Show camera web pages that require IE11

Now that Microsoft has deprecated the Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) software in favor of the more modern Edge browser, which is based on Chromium, the problem may arise that your browser can’t properly show your camera’s web page anymore. This probably means that your camera is depending on at least one older web capability that is no longer supported in modern browsers. In many cases this older technology is ActiveX controls. These controls were fully supported by IE11, but have been removed from the other browsers a long time ago. The reason for this is clear: cyber security. It has proven all too often that malware uses this ActiveX mechanism to launch itself in your machine, and cause whatever havoc it was designed for.

These days, you should use a modern browser, and Microsoft already discourages the use of IE11 for years by now. The reason for IE11 to actually still exist, is that very many embedded systems, including many network cameras, still rely on the older technology and therefore cannot work properly without it.

Should you have such a camera, you might take advantage of this page’s help on how to enable the Compatibility mode in Microsoft’s Chromium based Edge browser. It’s easy to enable and just takes a couple of steps:

1. In Edge, locate the ellipsis (…) button in the top right corner of the window (right under the Close X button). Click it to open the Settings and more menu. Alternatively, you can just hit Alt+F to do the same.

2. Find the Settings menu option and click it:
   
   

   Open

   

    

3. The Settings window shows up. In the left panel, find the option Default browser, and click on it:
   
   

   Open

   

    

4. Under Internet Explorer compatibility, find option “Allow sites to be reloaded in Internet Explorer mode“. Normally, this setting is at Default; you need to change this one to Allow:
   
   

    

5. After this, Edge tells you to Restart the browser. So click on the Restart button to restart the browser.

6. Done, you can now show any page in Internet Explorer compatibility more, including your camera’s web page.

7. As before, open your camera’s web page. As an example, here’s the BL1002F4-EI web page:
   
   

    

8. Again, open the Settings and more menu (Ellipsis button in the top right corner, or Alt+F), and this time select option Reload in Internet Explorer mode:
   
   

    

9. You may find Edge complaining about this compatibility mode, unsecured web page, or anything. That’s logical, since we’re now inside an unsecured old browser. In the below screenshot you see that it’s possible to configure the browser to reduce this type of warnings in the future. Then click Done to proceed:
   
   

    

10. After login, you can now see that the BL1002’s ActiveX component is allowed to load:
    
    

     

11. As usual, download and install the plugin that is required for showing this older web page properly, allow the browser to proceed with this plugin, when asked, then the page shows up properly:
    
    

     

12. Done!