Legacy DX Filters Removed from IE10 Release Preview

Internet Explorer’s commitment to achieving the goal of consistent “same markup, same results” across browsers is evidenced, in part, by IE9’s and IE10’s addition of CSS3 features that enable Web sites to move to standards-based features for their graphical effects.

Earlier we wrote that Internet Explorer’s legacy visual filters and transitions, first introduced in IE4, are not supported in IE10’s Standards and Quirks modes and noted their inferior performance compared to their standards-based replacements. Based on further analysis of these filters’ performance and their very low usage on the public Web, Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8 Release Preview removes them from all document modes for all sites in the Internet zone. The features remain available in IE10’s document modes 5, 7, 8, and 9 for sites in the Local Intranet and Trusted Sizes zones.

Updating Web Sites

There is no mechanism for a Web site developer to enable legacy filters on their pages.Our guidance remains the same as stated in Moving to Standards-based Web Graphics in IE10: Now is the time to make the move to standards-based markup and use IE10’s new CSS3 features instead of legacy DX Filters. Please refer to that post for specific guidance.

Changing Setting by Zone

End-users can change the default rendering of legacy filters using the Security tab of the Internet Options dialog. Select the zone to change and touch or click “Custom level…”. In the Security Settings dialog for that zone, scroll down to the Option “Render legacy filters” in the “Miscellaneous” section. There you may enable or disable the rendering of filters for all sites in that zone.

Security tab of the Internet Options dialog showing the Internet zone highlighted
Security tab of the Internet Options dialog showing the Internet zone highlighted

Security Settings dialog scrolled to the location of the Render legacy filters setting
Security Settings dialog scrolled to the location of the Render legacy filters setting

System administrators can control this setting for all users using Group Policy.

Move to Standards-based Markup

As we’ve written many times on this blog, users benefit when all browsers support the same standards-based markup and all sites serve standards-based content to all browsers.

We encourage all developers to serve the same standards markup to IE10 and move your sites off of IE’s legacy filter features today.

—Ted Johnson, Lead Program Manager, Internet Explorer Graphics