpads). I really wish I had never used those browsers because nothing today compares to it. UWP apps have decent scrolling, but these old browsers were something else (apparently they took every touchpad movement for scrolling or something, I'm not sure what that means. If anyone from MS would like to chime in I'd be grateful!)

iggldiggl|3 years ago

Curiously enough, IE is also the only one that allows properly selecting and copying CSS-generated content (i.e. both quotation marks added via "quotes:" as well as general free-form text added via "content:").

Firefox does some semi-functional hack for handling quotation marks, but gives up on "content:", while Chrome and all other Blink-based browsers don't handle that kind of text at all and just skip it entirely. (No idea about Safari, but given its shared rendering engine history with Chrome it presumably doesn't handle it, either.)

Liquid_Fire|3 years ago

> - Ctrl+N/Ctrl+K clone the current tab into a new window/tab including its history, letting you “fork” the tab and effectively navigate a history tree.

You can do this in Firefox by middle (or Control) clicking the Reload button.

wonderbore|3 years ago

You are now banned from Hacker News.

user_7832|3 years ago

I posted this as a reply to a comment here but I felt it would be better to ask as a separate comment -

Does anyone (especially from MS) know why later versions of IE and pre-chromium Edge were so good and snappy with scrolling? The level of accuracy and speed was incredible (on touchpads at least) - it was probably the last time I had an interaction on a computer that made me go "wow".

kiririn|3 years ago

I agree the input lag and scroll curves in later IE was some of the best I’ve seen. Firefox was as good for a time but is now (slightly) worse after changing to a more chrome-like curve

They really went all out on input lag reduction for Windows 8 touch interfaces. I remember some videos from the time where they showed off such low input lag that scrolling and drawing almost perfectly tracked finger movement. Perhaps not so impressive today with iOS as a benchmark, but Windows is still king for desktop input lag

lemoncookiechip|3 years ago

From a previous thread (lost link): "For supported operating systems, Internet Explorer 11 will continue receiving security updates and technical support for the lifecycle of the Windows version on which it is installed."

The King is dead, long live the King.

night-rider|3 years ago

As the old meme goes: Internet Explorer was the first step to downloading Chrome or Firefox on a new computer.

some-guy|3 years ago

The large enterprise outfit I work for has 8% IE11 usage still, almost all of which is in Korea. Our customers there go out of their way to not use Edge on their machines.

binbag|3 years ago

Only after they were released. Many users used IE daily. It was fine until we had better options.

maxpert|3 years ago

// One last time remembering IE6

var request = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");

asddubs|3 years ago

and to dress for the occasion:

* html { _background:black !ie; }

logifail|3 years ago

Q: What about the Internet Explorer versions that shipped in the Windows 10 LTSC[0], most (all?) of which are very much still "in support"[1]?

[0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/ltsc/ [1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/faq/windows#what-...

currysausage|3 years ago

Ctrl+F is your friend: "For certain versions of Windows currently in-support and used in critical environments, we will continue to support Internet Explorer on those versions until they go out of support. These include all currently in-support Windows 10 LTSC releases (including IoT) and all Windows Server versions, as well as Windows 10 China Government Edition, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7 with Extended Security Updates (ESUs). Future versions of these editions will not include Internet Explorer."

konfusinomicon|3 years ago

im speculating that in a wild twist of events, MS announces the revival of Netscape Navigator, just to keep all the web developers on their toes and make sure they get enough practice working with cross browser compatability

dekerta|3 years ago

No need. Safari fills that role for us now

xutopia|3 years ago

So much effort from Microsoft to take over the web. They spent so much money and time on hurting all other browsers and web standards and for what?

mwcampbell|3 years ago

Does anyone know when the forced redirect from IE to Edge actually lands, particularly in Windows 10? In particular, does anyone know when it will affect users that open IE by entering "iexplore URL" in the Run dialog? Is anyone seeing this behavior yet? I'm not.

newbieuser|3 years ago

Would the web have been a different place if IE had gone a different way instead of its current bullshit? I mean, I wonder what effect this would have on the current state of the web if it complied with general standards.

ChrisArchitect|3 years ago

Seeing a timeline animation of browser share made me both nostalgic about the browser wars days and how IE took over after (and for a time was the best), and also sad about what happened to Firefox, which was so exciting in those early days becoming very much a standard but falling to the wayside as Chrome snuck up. It's just sad where it ended up today as an also ran for some/holdout for others (I still insist my parents use it etc) with difficult marketing and who knows what level of development behind the scenes. Sigh.

aquova|3 years ago

Slightly tangential, but does this mean that Wine prefixes will no longer need to include Internet Explorer? If you ever go digging through a Wine prefix's Program Files, there are a handful of default Windows applications, including IE and Windows Media Player. I've never been really sure why my Steam library is filled with a dozen copies of IE, but I'm curious if they will still be added.

netr0ute|3 years ago

Ironically, Wine has better support for older programs than Windows itself. Therefore, why would they remove backwards compat and get rid of a major selling point?

iggldiggl|3 years ago

Well, there's Internet Explorer as the complete browser, but there's also the rendering engine behind it that's still needed to power the web browser controls used by all sorts of applications. If I'm understanding things right by default Wine emulates it using Gecko, but you can still install the original Microsoft DLLs for maximum compatibility.

Likewise on Windows itself, Microsoft will have to continue shipping IE's rendering engine for backwards compatibility with all those programs using the old web view control (as well as Edge's hidden IE11-mode).

charles_f|3 years ago

I didn't realize that it was still alive, and that some devs were still maintaining it. I am wondering if there were still apps out there in the corp world that would only work with ie11, even if just for blocking other agents.

kazinator|3 years ago

I found IE11 pretty useful recently.

I made to the web UI of a firmware device, and needed to check whether it will work with old browsers as far back as IE9.

Because IE11 has an emulation mode, I didn't have to install IE9.

Thank you, IE11!

:)

asddubs|3 years ago

yeesh, ie9, my condolences.

ricardobayes|3 years ago

A red letter day for us web devs. A collective sigh of relief.

caycep|3 years ago

Except it's still required to run HIPAA-sensitive EHR's like Allscripts. facepalm

(note, they say they are compatible with Edge etc. But sadly they are really not)

2000UltraDeluxe|3 years ago

I thought the Xbox 360 version of IE11 was supported until the Xbox 360 goes EOL? Not that it's actually usable on today's web or anything...

sbf501|3 years ago

Many countries that access my company site still use some version of IE (France and Japan come to mind). But they are still on Win7 too.

major505|3 years ago

Nice. Now I only have to support it for 11 more years because my stubborn clients will continue to use explorer in windows 7.

Agamus|3 years ago

I am eternally grateful to IE for shoving me early and squarely to the Linux/FOSS side.

Thank you, IE - and good riddance!

101008|3 years ago

I'd take any day the old internet with IE than our current internet with current browsers.

hidden-spyder|3 years ago

Why is IE still in use and what's stopping people from switching over to something new?

kasajian|3 years ago

That's awesome. But what happens if you double-click on an .hta file?

throwaway71271|3 years ago

sad day, the day that we have one less web browser

only webkit is left

the king is dead, long live the king.

hoppyhoppy2|3 years ago

what about Gecko?

pmarreck|3 years ago

RIP, and good riddance

Spooky23|3 years ago

…on Windows 10. It’s still a thing on server.

bombcar|3 years ago

Internet Explorer was first released on August 16, 1995 - couldn't they have kept support for two more months!

upupandup|3 years ago

Huzzah! The tyrant is no more!

Mattmrmatt|3 years ago

Bye bye IE and thank you!

DrBazza|3 years ago

Having lived through the MS/IE6 era of being the monopoly web browser, and effectively determined and held back web standards for a long time, it's bittersweet that we now have Google/Chrome era.

At least it's not hard wired into the OS and we're not going through another era of mega-corp hard wiring browsers into their OSes any more.

Oh wait.

mrtksn|3 years ago

Do you remember how we got into the IE6 situation?

IE was actually very innovative, did stuff like AJAX before everyone else and the developers adopted the ways of IE. Websites did not work well on other browsers, every website had a disclaimer at the bottom: Works best in IE.

Now I see similar situation with Chrome and gives me goosebumps. Some people say that Safari is the new IE but I think they got it wrong, I think the new IE is Google Chrome.

IE become bad when Microsoft dropped the ball and made it into a browser with a reputation to crash all the time and bring down Windows with it.

IE6 was hated by the developers because it had the largest userbase but had non-standart features, which meant that CSS and HTML and JS had to be written in a way to accommodate IE and Mozilla.

Today Chrome is very good but if Google takes something from the Microsoft playbook, we will be screwed. Some already say that Chrome is not what it used to be and Google no longer abides by the "do no evil" motto. They are even notorious to favour their own services, i.e. if you sign in into a Google website, Chrome treats that website differently than the rest, assumes that session as the browser account.

grishka|3 years ago

I'm not sure which is worse. The problem with Chrome is that Google isn't content with the web being a document platform. They want it to be this all-encompassing OS-like amalgamation of worst technologies possible that's never complete. This endless feature creep with WebUSB, WebMIDI, WebBluetooth, WebNFC... No, it's not "cool" that I'm for some reason able to install a beta version of Android on my phone using a macro in a hypertext document.

In the IE era, if you wanted a "web application", you simply used Flash. There was a clear separation between the document and the application. It was nice. I miss it.

calvinmorrison|3 years ago

Say what you will (I am a sole firefox user for a decade +), at least chrome keeps improving and having development. Now that the web is more of a "VM in a window for applications", it's _not_ like the IE era of no updates, buggy crap, un-debuggable, etc.

darkwinx|3 years ago

We have OS hardwired into browser now.

otabdeveloper4|3 years ago

> At least it's not hard wired into the OS and we're not going through another era of mega-corp hard wiring browsers into their OSes any more.

Welcome to the most popular OS in the world, called 'Android'.

danielvaughn|3 years ago

Now we have Safari...

johndfsgdgdfg|3 years ago

When I clicked on this thread I was thinking when this thread will turn into Google bashing. This is the top comment. I am not disappointed.

hda111|3 years ago

Look like browsers can only exist as monopoly.

eastbound|3 years ago

Going ahead, the only OS war I’m afraid of is:

- A GDPR-style mandate to make cloud apps secure by certifying all libraries and upstream authors that run your stack, down to the OS,

- Thus cloud providers providing “Debian, only for amateur purposes, PII forbidden”,

- And “Amazon Linux, certified GDPR III, all upstream identified.”

That would be the end of free software. But at the same time, it would be the only reasonable move from EU, it drives me crazy that websites all use random NPM modules, half of them written by Russians we’re at war with.

suff|3 years ago

[deleted]

neatze|3 years ago

Windows Server should be retired next, arguably, if MS would focus on making UI and Dev tools for Linux instead of Windows and nothing else, it will be better off.

AnIdiotOnTheNet|3 years ago

Have you seen Microsoft's latest work on UIs? They're less responsive, less readable, less discoverable, and less functional than anything that came out of the IE era.

Not that GNOME is any better, suffering as it does from the same tabletitis disease that has infected today's UI designers.

geraldcombs|3 years ago

Windows Server provides a cleaner, more enjoyable desktop experience that the desktop version.