Microsoft has announced that it is phasing out its much-hated, outdated Internet Explorer browser, nearly 27 years after it arrived on desktop computers in 1995.
Starting today, June 15, the desktop app will stop working and users will be redirected to the Edge browser.
The very first
Internet Explorer was a ticket to the world of the Internet for people born before Generation Z, in an era where Microsoft dominated the technology market. Even before the advent of Google, Twitter and TikTok. At a time when the browser had to be installed on computers using a CD-ROM.
Microsoft’s dominance of the market was made possible by the fact that the software was bundled with the Windows operating system. IE was often slow-paced, and when a faster competitor emerged in Mozilla’s Firefox and then Google Chrome, people switched from one browser to another en masse.
In a filing with the Australian Competition Authority as part of the Web Browser Market Review, Microsoft said its decision to phase out Internet Explorer was in large part due to web developers being less likely to make their sites compatible with their browser.
The statement said that “after years of trying to fix incompatibilities that crop up across various websites, including some of the most popular on the web,” the company eventually decided it would continue to stay away from Chrome with its unique proprietary web platform “more doesn’t make sense.”
gradual withdrawal
Chances are good that you have never used Internet Explorer for many years (or never at all). Microsoft is pushing people to ditch IE in favor of Edge, which was released in 2015 and is built on open source Chromium from Google.
The company ended support for Internet Explorer for Teams in 2020 and announced plans to end support for Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 in August of that year.
If there is a relic site that still requires Internet Explorer to open, people using the Edge browser will be able to open it in compatibility mode.
Despite the gradual death of Internet Explorer, its brand is still very popular. A survey commissioned by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in September 2021 found that the most popular browsers for people are Chrome (95%), followed by Internet Explorer (85%), Firefox (81%), Safari ( 80%) and only in last place is Edge (69%).
According to the same study, only 28% of people use Internet Explorer on their computers, while 81% use Chrome, including 73% of Apple users. The main reason people use IE is because it came pre-installed on their computer, so there was no reason to look for another browser.
In the past, bundled with Windows, the browser could be an advantage for Microsoft. The company said people are now aware of alternatives, and on desktop, Microsoft Edge has a market share of just 9%.
RIP
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