IE11 Changes

In the past, I’ve published “Minor changes” lists for IE9 and IE10. The goal of those lists was to briefly document changes that might not be recorded elsewhere.

This time around, I’m aiming to provide broader coverage of changes in IE11, including major new features and APIs. While this won’t be the best place to get the details about the changes listed, it hopefully will provide a good start for further research.

Microsoft has published some great guides to new features and compatibility changes, including the enhanced test-drive site and modern.ie testing portal.

Since I’m now an MVP rather than an employee (and no longer get check-in mails), I’ll be building this list as I discover new changes myself, so tune in periodically to see what’s been added.

New APIs and Features

The following are new APIs and features:

• Major reworking of the F12 Developer Tools
  • UI responsiveness tool
  • Memory profiling
  • Live DOM Explorer
  • CSS inspection
• Networking/Performance Improvements
  • SPDY network protocol
  • "Instaback" in-memory cache of recently loaded pages
  • PreRender support
  • HTML5 pre-fetch and resource priorities
  • Control of XmlHttpRequest stream caching (msCaching property)
  • TLS1.1/TLS1.2 enabled by default
• CSS
  • Flexbox support
  • CSS border-image
  • Updated pointer-events
• Editor improvements (ContentEditable)
  • Enhanced clipboard support (paste images!)
  • Improved Undo operation support
• Device Fixed positioning
• WebGL
• Canvas 2D improvements
  • image smoothing
  • fill rules
  • dashed lines
• Web Crypto
• Mutation observers
• Touch improvements
• Pinned Site improvements
• GPU-decoded JPEGs, GPU text Rendering
• FullScreen API
• Video
  • Standards-based Closed-captioning (TTML, SDP)
  • Encrypted Media extensions
  • Media source extensions
• JavaScript-related
  • Support for let, const, Map, Set, and WeakMap,
  • Support for __proto__ for improved interoperability.
  • ECMAScript Internationalization API v1.0
• Compatibility View button removed from Address bar
  • Mode emulation picker was added back to F12 Developer tools in October

Fixes and Tweaks

The following are fixes and adjustments to existing features or settings:

• Enhanced Protected Mode -- enabled by default for Desktop IE
• New default User-Agent string -- mimicking other modern browsers
• Improved history -- fewer pages excluded
• navigator.plugins -- now a supported extensibility point
• Improved Password manager
  • many bugfixes
  • keeps user in control and ignores autocomplete=off
  • automatic population on unframed “pure” HTTPS pages.
• Improved FavIcon support 
  • standards-based META tag
  • dynamic icon update
  • direct gif/png usage
• Work Offline command removed from File menu
• “Open in Immersive Browser” command added to File menu
• Long buggy, "Import from another browser" command is disabled
• Deprecation of file:// based Proxy configuration scripts
• Deprecation of document modes
• Deprecated VBScript in IE11 mode pages
• CSS Expressions blocked in Internet Zone (all document modes)
• Fix access denied to about:blank subframes after document.domain change
• Removed ability to turn off Tabbed Browsing
• Removed QuickTabs feature
• Matching other browsers, IE11 no longer demands the url=  prefix when using META REFRESH. Include it anyway. And avoid META REFRESH.

MSDN-Documented Minor Changes

The IE Team have themselves tagged many minor (but very welcome) changes in the IE11 Minor Changes List on MSDN.

IE11 on Windows 7 

Here are 13 features Microsoft lists as unsupported in IE11 on Win7:

• Automatic phone number detection
• Device Orientation events
• Drag and drop touch support
• Effects batching and stroke improvements
• Encrypted Media Extensions
• Enhanced Protected Mode (EPM) AppContainers (see below)
• F12 developer tools UI Responsiveness (available after Win7 update)
• High DPI support
• Hover touch support
• Link highlighting
• Media Source Extensions
• Pinned site enhancements
• Screen Orientation API
• Scrolling and zooming with touch and other inputs
• Syncing across devices
• SPDY
• IME Awareness Improvements

Windows 8.1 uses AppContainers for Isolation in Enhanced Protected Mode while Windows 7 does not support AppContainers.

If I’ve missed a significant delta, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!

-Eric