At the end of 2023, Microsoft retired Microsoft Defender Application Guard for Office, and a month later, the same thing happened to Microsoft Defender Application Guard for Edge. Now, the company has updated the official list of deprecated Windows features with new details about deprecating MDAG and related apps and browser extensions.
Although the feature is called Microsoft Defender Application Guard for edge, It offers browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox. The idea is to track untrusted websites and redirect them from your current browser to an isolated Microsoft Edge window so you can browse with fewer security risks.
Since Application Guard has been deprecated, there will be no migration to Edge Manifest V3. Compatible plugins and the associated Windows Store app will not be available after May 2024. This affects the following browsers:
- Application Guard extension – Chrome.
- Application Guard extension – Firefox.
If you want to block unprotected browsers until you’re ready to stop using MDAG in your organization, we recommend using an AppLocker policy or the Microsoft Edge Management Service. For more information, see Microsoft Edge and Microsoft Defender Application Guard.
It is worth noting that the change mainly affects corporate customers and not ordinary home users. Companies with existing installations of Microsoft Defender Application Guard can continue to use it, but Microsoft recommends considering alternatives because MDAG “may be removed” from future versions of Windows.
As for the Manifest V3 extensions mentioned in the update, Microsoft initially planned to drop Manifest V2 in favor of V3 in January 2024. However, the company changed its plans, and The official documentation Says Microsoft is currently “in the process of updating our timelines for the MV3 migration.”
Other recently deprecated Windows features include the Windows Subsystem for Android, Windows Mixed Reality, TLS certificates with short RSA keys, password loaders in MPR alerts, and others. For more, check out our comprehensive list of everything Microsoft is discontinuing in Windows in 2023.