For the 0.81%: Microsoft officially retires Internet Explorer

If you are a tech dinosaur who misses his flip phone and is still mourning the loss of MySpace and AOL, perhaps you’d better sit down before reading on. After a 25 year run, Microsoft announced that it is officially retiring Internet Explorer, once the browser that ruled the internet.

Before you fire up your old Netscape Navigator to Ask Jeeves what will happen next, you should know Microsoft has a plan. They will officially retire Internet Explorer on June 15, 2022, meaning they will no longer update, patch or support the browser. But Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer will be replaced by Microsoft Edge, their modern browser, across Windows 10 and all their platforms.

They made this announcement Wednesday in a blog post (apparently their Geocities page was down) while singing the praises of the Edge browser, which was first launched on Windows 10 and Xbox One in 2015.

“Not only is Microsoft Edge a faster, more secure and more modern browsing experience than Internet Explorer, but it is also able to address a key concern: compatibility for older, legacy websites and applications.”

Microsoft Edge was released for Android and Apple’s iOS in 2017 and for MacOS in 2019, and is in preview for Linux currently. It will continue to support IE-based applications and websites for at least the next 8 years.

Once the dominating titan of web browsers, Internet Explorer was released in 1995 and by 2003 had a usage share of 95% of all internet browsing. Later years saw Firefox and then Google’s Chrome browser and Apple’s Safari. Primarily a desktop browser, the rise of mobile browsing further eroded its market dominance, with Explorer now holding a 0.81% share. Chrome now attracts 65% of internet users while Safari is second with 19%.

No conspiracy theories have been sighted yet, but maybe a search on Bing will reveal that Bill Gates is putting Internet Explorer out to pasture to focus his new bachelor free time and attention on getting 5G microchips into Covid-19 vaccines. (Complaints about these jokes can be sent directly to the author via instant message on ICQ or on his Friendster account.)

SOURCE: Bangkok Post