AnyConnect SAML Browser

[AlexH.]

Hi,

In the anyconnect configuration guide its mentioned that with release 9.7.1 anyconnect replaces the native (external) browser with an embedded browser, and it uses the embedded browser to complete the SAML authentication. However, in the platform specific requirements it mentions:

You must meet the following system requirements in order to use SAML with an embedded browser:

-- Windows—Windows 7 (and later), Internet Explorer 11 (and later)

-- macOS—macOS 10.10 (or later) (AnyConnect officially supports macOS 10.11 or later)

I have two questions:

1> Why is there a requirement for windows machine to have Internet Explorer 11 even though anyconnect is using an embedded browser?

2> Microsoft has announced that Internet Explorer will retire in June and is moving to Edge. What will be the impact of this change for the end users?

Thanks,

Alex

[UdupiKrishna]

There's no official documentation to back this, but there were similar questions from other customers in the past.

Cisco dev has confirmed that there are necessary precautions in place for SAML to function even if IE 11 goes out of support/removed from a user's PC.

There's no proper guide to fully remove IE from a windows machine, but i remember running a few tests in the past where IE was partially removed/disabled and SAML continued to function