Anchor tags are not working on internet explorer when using touch devices

Question

Hi,
I have a simple anchor tag like <a href=http://www.google.com></a>
Using a mouse there is no problem but when I use a touch device (windows 8.1/windows Phone 8.1), all that will happen when people touch it is that the link will be highlighted.
I don't want to highlight it, I just want the link to open.
Double clicking the link will zoom in the page. It takes several attempts tapping the link to actually open it... this is VERY frustrating.
How can I remove this highlighting non-sense?
I found an article that seems to indicate this was done on purpose:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2013/07/31/ie11-touch-browsing-for-today-s-web-and-beyond.aspx
It's a total failure if you ask me and it is very frustrating to use my site on a touch device.
Anyone has any idea on how to make links behave normally?
Best Regards,
Peter

Answer 1

seems that it is something in SharePoint that is causing this behavior
So you would probably be better off posting in a Sharepoint forum.  They would be more familiar with all the products involved.  This is an example where newsgroup cross-posting would be useful but it does not exist in forums.
Otherwise, sounds like you are going to have to find the implementation involved and then devise a workaround for it.  Is there a publicly accessible example of the coding used for what you are seeing?  You could use the Developer Tools (or View
Source) to try to look at it yourself.
For a guess it may involve Active Scripting.  If the link can be used even if Active Scripting is disabled you could achieve that result simply by changing the security level or zone that the site is regarded with.
BTW with your example link above I have the opposite problem.  I can't touch it to try to select it without launching it.  Here's a workaround for that:  select a word before the link, use the selection's wheels to extend it to include
the link, then reduce it to include only the link, then, I can use press and old on the selection without launching the link.  (In fact since I always leave press and hold disabled I used my pen with its right-click barrel button to see the selection's
menu though if I use my pen's barrel button, I don't need to make the selection to see just a reduced menu which would be sufficient to use the link.)  In any case, I imagine that just as I can do a press and hold on the selected text of
the link without launching it you may just as easily be able to do a press and hold to see the selection's menu to allow you to launch its link.  
HTH
Robert Aldwinckle