You have to remember that we are not the Dahua and Hikvision intended audience - it is the installers hoping you will subscribe to their monthly fees to "manage" the system.
While newer cameras are supposed to work with other browsers and not need the plug-in nonsense, keep in mind to ensure full compatibility, IE is still preferred. And this isn't specific to just Dahua either. And sometimes the plug-in nonsense is needed.
It comes down to IE was the most popular browser when these cameras started to be made, so they centered the firmware around one particular browser and they got lazy and never updated the internals of the program to play nice with other browsers as more became available and IE started to fade.
Back when the firmware was written, it was probably a pain to get it to play nice with every different browser, so they went with the most popular one.
They haven't had a need to address this because their intended market (remember it isn't us) is mainly businesses where they have enough light they can stay in default settings so they don't have a need to login to the camera via browser. It is us homeowners that push these to the limits and actually change settings.
Further, Steve1225, who is an installer and works closer with Dahua, said it best here in this
post:
Even though Microsoft has sunset Explorer, it is still available in Windows 11 (hidden). Many older programs rely on the old Trident (HTML-) Engine from IE, even stuff as basic as the old Control Panel. Old browsers are old, so unlike modern browsers where the WebView can be its own component, it's either all or nothing. And since the engine is still required not to break Windows functionality and apps from before 2015, it's still included (but mostly hidden). The whole file manager system is still based on IE. That's also why Device Manager and Control Panel are still there too. Similar to Dahua and Hikvision, Microsoft changed the UI and not the core, and added new features to upgrade its OS. A lot of legacy stuff are hidden.
So contrary to popular belief, Internet Explorer isn't going away anytime soon.
So we either deal with outdated browsers but better cameras or go with crap consumer grade cameras that use fancy apps (but probably more vulnerabilities than this plug-in) and modern browsers but horrible images.
If you don't want to deal with outdated browsers, then go with one of the consumer brands - Ring, Arlo, Reolink, Nest, Blink, etc. as those cameras all function from a nice 2025 looking app.
Simply download their app and scan the camera QR code and you are up and running, with a better app experience also.
But their using a modern app comes at a cost of nighttime performance and ability to customize stuff, but obviously many do not seem to care about that as those systems are popular and those consumer grade systems are a perfect fit for those that want simplicity and not having to learn how to use an NVR.
We are just fortunate to be able to get our hands on the better stuff. And a forum like this to help us when stuck.
Different end user, different expectations.
Many don't have an issue with other browsers, but if they do, chasing camera settings isn't going to do it.
And we have seen some of these cameras in 2025 still perform better with Internet Explorer, like a member recently that kept getting false triggers and turned out that in Edge with IE mode it showed MD was turned off, yet logging in with Internet Explorer showed MD turned on. That can drive someone nuts trying to eliminate false triggers and it turns out to be a browser issue!
A trusted member here wildcat_1, who works closely with Dahua and gets "under the hood" of the firmware, including this new GUI, said in this
thread:
"Not a case of only using IE for testing, it's more the case that this is the only fully compatible browser that truly work with Dahua GUI's. As we've all discussed before, other browsers unfortunately (up to Firefox support most recently) cause anomalies in config, maintenance modes, updates etc. All of this reported back to Dahua to tackle in future but while we all await compatibility with wider browser and platform acceptance OR browser agnostic GUI's, this is unfortunately where we're all at."
So while Dahua claims other browsers are supported, someone that looks at the fine details of the firmware, coupled with many users experience here, that Internet Explorer provides the best opportunity to set up the camera and the setting stick.
SD card download speed is impacted by the browser as well (fastest with Explorer).
Doesn't mean you won't have a problem with another browser, but it is rolling the dice depending on the parameters you are using.
Simply use Internet Explorer or Pale Moon and be done with it.
Even brand new NVRs still have Explorer coded into them to access the cameras:
Tell me why would they have the Explorer browser in their brand new NVR if that isn't the browser of choice....
Bigredfish points out in many
threads the difference between using another browser or IE/Edge with IE and that you simply don't see some controls without IE enabled.
And Holbs started a thread that shows sometimes you don't know what you are missing by using another browser:
For those that do not know...use IE browser for Dahua (and others?) camera GUI to see more options
I've been using Chrome since I bought my first Dahua camera from Andy last year (the good 'ol 4231's). I was able to log in, see menu options, do the config, save, logout....all done. Always wondered how folks were able to see the AI detection boxes livestream and other stuff which I thought...
Or this one where someone showed that with a brand new 2024 camera model, downloading files from an SD card is 100Mbps with Explorer and only 10Mbps with other browsers.
Downloading videos files directly from camera via web interface (using other than IE) seems to be capped at TEN Mbps
UPDATE: If you use Internet Explorer (with plug-in), you can download videos via the web interface at the full 100Mbps speed - note you can't go any faster because the NIC doesn't support GigE. Thanks
@TheOtherMike for pointing that out on the data sheet (maybe for 2024, Dahua will go with...
Most people here have a wide variety of cameras. It is stupid to have to say "oh I can use Chrome for this camera when I need to get in to the GUI" and "Oh I don't see everything in this camera with Chrome because I need to use Explorer."
The fact of the matter is, every one of these cameras will work with Internet Explorer regardless of age or firmware. Can't say that the other way around.
I believe in the Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) philosophy. It is much easier to just use Explorer for every camera GUI than to bounce around different browsers based on the firmware variant.
Further, for those that are concerned about security, I would rather use the vanilla Explorer that is still baked into Win10 and Win11 for my cameras and my cameras only.
Personally, I don't want to use the same browser I use for other stuff to make changes to my camera in the event the camera firmware has some vulnerability that it exposes in another browser. Maybe the risk is remote or non-existent, but I would prefer to use just ONE browser for all my cameras.
And of course, YMMV
