Microsoft Kicking Plug-Ins To The Curb In IE10

Posted 09/15/2011 at 9:55am | by Brad Chacos

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Even though Steve Jobs retired, his mammoth, forward-looking hit-or-miss vision is still leaving its fingerprints all over the tech industry. Case in point: Adobe Flash. By now, everyone knows that Apple refused to allow Flash to run on iOS systems. For the Metro (read: mobile) version of IE10 in Windows 8, Microsoft’s not only blocking Flash functionality, it's jumping whole hog on the HTML5 bandwagon and restricting plug-ins entirely.

“For the web to move forward and for consumers to get the most out of touch-first browsing, the Metro style browser in Windows 8 is as HTML5-only as possible, and plug-in free,” IE lead Dean Hachamovitch wrote on the Building Windows 8 blog. “The experience that plug-ins provide today is not a good match with Metro style browsing and the modern HTML5 web.”

Take heart, Flash fans; it’s not all bad news. Microsoft’s releasing two versions of IE10, one that’s optimized for the Metro experience and a version that’s more suitable for desktop needs. The desktop version will still support plug-ins and extensions, and if you’re a more Metro kind of user who only wants to use the desktop view when it’s absolutely necessary, that version will sport a “Use desktop view” button.