ericlaw

Private Browsing Mode

Note: This blog post was originally written before the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge was announced. As a consequence, it includes discussion of the behavior of the Legacy Microsoft Edge browser. The new Chromium-based Edge behaves largely the same way as Google Chrome. Last Update: 13 June 2025 InPrivate Mode was introduced in Internet Explorer 8Continue reading “Private Browsing Mode”

An Update on the Edge XSS Filter

In Windows 10 RS5 (aka the “October 2018 Update”), the venerable XSS Filter first introduced in 2008 with IE8 was removed from Microsoft Edge. The XSS Filter debuted in a time before Content Security Policy as a part of a basket of new mitigations designed to mitigate the growing exploitation of cross-site scripting attacks, joining older features like HTTPOnlyContinue reading “An Update on the Edge XSS Filter”

Streaming Audio in Edge

This issue report complains that Edge doesn’t stream AAC files and instead tries to download them. It notes that, in contrast, URLs that point to MP3s result in a simple audio player loading inside the browser. Edge has always supported AAC so what’s going on? The issue here isn’t about AAC, per-se; it’s instead about whether or notContinue reading “Streaming Audio in Edge”

ShellExecute Doesn’t

My oldest supported Windows application is a launcher app named SlickRun, and it’s ~24 years old this year. I haven’t done much to maintain it over the last few years, although it’s now available in 64-bit and runs great on Windows 10. (Thanks go to Embarcadero, who now offer a free “Community” edition of Delphi, theContinue reading “ShellExecute Doesn’t”

Cookie Limits

I’ve been writing about Cookies a lot recently, and also did so almost a decade ago. Edge/IE cookie limits The June 1018 Cumulative Updates increased the per-domain cookie limit from 50 to 180 for IE and Edge Legacy across Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 (TH1 to RS2). This higher limit matches Chrome’s cookie jar. InContinue reading “Cookie Limits”