Get more done with the new Google Chrome. A more simple, secure, and faster web browser than ever, with Google’s smarts built-in. Google Chrome remains the king of the web browsers, with a 66% market share as of September 2020.Microsoft’s newest Edge browser, which uses the Chromium open-source engine, is in fifth-place at. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us.
Alongside all the features and improvements in the roadmap for the new version of Microsoft Edge based on the Chromium engine, Microsoft includes a compatibility mode using the Internet Explorer rendering engine to load old websites.
The feature is known as “IE Mode,” and it has been designed for organizations to load internal sites without using a separate browser or having to redesign the site. The new approach loads the pages within Microsoft Edge like a regular website without using and managing multiple browsers.
New Edge Chromium Features
If you want to start using it, the version of Microsoft Edge available through the stable channel now includes the “Internet Explorer compatibilities” settings to quickly enable IE Mode and a separate option to open Edge when browsing an incomparable website with Internet Explorer. Alongside the settings, it also possible to use the Group Policy Editor to configure the compatibility mode.
In this guide, you will learn the steps to enable IE Mode to load legacy websites using the Internet Explorer rendering engine on Chromium Edge for Windows 10. (You can also watch this video tutorial to configure the feature.)
How to enable IE mode on Microsoft Edge
To enable IE mode on Edge, use these steps:
Open Microsoft Edge on Windows 10.
Click the Settings and More (ellipsis) button on the top-right corner.
Select the Settings option.
Click on Default browser.
Under the “Internet Explorer compatibility” section, turn on the “Allow sites to be reloaded in Internet Explorer mode” toggle switch.
Click the Restart button.
Once you complete the steps, when sites require Internet Explorer, you can use Microsoft Edge to reload the page using IE mode.
Open site with IE Mode on Edge
After the IE Mode is enabled, you need to reload a page with the compatibility mode manually.
To open an incompatible website with IE Mode on Edge, use these steps:
Open Microsoft Edge on Windows 10.
Click the Settings and More (ellipsis) button on the top-right corner.
Select the More tools submenu and choose the “Reload in Internet Explorer mode” option.
After you complete the steps, the website should reload in compatibility mode. If the feature is not enabled, then the option won’t be available in the menu.
If you want to exit IE Mode, you can use the same instructions, but on step No. 3, select the Exit Internet Explorer mode option.
Open Internet Explorer sites on Microsoft Edge
On Windows 10, Microsoft Edge also lets you configure the browser so that when someone is using Internet Explorer incompatible or all sites will load within Edge.
To let IE open websites with Edge, use these steps:
Open Microsoft Edge on Windows 10.
Click the Settings and More (ellipsis) button on the top-right corner.
Select the Settings option.
Click on Default browser.
Under the “Internet Explorer compatibility” section, use the “Let Internet Explorer open sites in Microsoft Edge” drop-down menu and select the option to handle browsing when using Internet Explorer, including:
- Never – IE will never switch to Edge to load the site.
- Incompatible sites only – IE will still load sites, but websites designed for a modern browser will load in Edge.
- Always – IE will always switch to Edge to load websites.
Once you complete the steps, when surfing the web in Internet Explorer, websites will open on Microsoft Edge, according to your configuration.
How to enable IE mode with Group Policy on Microsoft Edge
Alternatively, you can also enable IE Mode on Chromium Edge with Group Policy. However, you will need to download and install the policy template before you can configure the Group Policy settings.
Install Microsoft Edge policy template
To install the policy template to enable IE Mode on Edge, use these steps:
Open Microsoft Edge for business website.
Under the “Policy File” section, click the Download button.
Select the version of Microsoft Edge. (Usually, you want to use the latest stable version available.)
Select the build (latest version available).
Select the platform — for example, Windows 64-bit.
Click the Get policy files option.
Click the Accept & download button.
Double-click to open the MicrosoftEdgePolicyTemplates.zip file.
Click the Extract all button from the “Compressed Folder Tools” tab.
(Optional) Select the location to extract the files.
Check the Show extracted files when complete option.
Click the Extract button.
Browse the following path inside the (extracted) “MicrosoftEdgePolicyTemplates” folder:
Select the msedge.admx and msedgeupdate.admx files and click the Copy option from the “Home” tab.
Quick tip: You only need to copy the “msedgeupdate.admx” file if you want to control the update settings of Microsoft Edge.Browse to the following path:
Click the Paste button from the “Home” tab.
In the “admx” folder, inside the “MicrosoftEdgePolicyTemplates” folder, open the language folder that represents your language — for example, en-US.
Select the msedge.adml and msedgeupdate.adml files and click the Copy option from the “Home” tab.
Quick tip: You only need to copy the “msedgeupdate.adml” file if you also copy the file on step No.12.Browse to the following path that matches your language:
In the above command, make sure to change en-US for the folder that matches your language.
Click the Paste button from the “Home” tab.
Once you complete the steps, the new policies to enable or disable IE Mode on Edge Chromium will install in the Group Policy Editor.
Enable IE Mode on Microsoft Edge
To enable IE Mode on Chromium Edge with Group Policy, use these steps:
Open Start.
Search for gpedit and click the top result to open the Group Policy Editor.
Browse the following path:
Double-click the Configure Internet Explorer integration policy.
Select the Enabled option to enable IE Mode for Microsoft Edge.
Under the “Options” section, select the Internet Explorer mode from the dropdown menu.
Click the Apply button.
Click the OK button.
After you complete the steps, websites will render in compatibility mode, and you’ll notice a familiar IE icon on the left side of the address bar letting you know the website is using Internet Explorer.
These steps enable IE Mode for intranet websites. If you want to load external websites using Chromium Edge, you need to enable and set up the “Configure the Enterprise Mode Site List” policy, which includes the creation of an XML file with the list of domains that you want to load automatically with the Internet Explorer mode.
Update February 11, 2021: This guide has been revised with the steps to configure IE Mode on the Chromium version of Microsoft Edge using the new compatibility settings and updated the process to install the Group Policy templates.
Before much longer, every new Windows PC is going to have a new default browser: it will still be named Microsoft Edge, but it's a completely different browser than the old version. Cue the jokes now about 'the new browser everyone uses to download Chrome'—but we're not sure that so many people will actually bother downloading Chrome anymore.The old Microsoft Edge was a completely in-house Microsoft design, proprietary from the ground up. It wasn't necessarily a bad browser, but it never really took off—by the time Edge became a thing, most of the people who cared about their browsers were so sick and tired of Internet Explorer they'd long since moved on to either Firefox or Chrome; and the people who didn't care much about their browsers frequently ended up finding the old Internet Explorer and setting it as their default when they discovered that 'the big blue E' on their taskbar didn't work with legacy IE-only websites and apps.
The new Edge isn't entirely—or even mostly, so far—a Microsoft effort, though. Edge is now based on the open source Chromium browser, which is the underpinning of Google Chrome and several other, lesser-known browsers as well. It should seem immediately familiar to seasoned Chrome users—and it even allows installing extensions directly from Chrome's own Web store. It's not hard to imagine a lot of Chrome users simply not bothering to replace it when they see how familiar it is.
Edge's own Web store is pretty sad and underpopulated right now, but we expect that to change rapidly. It's not hard to imagine little need for an Edge user to bother going to Chrome's Web store and shopping for extensions in another six months, as necessary as that would likely be right now. In the meantime, while installing Chrome certainly isn't hard to do—unless you're seriously short on bandwidth, which many rural users are—it's even easier to click the single popped-up button in Chrome's Web store to enable those extensions in Edge.
Advertisement Saved passwords
For better or for worse, the vast majority of the new Edge doesn't need much of a review, since it's effectively the same as Chrome itself. The only parts that really need a review are those that Microsoft has needed to bolt on for itself—such as user login and synchronization of saved credentials between browsers. We tested the login and sync, and they were something of a crapshoot.
The first credentials we used to test were Office 365 credentials from a small business, and while the login itself worked immediately, the actual synchronization was broken. To be fair, the problem could be that this Office 365 account doesn't have a license associated with it—it's just used to administer the actual users of a small business's domain. Still, it should have worked; unlicensed Office 365 accounts are a commonly encountered and perfectly valid condition in the wild for exactly this reason.
With the Office 365 account logged in, local storage of passwords worked perfectly, but sync just didn't happen. Eventually, we checked the sync settings for the account and saw that they said 'setting up sync—you can start browsing while we get this set up.' A week later, the settings still say 'setting up sync.' We're not holding our breath.
Next, we used a personal Windows Live account which long predates Office 365 and has been used solely to log in to a Microsoft Volume License Service Center account until now. The personal account immediately worked flawlessly, both login and sync. When logged in with the personal account, there was no 'setting up sync' message—and a newly saved password was instantly available on a second computer logged in with the same account.
Saving credit and debit cards
Edgium—that's what some industry watchers have been calling the new version of Edge—can autofill credit card details, but doing so works differently than it does in Chrome. If you type a credit card number into a Web form, Google Chrome automatically detects what you're doing and asks if you want to save it. Edgium, on the other hand, pays no attention to you typing credit card information to a website. To get the browser to save a credit card number, you must go into its Settings and to Profiles / Payment info.
AdvertisementOnce you've gotten to the Payment info settings dialog, you can click an 'Add card' button. Edge does correctly detect credit card entry, and when you have one or more saved cards available, it will prompt you when there's an opportunity to auto-fill with it. The saved credit card info is, for now at least, purely local—it does not sync from one browser to another when you're logged in as the same user.
Favorites
The one place we outright prefer the new Edge to Google Chrome is in its Favorites management. In both Chrome and Edge, there's a little star inside the address bar itself to toggle Favorite status for a page. But in Edge, there's also a little star button beside the bar, which drops down the list of Favorites you've already created. We're fiercely protective of vertical screen real estate and therefore don't really like enabling the Favorites bar in any browser. But the convenient little drop-down is nice, and we think it makes the Favorites function much more useful.
Favorites synced perfectly and instantly from machine to machine when we tested using our sync-is-working personal Windows Live login.
New Edge Chrome Web
Microsoft contributions
One of the complaints we've frequently heard from readers about rebasing Edge on the Chromium project is that it removes diversity from the Web browser ecosystem. This is obviously true—if Microsoft uses Chromium to build Edge, it doesn't have to build and maintain the majority of the codebase itself. But it overlooks the strength of open source software development—active cooperation.
Microsoft began contributing code to the Chromium project almost immediately after beginning its first beta builds of Chromium-based Edge. One of its first contributions was to improve battery life in the browser; that contribution is still in development and has not yet been accepted into the Chromium master—but importantly, engineers from Google and Microsoft are cooperating in the testing and implementation here, with a public record for all to see.
Microsoft has also announced its intent to bring browser accessibility, touch optimization, and Arm optimizations from its original Edge into the Chromium project. As CNET reported earlier this week, Microsoft has made nearly 2,000 commits to the Chromium project in the last year. This is an important distinction—the company isn't merely consuming Chromium, it's publicly and openly cooperating with Google in ways that any company or even individual can.
Although Microsoft and Google's collaboration on a unified browser framework does mean less code diversity for the Web, it represents a major improvement in openness and fair access.
Listing image by Mike Mozart / Flickr