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.
As long as their intended market simply uses the NVR as a recording device and to display it on a monitor, they have no need to change what works for their intended market.
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
How to enable native Internet Explorer in Windows 10 and 11:
- Open Notepad:
- Copy then paste the single line of code below into Notepad:
- CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application").Visible=true
- Save as OpenIE.vbs
- Make sure the the file name ends in .vbs not .txt, If it ends in .txt you must rename to .vbs
- Create a shortcut to the above file and double-click it anytime you want native Internet Explorer.