After years of being the primary means of accessing websites for a generation of computer users, Internet Explorer is set to become obsolete, much like the dancing baby screensaver and the floppy disk.
On Tuesday, Microsoft released an update to its newer Edge browser, marking the end of the desktop app for the outdated Internet Explorer browser that has been in use for nearly 30 years. Users will be redirected to Edge, and additional updates scheduled for the summer will remove all remnants of the defunct browser from start menus and taskbars.
“The change to use Microsoft Edge update to disable IE [Internet Explorer] is intended to provide a better user experience and help organisations transition their last remaining IE11 users to Microsoft Edge,”
Microsoft has said
According to the explanation, users who click on Internet Explorer will be directed to Microsoft Edge until the icons disappear in June. Their browsing data will be automatically transferred from IE11 to Microsoft Edge, enabling them to browse seamlessly without interruption.
Back in 2015, Microsoft declared its intention to distance itself from Internet Explorer, which had garnered a negative reputation among many Windows users due to its slow speed. Instead, the company turned to its brand-new browser, Edge, which was designed to be faster and more advanced, and intended to serve as the default option for Windows 10 devices used by consumers across the board.
As of last June, a number of users were still utilizing Internet Explorer, but Microsoft had already made it clear that many websites were no longer being designed to be compatible with the outdated browser.
In a submission to a market review by an Australian competition regulator, Microsoft said it had spent years “attempting to address incompatibilities as they arose with different websites, including some of the most popular ones on the internet” but had eventually decided that approach “no longer made sense”.
During that month, Microsoft withdrew support for the browser, which implies that it would not receive further updates to fix security vulnerabilities, consequently failing to provide adequate protection to its users.
Microsoft’s market dominance can be attributed to the fact that it bundled the software with the Windows operating system. Although its usage dwindled over time, the brand remained well-known. In September 2021, a Roy Morgan survey commissioned by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission revealed that, after Google Chrome, it was the second most widely recognized browser.
Microsoft declared that IE mode, its system that guarantees the display of legacy websites that still necessitate Internet Explorer, will persist.
