Does Power Apps still support Internet Explorer (IE) - 2020?

May 10, 2021

3 min read

General

For organisations that rely on the Microsoft ecosystem, there are still many users that use IE. This post looks at some of the common themes and questions around the topic of IE.

How many users use IE and why?

The use of Internet Explorer is diminishing. Statistics from this month (May 2020) highlight IE's market share at around 5%. This provides a ballpark value of the number of users that use IE.

https://netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx

Within corporate companies and organisations, the number of users will be higher. The reason is because there are many companies with internal based web apps and systems that work only with IE, due to compatibility issues such as a reliance on ActiveX components.

IE also supports the ability to open local files and UNC file paths through file links (eg, hyperlinks that look like this file://server/share/file.txt ). This is a feature that is used commonly in intranet systems, and a feature that doesn't work on Chrome/Edge due to security limitations.

Users that rely on IE to carry out a job can prefer to use IE exlusively, to avoid switching between browsers.

Does Power Apps still support IE?

As of today (May 2020), Power Apps still supports IE. However, this won't be for much longer. Microsoft has announced the deprecation of IE support, and the Power Platform will no longer support IE officially beyond August 2021.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/important-changes-coming#internet-explorer-11-support-for-dynamics-365-and-microsoft-power-platform-is-deprecated

Effective December 2020, Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 support for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform is deprecated, and Internet Explorer 11 won’t be supported after August 2021.

This will impact customers who use Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform products that are designed to be used through an Internet Explorer 11 interface. After August 2021, Internet Explorer 11 won't be supported for such Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform products. We recommend that customers transition to Microsoft Edge.

What browsers does Power Apps support in 2020?

The desktop browsers that Power Apps currently supports are as follows:

Google Chrome Latest three major releases
Microsoft Edge Latest three major releases
Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 (with Compatibility View off)
Mozilla Firefox (latest version) Latest three major releases
Apple Safari 13 and later

We can find full details, and an up-to-date list through the following link

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/limits-and-config

What known problems are there?

Since IE 11 is still supported, there are few major issues. The main requirement is that IE compatibility mode must not be enabled.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/fix-site-display-issues-with-compatibility-view-in-internet-explorer-11-9a0a3a6e-89be-518f-ff56-c491b528b302

If users experience problems with IE, the first step is to check is that the users have installed the most up-to-date version of IE 11.

The most common problems relate to functionality and appearance when Power Apps are embedded in links or iframes.

Besides presentational issues, there are occasions where users suffer from IE related authentication glitches, which typically involves an endless authentication loop. Adding the Power Apps websites as trusted sites can mitigate these rare issues.

How to force an App/hyperlink to open in Microsoft Edge

In preparation for the Power Platform's end of support for IE in August 2020, it would be wise to encourage users to switch to a supported browser.

A good tip is where we build hyperlinks to Power Apps in portals or other apps, we can force a hyperlink to open in Microsoft Edge by prefixing the hyperlink href with "microsoft-edge:", like so.

<a href="microsoft-edge:https://apps.powerapps.com/play/<appID>?tenantId=<tenantID>">
   Open PowerApp with with Edge browser
</a>

When an IE user clicks this type of link from a Windows machine with Microsoft Edge installed, the target page will open in Edge. Users can also create IE favourites using the same format. Those links will then open in Edge, rather than IE.

Conclusion

There are many corporate users that still use IE. Power Apps still supports IE11, but support will officially end in August 2020. Where there are users that still use IE, it would be wise to transition these users towards using a more up to date browser.