The Microsoft Building Windows 8 blog has announced plans for Internet Explorer 10 to jettison the ability to install plug-ins or extensions, in the Metro user-interface they’re developing for it. In its Metro form, IE 10 uses HTML5 throughout, largely negating the need for Adobe Flash and other such video plug-ins. While this may amount to one more nail in the Flash coffin, Microsoft hangs onto their tendency to embrace backwards compatibility by offering the traditional frame window and script engine as an alternative. Users can switch freely between running IE 10 as a standard desktop app with the “classic” framework and the Metro UI with its new touch capabilities and better battery life on portable devices.
Unfortunately, this move also cuts off the ability to use several very popular and useful browser plug-ins like LastPass or Xmarks. Corporate users with legacy web-based applications using Active-X plug-ins will also find themselves unable to move to the new Metro UI.
Additionally, this sends mixed messages to developers about the future of Silverlight, Microsoft’s Flash-like alternative. Is Microsoft going to build Silverlight support into the native browser so it still works with Metro or will they claim it’s only a technology for legacy browsers that don’t offer full HTML5 support?
I admire Microsoft’s decision to move forward with the browser experience, but I’m not sure this will turn out to be the best way to handle the situation.
Comments are closed.