RIP Internet Explorer, 1995–2023
Official: Internet Explorer is dead. Microsoft confirmed this Tuesday by updating the Internet Explorer Desktop App Support page : “The legacy, unsupported Internet Explorer 11 desktop app has been permanently disabled with a Microsoft Edge update on some versions of Windows 10.” Oh.
Anyone who has paid attention to Internet Explorer and the world of Internet browsers in general has seen it a mile away. Microsoft has been supporting its current Edge web browser since 2015, leaving the legacy IE browser in the background. But it’s not just that: in 2021 , Microsoft announced that it would be putting Internet Explorer to the pasture , phasing out the program until June 15, 2022, when the company planned to officially end support for it.
If you haven’t checked your calendar lately, June 15, 2022 was eight months ago, which means Microsoft removed Internet Explorer over half a year ago. Still, retired doesn’t mean dead. Even though the company made it harder to use the legacy browser instead of just switching to Edge, it was still technically possible to surf the web using IE. Of course, it’s not recommended – apart from the fact that the age of Internet Explorer has made it a terrible browser to use in 2022, the lack of support has turned it into a security risk. However, Internet Explorer lived, if you can call it alive.
Which brings us to Tuesday, February 14th. Valentine’s Day, just not for those who still love Internet Explorer. Instead of retiring the app to a long and happy retirement, Microsoft opted to go nuclear, permanently disabling it on some versions of Windows 10. In many cases, you won’t be able to use it at all.
Internet Explorer was used to launch the World Wide Web
Internet Explorer was once a web browser. For example, if you were on the web in 2003, you were probably using IE, as the browser held a whopping 95% of the market . This was partly due to Microsoft’s aggressive integration of the application into Windows, which made it difficult to consider other options, such as Netscape, which was popular at the time. In fact, Netscape’s parent company, AOL, filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for monopolistic practices… and won. But it didn’t matter: Internet Explorer was the choice of far too many people, whether that choice was conscious or not.
But Internet Explorer’s success won’t last long. Other browsers such as Firefox and Chrome have begun to gain popularity with features missing from Internet Explorer. It soon became apparent that Microsoft’s browser couldn’t compete on the new Internet with slow-loading pages and elements that didn’t load at all. In the digital age, it doesn’t matter if you were once the preferred choice of almost every internet user in the world: if you can’t keep up, you’ll die. Internet Explorer 11 was the last new version of the browser released back in 2013 . Calling it old is a gross understatement from a computational standpoint.
For most of us, Internet Explorer hasn’t been a legitimate part of the web conversation for years. But it had its place. The main reason Microsoft kept it for so long was because older websites weren’t supported in modern browsers . While Chrome or Firefox won’t be able to connect you to legacy parts of the Internet, legacy Internet Explorer still can. This was especially important for companies that use certain services that require Internet Explorer and cannot be upgraded to something newer.
But even that goal quickly eluded IE. Microsoft added ” Internet Explorer mode ” to Edge, which meant that the new browser could do both, stripping Internet Explorer of any remaining relevance.
So, yes, Internet Explorer was old, obsolete, and out of date. Very few people were still using it, and those who did could simply switch to Edge and use Internet Explorer’s built-in mode to continue working. While permanently disabling an app can be an extreme move, it’s understandable.
Will history repeat itself?
Think of the apps and services that are overwhelming the public today. The iPhone is extremely popular in the United States due to iMessages and FaceTime; Google is the default search engine for most people. Sure, these things have been true for a while, but will they continue? Maybe Apple will finally be forced to offer its proprietary chat features on Android and completely destroy the US smartphone market. Perhaps Microsoft (or another company)’s AI search efforts will make their search engine the new king.
Only one thing is certain: no one wants to be the next Internet Explorer.