Microsoft has announced the deprecation of Microsoft Defender SmartScreen in Internet Explorer (IE) and IE Mode on Windows 11 with the latest Windows update. It said that this is part of its ongoing efforts to modernize security and phase out legacy components. To be very clear, this change only affects SmartScreen in Internet Explorer or IE Mode on Windows 11. It continues to work in Microsoft Edge, Windows Shell, and IE/IE Mode on older versions of Windows.
Internet Explorer has already been deprecated on Windows 11, when you try to open it you get redirected to Edge, so the SmartScreen deprecation there doesn’t make much difference. However, IE Mode is still supported and designed for legacy enterprise compatibility; you’ll notice a difference here.
Microsoft pinned the removal on security modernization and the limited scope of IE Mode. It said that IE Mode is designed exclusively for enterprise-configured, trusted intranet sites, not for general internet browsing, so it makes less sense to maintain SmartScreen on it. There is also the matter of redundancy, since many enterprise administrators explicitly define the list of trusted sites for IE Mode, SmartScreen’s anti-phishing functionality becomes redundant.
Another benefit of retiring SmartScreen is the modernization that can take place. The SmartScreen infrastructure in IE depends on older binary components that can now be removed. Microsoft also mentioned that there is still some protection as files downloaded from IE or IE Mode are still protected by the Mark-of-the-Web (MotW) tags, which ensures SmartScreen in the Windows Shell scans them when they’re opened.
While SmartScreen is being deprecated, Windows 11 users still have system-level protection as well via Windows Defender and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, giving you comprehensive protection against system-level threats.
Given the deprecation, Microsoft has some recommendations for administrators. It strongly advises that IE Mode should never be used to browse untrusted sites on the public internet and admins should restrict its use via site lists that only include trust, internal enterprise applications. If you want to browse the public internet, Microsoft recommends using its newer Edge browser.
If admins encounter any issues following the update, SmartScreen can be manually disabled in IE Mode via Internet Options: Click Start, type internet options in the Search box and then click Internet Options. Go to the Security tab, select Trusted Sites, and then select Custom Level.Under Use Windows Defender SmartScreen, select Disable and then click OK.
To learn more about this change, check out Microsoft’s dedicated support page.
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