Windows integration

Internet Explorer 11 gives your site first-class exposure on the Windows 8.1 Start screen and across Windows devices with full Live Tile support for pinned sites and cross-device syncing.

Phone number format recognition

IE11 automatically turns phone numbers into clickable links. This feature works when you have an app that can handle phone numbers, such as Skype.

Important  This feature is not supported in IE11 on Windows 7.

 

For more info, see "Phone number format recognition".

Pinned sites

IE11 enhances pinned sites to support Live Tiles, to define notifications, and to make your sites more visually engaging when pinned or saved as favorites. Live Tiles and notifications bring customers in closer contact with your site and create a customized experience.

See "Pinned site enhancements" for details.

Reading view

Internet Explorer on Windows 8.1 provides a reading view for a more streamlined, book-like reading experience of webpages, without the distraction of unrelated or other secondary content on the page.

Important  This feature is not supported in IE11 on Windows 7, or Internet Explorer for the desktop on Windows 8.1.

 

See Reading view for details.

Syncing across devices

Syncing tabs and user settings in IE11 on Windows 8.1 enable your users to seamlessly view and interact with your site across their devices. IE11’s new syncing features on Windows 8.1 are designed with device-switching in mind. When a user leaves a device, all open tabs, except for InPrivate Browsing tabs, are synced using Microsoft OneDrive servers so they are readily available when the user opens IE on another device.

Note  Like other apps on Windows that use the sync platform, the synced IE data is not visible to the user in OneDrive. Users are able to see their synced data in IE.

 

Synced tabs have entry points in both Internet Explorer in the new Windows UI and Internet Explorer for the desktop.

When you sync additional settings and user preferences in IE11, you don't have to configure IE11 on a new device. User-configured settings and preferences are synced by default.

This table shows the advancements in syncing capability in IE11 on Windows 8.1 in comparison to Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8:

Sync feature	Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8	IE11 on Windows 8.1
History and typed URLs	Yes	Yes
Favorites/Bookmarks	Yes	Yes
Tabs	No	Yes
User-configured settings/preferences	Only home pages	Yes
Passwords	Yes	Yes

 

Important  This feature is not supported in IE11 on Windows 7.