Internet Explorer 11

Microsoft adjusted their product lifecycle policies to only support the most recent version of Internet Explorer offered for any given version of Windows on January 12, 2016, and later expanded to Windows Server 2012 and Windows Embedded 8 Standard on January 31, 2020. Support for Internet Explorer 11, now regarded as an "OS component", is bound to the version of the Windows it is installed on. Thus, Microsoft provides updates only to currently supported versions of Windows. This includes Windows 10 LTSC (formerly LTSB), and supported Windows Server versions, which will continue to receive IE11 updates until their respective end-of-support dates. The exception to this is the Windows 10 Semi-Annual Channel (SAC). For SAC versions of Windows 10, Internet Explorer 11 support ended on June 15, 2022, and it was permanently disabled on February 14, 2023. Any remaining icons or shortcuts were due to be removed on June 13, 2023, however, on May 19, 2023, various organizations disapproved, leading Microsoft to withdraw the change. Furthermore, despite Microsoft's alleged permanent IE11 disablement, IE11 can still be accessed in some capacity using unofficial methods.

IE Mode, a feature of Microsoft Edge, enables Edge to display web pages using Internet Explorer 11's Trident layout engine and other core components. Through IE Mode, the underlying technology of Internet Explorer 11 partially exists on Windows that do not support Internet Explorer as a proper application, such as Windows 11 and later versions that derive from the Windows 11 codebase. Microsoft has announced support for IE Mode through at least 2029, with a one-year advance notice before retiring this variant of IE11.

Internet Explorer 11 is retired and out of support. On most editions, such as Home and Pro, the desktop browser has been disabled and replaced by Microsoft Edge (with paid ESU exceptions until 2028). Some editions are exceptions, notably the Windows 10 China Government Edition. However, IE mode in Microsoft Edge remains, meaning IE 11's rendering engine will be supported through at least 2029 and retired only after a year's notice. The last edition with IE 11 support is Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 (for specialized devices such as medical equipment controllers and ATMs), supported until January 13, 2032, at which point Internet Explorer 11 support fully ends.

Changes

IE11 features redesigned developer tools, support for WebGL, enhanced scaling for high DPI screens, prerender and prefetch. After launch IE11 got support for HTTP/2. In addition, IE11 supports Full Screen and Orientation APIs, CSS border image support, JavaScript enhancements, DOM mutation observers, Web Cryptography API, video text track support, encrypted media support and an improved HTML editor. IE11 uses Transport Layer Security v1.2 as the default protocol for secure connections and deprecates RC4 cipher suite.

The "document mode" feature in the developer toolset (F12) allows simulating the rendering behaviour of Internet Explorer versions 5 to 10 to facilitate testing pages for compatibility.

Internet Explorer 11 for Windows RT does not support Java and other add-ons.

Removed features

• IE11 has deprecated document.all, meaning that code that checks for its presence will not detect it, but code that actually uses it will continue to work. Additionally, the attachEvent proprietary API has been removed.
• Quick Tabs (Ctrl+Q)
• Work Offline command removed from File menu
• Drag and drop of selected content from IE to other programs like Word or WordPad
• Use large icons for command buttons
• Some Group Policy settings are no longer supported.
• Ability to view all cookies at once via Developer Tools
• Ability to disable tabbed browsing
• autocomplete="off" for input type="password"

Added features

• KB3058515 released on June 9, 2015, added HTTP Strict Transport Security support to IE 11.
• KB3139929 bundles a patch which adds advertising of a Windows 10 upgrade offer to the new tab page.