That is, if you find yourself using the Metro user experience a lot, perhaps because you’re using a touch-based device like a tablet, you’ll probably want to stick with Internet Explorer for Metro. But if you are using a more traditional mouse- and keyboard-based system, perhaps a desktop PC or laptop, the desktop version of Internet Explorer will be what you’re looking for.
Or maybe things aren’t so black and white. As it turns out, our devices, just like the OS they run, are changing. And as you read this, you could be using a tablet that docks and connects to a larger display and a keyboard and mouse, and other peripherals, while you’re sitting at a desk. Or perhaps you’ll opt for a hybrid laptop or Ultrabook that can work as both a traditional PC, with keyboard and mouse, or, with the flip of a screen, can be used like a tablet.
IE 10 Metro and IE 10 desktop also share many useful security features, such as SmartScreen and InPrivate Browsing.
With such devices, your usage will vary not by the device type—since these new kinds of PCs are so versatile—but rather by the situation. They can change on the fly, in fact, and you can move between the different Internet Explorer applications as your usage changes. And because these two applications share browsing history, typed addresses, settings, and more, moving back and forth is fairly seamless.
IE 10 Metro and IE 10 desktop also share many (but not all) underpinning technologies, including hardware acceleration of web-based text, graphics, video, and audio, and compiled JavaScript—you know, if you’re a web geek.
Another thing to consider, though this may be hard to believe: You may just end up liking Internet Explorer 10 Metro, and grow to prefer using it, even if you work mostly in the desktop environment. It can be said that the Metro version of Internet Explorer 10, with its chrome-free user interface and full-screen browsing experience, is like a gateway drug for the rest of Metro. It may, in fact, help convince you to ditch that aging desktop or laptop and head toward a more modern device with touch capabilities.
Either way, Internet Explorer 10 does offers what Microsoft loves to describe as a “no compromises” web browsing experience that works very well with both touch-screen devices and desktop-based machines, and also offers a way to move back and forth between them. Both experiences are available anywhere, from a powerful multi-display desktop all the way down to a svelte, 7-inch tablet.
But don’t decide now. In the coming sections, we’ll thoroughly examine the new Metro-style version of Internet Explorer. (IE 10 for the desktop hasn’t changed much at all, from a user experience standpoint, since IE 9.) And then you can decide for yourself.
Internet Explorer 10 for Metro
IE 10 Metro may be add-on free, but it does include an integrated version of Adobe Flash so it will work with many (but not all) popular Flash-based websites, including those for videos and games.
Internet Explorer 10 for Metro is a touch-friendly, Metro-style web browser that works pretty well with mouse and keyboard too. It offers an add-on free experience that is faster and safer but dispenses with some useful functionality you may expect if you’ve used previous IE versions.
Like other Metro-style apps, IE 10 Metro is immersive, or tailored for a touch-first device experience. That means no visual distractions—thanks to its lack of chrome—and the ability to use simple gestures to navigate the web and pan and zoom across individual web pages.
IE 10 Metro also changes the web in some crucial ways. On-screen controls like check boxes and radio buttons are styled differently so that they’re touch-friendly. It’s very similar to the experience offered by the Windows Phone version of Internet Explorer, in fact.
Some common browser activities are handled quite a bit differently in this version of Internet Explorer. For example, search and sharing occur from the system-wide contracts that are available from the Charms bar. And the Metro Devices interface is used to print, play video on other screens, and interact with other devices.
Chapter 3 describes Charms, contracts, and other common Metro features.
Some things, of course, are the same as with the desktop version of IE. Aside from the basic feature set, including features like InPrivate Browsing and Tracking Protection, you’ll find that many keyboard shortcuts from desktop IE continue to work in the Metro version of the browser. And if you find a page that won’t work in IE Metro—perhaps because of its lack of add-on support—you can easily open that page in the desktop version of Internet Explorer and get back to work.
The IE Metro User Experience
Figure 7-3: The Internet Explorer 10 live tile
The Metro version of Internet Explorer 10 should be available via its live tile on the Windows 8 Start screen, as shown in Figure 7-3.
Yes, that says should. Sadly, depending on how you acquired Windows 8—perhaps by upgrading an existing PC or from a PC maker who has modified the default settings—you may see a tile for the desktop version of Internet Explorer instead, as shown in Figure 7-4. Or, you may see a tile for a competing web browser.
Figure 7-4: See this tile instead? That’s the IE 10 desktop tile.
Unfortunately, this is an important consideration, because when another browser or the desktop version of IE is configured as the default browser, Internet Explorer 10 for Metro won’t even be available. It will literally be hidden from you, and unavailable. Because of this possibility, we explain exactly how and why this happens, and how you can fix it, in the final section of this chapter. So if you’re not seeing what you should be seeing, jump ahead now. And no worries, it’s easily fixed, if not easily understood.
The first time you launch the Metro version of Internet Explorer may be a bit surprising, and while Figure 7-5 is probably inadequate for explaining why, here it goes.
Figure 7-5: It’s the touchable web: IE 10 for Metro.
Yes, this is why Google named its own browser Chrome.
What you may not be getting from that static screenshot is that Internet Explorer for Metro, like IE for Windows Phone, offers only a very minimal user interface, and one that is, in fact, hidden by default. So what you’re looking at there is a web page loaded in a browser that has no surrounding user interface, or what browser makers call chrome. That is, you’re seeing just the web page, and not the browser.
To hide the edge UIs, simply perform the same swipe—or keyboard shortcut, or right-click, again. These things almost always work like a toggle.
Like other Metro-style apps, Internet Explorer 10 does provide a so-called edge UI that is accessed by swiping toward the middle of the screen from the top or bottom edge. (Mouse users can right-click any blank area of the browser’s surface to trigger this interface, while keyboard users should learn the Winkey + Z shortcut.) When you access this edge UI, the browser will resemble Figure 7-6.
Figure 7-6: The IE Metro edge UI
There’s a lot going on here. In fact, one thing you may have noticed is that Internet Explorer 10 is fairly unique among Metro-style apps in that it not only offers a single app bar—that toolbar-like control at the bottom of the screen that in IE is called the navigation bar—but it also offers a second bar, called the tab switcher, at the top of the screen. Almost all Metro-style apps offer a single app bar. But very few go beyond that, as IE does.