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codeulike
Asked: 2012-03-14 07:59:02 +0800 CST

IE8, "Enable Native XMLHTTP support" option - why not?

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Distributed network, about 600 PCs, just upgraded to IE8.

Currently the 'Enable Native XMLHTTP Support' option is disabled (perhaps this is an artifact of the upgrade from IE7) but its causing a few very specific problems with certain jquery widgets etc.

Is there any good reason not to turn this option on?

edit: This explains the setting for IE7 (when it was introduced):
MSDN: About Native XMLHTTP

internet-explorer internet-explorer-8

2 Answers

  1. Alas some paranoid organisations set this policy on believing that the native XMLHttpRequest object presents a security risk. For most (all?) circumstances, this setting shouldn't be set as it will break contemporary applications. However, when you're faced with paranoid "security" people who just say "no", it can be a significant political challenge to get this policy reversed.

    Example: Oracle ADF won't work if this setting is on: https://blogs.oracle.com/groundside/entry/script_for_detecting_availability_of_xmlhttp_in_internet_explorer

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  2. In IE 8, it does not use XMLHttpRequest(), but falls back on ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP"). See here for explanation.

    If the native support is causing issues and the code calls the former, it may require disabling to get the code to pass through that choice and select the latter to work (assuming the coder has included both options in a try...catch scenario, like at the site, above).

    On the other hand, disabling it can break AJAX if apps were written with IE 7/FF/Chrome in mind, where they were using XMLHttpRequest or are using jQuery $.ajax() calls.

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