Beware Cookie Sharing in Cross-Zone Scenarios

The Problem


From time to time, various users have complained to the IE team that they’re
unable to log into assorted websites and services that they care about: Hotmail
and GMail are two common examples. They report that after entering their
credentials into the login page, the page seems to get caught in some sort of
redirect loop, redirecting from the login page to the site back to the login
page. This pattern either continues endlessly or until an error message is
displayed.

Source : IEInternals

Analyzing website performance with the Windows Performance Toolkit

To build fast sites, developers need powerful tools to analyze the performance of their sites and debug issues. In-browser tools like the F12 Developer Tools are a great start and the primary tools for analyzing what’s happening behind the scenes when a page slows down. However, some scenarios require measuring performance characteristics in the context of other applications and the operating system itself. For these scenarios, we use the Windows Performance Toolkit.

Source : Microsoft Edge Dev Blog

Largest collection of FREE Microsoft eBooks ever

FREE Microsoft eBooks! Who doesn’t love FREE Microsoft eBooks? Well, for the past few years, I’ve provided posts containing almost 150 FREE Microsoft eBooks and my readers, new and existing, have loved these posts so much that they downloaded over 3.5 Million free eBooks as of last June, including over 1,000,000 in a single week last year (and many, many more since then).

Source : Eric Ligman, Microsoft Senior Sales Excellence Manager, Blog 

Passwords in IE11 - IEBlog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

With Internet Explorer 11, we’ve done work to make signing into sites faster and more reliable as well as give users more control when saving credentials. In addition, IE11 will now roam credentials to IE11 on Windows Phone 8.1!

We are giving control back to the user when deciding to save passwords on a given site.  IE11 will now prompt the user to save passwords even if the autocomplete=off attribute is set on login forms.

Source : IEBlog

Announcing Internet Explorer Developer Channel

Today we’re excited to announce the release of the Internet Explorer Developer Channel, a fully functioning browser designed to give Web developers and early adopters a sneak peek at the Web platform features we’re working on. The Developer Channel is available for download today for both Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1 customers running Internet Explorer 11.

IE Developer Channel can run alongside and independently of IE11, and has all of the browser features that you love in IE11, as well as the latest platform features we’re working on. As you test drive these features, make sure to give us feedback through @IEDevChat or Connect.

Source : IEBlog

Stay up to date with Enterprise Mode for Internet Explorer 11

Microsoft is taking an important step towards helping businesses stay up to date with the latest software, services, and devices. Enterprise Mode for Internet Explorer 11, announced today as an update for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, provides better compatibility for older versions of Internet Explorer and tools to manage which Web apps use it.

Source  : IEBlog

Malicious Proxy Auto-Config redirection

Good reading from Microsoft Malware Protection Center : Malicious Proxy Auto-Config redirection

Introducing Reading View in IE 11

Reading view is a new feature in Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 8.1 that helps you focus on the main content of the Web page you want to read. Reading view is a way to experience just the article or blog post you want to read, without the distractions of related (or unrelated) content surrounding the story. Find an article you want to read, switch to reading view, and settle into a great reading experience. When you’re done, just exit reading view to continue browsing on the site.

Source : IEBlog

IE : Can’t display IIS Failed Request Logs or http://127.0.0.1

Have you ever heard about IE Enhanced Protected Mode or Mark-of-the-Web (MOTW) ?

Well, if you encounter one of those problems you should :

• Opening IIS Failed Request Logs files (XML+XSL) from you local machine with IE result in a text page without formatting.
• Trying to access your local web server with the 127.0.0.1 ip (not localhost) or the real local ip of your computer with IE results in an error page.

You have to blame the IE Enhanced Protected Mode for those ‘problems’. Here’s two solutions :

1) Disable the Enhanced Protected Mode

• Open Internet Options
• click on the Advanced tab
• Unselect ‘Enable Enhanced Protected Mode’ in the Security Section
• Restart IE

2) Add you site to the Intranet Zone

• Open Internet Option
• Click on the Security tab
• Select the Intranet zone
• Click on the Sites button
• Click on the Advanced button
• Add the following address :

http://127.0.0.1	To allow access to your local web site
about:internet	To allow access to file with a MOTW (ex: IIS Failed Request Logs)

Personally I prefer option 2.

References :

• Enhanced Protected Mode
• Understanding Enhanced Protected Mode
• Enhanced Protected Mode and Local Files
• Troubleshooting Failed Requests Using Tracing in IIS 8.5

IE11 for Windows 7 Globally Available for Consumers and Businesses

Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) is available worldwide in 95 languages for download today. We will begin automatically updating Windows 7 customers to IE11 in the weeks ahead, starting today with customers running the IE11 Developer and Release Previews. With this final release, IE11 brings the same leading standards support--with improved performance, security, privacy, and reliability that consumers enjoy on Windows 8.1—to Windows 7 customers.

Source : IEBog

Debugging and Tuning Web Sites and Apps with F12 Developer Tools in IE11

Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 comes with a completely redesigned and enhanced suite of in-browser developer tools that help developers build, diagnose, and optimize modern Web sites and apps across multiple devices. The new tools, which we call F12 for short, enable Web developers to work quickly and efficiently.

The Visual Studio and IE teams have worked together to build F12 with a core principle of helping you get from problem to solution quickly with actionable data. The new F12 enables you to deliver fast and fluid Web experiences with tools for diagnosing and fixing performance issues and tools that give you deeper insight into how IE is laying out and rendering your app. F12 supports the fast, iterative workflow used by modern Web developers.

Source : IEBlog

Microsoft changes default Flash behavior in Windows 8 and RT

In a surprise reversal, Microsoft has changed the default behavior of Flash content on websites viewed using Internet Explorer in Windows 8 or Windows RT. Previously, sites had to be on a whitelist before Flash would work. The new behavior effectively turns the Compatibility View list into an exclusive blacklist of badly behaved sites.

Source : The Ed Bott Report | ZDNet

An inside look at Internet Explorer 10's mysterious Flash whitelist

In Windows 8 and especially on Windows RT, your ability to run Flash programs hosted on the web depends on whether a site is included on Microsoft's Compatibility View list. So what does it take to get added to that list? And what can you do if a favorite Flash-based site won't work?

Source : The Ed Bott Report

Web Sites and a Plug-in Free Web (IE10 & Metro)

The transition to a plug-in free Web is happening today. Any site that uses plug-ins
needs to understand what their customers experience when browsing plug-in free.
Lots of Web browsing today happens on devices that simply don’t support plug-ins.
Even browsers that do support plug-ins offer many ways to run plug-in free.

Metro style IE runs plug-in free to improve battery life as well as security, reliability,
and privacy for consumers.
Previously, we wrote about how we use IE’s Compatibility View List to make
sure sites that have a plug-in free experience for other browsers provide that same
experience to IE10 users. This post describes a way for sites that continue to rely
on plug-ins to provide consumers browsing with Metro style IE the best possible
experience.

Developers with sites that need plug-ins can use an HTTP header or meta tag to signal
Metro style Internet Explorer to prompt the user.

Source : IEBlog

IE10 Compat Inspector

Compat Inspector is now available for IE10. Use Compat Inspector to quickly identify if Internet Explorer platform changes affect your site. Whether you're preparing for IE10 or still updating for IE9, run Compat Inspector on any page experiencing problems. Then watch for messages explaining potential issues and steps you can take to resolve them.

Source : IE10 Compat Inspector - IEBlog

How to add a custom search provider to Internet Explorer 9

Thanks to Microsoft, the ‘Add custom search provider’ button was remove from the IE Gallery site.

If your want to create a custom search provider for any site just go to http://www.enhanceie.com/ie/searchbuilder.asp

Microsoft launches HTML5 version of 'Cut the Rope' at CES 2012

Microsoft unveiled a HTML5 version of Cut the Rope at CES 2012 today. Created with the help of ZeptoLab, the game includes 25 levels in total for Internet Explorer 9 users — seven of which are exclusive when the site is pinned. Gabby Hegerty, Internet Explorer lead in the UK, explained to us that the web app is part of Microsoft's IE9 beauty of the web promotion, something that helped launch the web browser in March 2011.

Microsoft previously demonstrated Cut the Rope on Windows 8, and Hegerty revealed there are discussions around a Windows Phone 7 app. Although the latest effort is HTML5, it doesn't work correctly on Windows Phone's browser, and there's no plans to fix that. Microsoft's Cut the Rope for IE9 follows a similar effort by Google, Chrome Angry Birds, and does let Safari, Firefox, and Chrome users play the game. However, If you want access to the special seven levels you'll have to use Internet Explorer 9 and pin the site to your taskbar.

Source : www.theverge.com
Play : www.cuttherope.ie

Internet Explorer 9 Keyboard shortcuts

Here’s my favorites shortcuts in Internet Explorer (IE) 9 :

Ctrl + W	Close the current window (tab)
Ctrl + F	Find on this page
Ctrl + I	Open Favorites
Ctrl + E	Open a search query in the address bar (with last query string)
Ctrl + click	Open links in a new tab in the background
Ctrl + Shift + click	Open links in a new tab in the foreground
Ctrl + P	Print

Complete IE 9 keyboard shortcut list :
windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Internet-Explorer-9-keyboard-shortcuts

IE9 Compat Inspector

Compat Inspector is a JavaScript-based testing tool that analyzes your site while it runs. Compat Inspector reports patterns of interaction which cause issues in standards mode. This allows you to identify problems quickly without memorizing a bunch of documentation or searching through the entirety of your site's code. We developed Compat Inspector during the course of IE9 to speed up the process of recognizing common issues across different sites. Along the way many members of the IE team contributed to the set of test cases that make up the rules in Compat Inspector. Now we're making it all available to you. Check out the Compat Inspector Test Drive to try it out before using it on your own site.

Source : IEBlog

IE9 versus Chrome: which one blocks malware better?

Last week I looked at a fascinating sample of malware that specifically targeted users of Google Chrome. Over the past few days, I’ve been looking more closely at this particular malware attack, which appears to be widespread and extremely persistent.

Source : Ed Bott's microsoft report