RIP Internet Explorer: Microsoft Shuts Down Internet Explorer After 27 Long Years | What Next?
It’s the end of an era- the Internet Explorer (IE) browser hangs up its boots today, June 15, 2022.
Microsoft is pulling support and will instead redirect users to the 2015-born Microsoft Edge browser.
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Brief Background
It appeared on computer monitors in 1995.
It enjoyed consistent popularity since then, initially overtaking and leaving the first widely popular browser, Netscape Navigator, to bite the dust.
Its market domination came about thanks to being bundled as part of the Windows operating system.
IE achieved its peak in 2003 with a 95% user share but then began its decline as other browsers entered the arena.
Fall From Grace
It then became the browser of choice to download other browsers.
And justifiably so, given its infamy of being sluggish, prone to crashing, vulnerable to hacks and being tedious to use.
The new kid on the block Google Chrome, based on the open-source Chromium browser (ironically same as the Edge), did to IE what Microsoft did to Navigator.
Chrome Asserts Superiority
In May 2012 it was announced that Google’s Chrome overtook Internet Explorer as the most used browser worldwide.
Internet Explorer’s market share, which in the early 2000s was over 90%, began to fade as users started looking for better options.
Since 2016, Microsoft hasn’t released any new major upgrades or fresh versions of the browser.
The last iteration was the Internet Explorer 11, released in 2013.
Why This Step?
IE is now rendered inoperable.
Microsoft explained its decision, saying that web developers were less likely to make their sites compatible with Internet Explorer, hence it had to be abandoned.
The company eventually saw no sense in trying to keep differentiating IE from chrome “after years of attempting to address incompatibilities as they arose with different websites – including some of the most popular ones on the Internet”.
Edge Does What IE Couldn’t
Microsoft said in a statement that not only is Edge a “faster, more secure and more modern browsing experience than Internet Explorer”, it is also able to address a key concern- compatibility for older, legacy websites and applications.
Now, if there is a relic website that still requires IE for it to open, people using the Edge browser will be able to run it in “IE mode”.
The Landscape Today
Today, the Chrome browser commands a roughly 65 per cent share of the worldwide browser market, followed by Apple’s Safari with 19 per cent.
Edge lags with about 4 per cent, just ahead of Firefox.
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