Metro style IE in Windows 8 goes plug-in free

Rich Fiscus
15 Sep 2011 16:29

With all the big announcements coming out of Microsoft this week in conjunction with their BUILD developer conference, perhaps none is bigger than the accompanying changes to Internet Explorer 10.
Windows 8 users will have two different interface options for IE 10 - the standard desktop version and a new Metro style version. In addition to the use of Metro, this new variant of IE is also different in another significant way.

Rather than using plug-ins like the Flash Player to render content on web pages, it will rely on HTML5. This is similar to the approach taken by Apple for Mobile Safari on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.
Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky wrote on the Building Windows 8 blog:

Running Metro style IE plug-in free improves battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers. Plug-ins were important early on in the web’s history. But the web has come a long way since then with HTML5. Providing compatibility with legacy plug-in technologies would detract from, rather than improve, the consumer experience of browsing in the Metro style UI.

When running in Metro style mode, IE will use a variety of strategies to render it without using plug-ins. It can run in special compatibility modes to emulate older versions of IE or even identify itself as a different (non-IE) browser entirely.

For pages which still require plug-ins, Metro style IE users will have an option to switch to Desktop style.