Software firm, Microsoft last week announced its web browser, Internet Explorer will finally be retired after more than 26 years of service. The veteran web browser has largely been unused by consumers for years, and so Microsoft has decided to pull its plug on June 15th, 2022 —retiring it in favor of Microsoft Edge.
“We are announcing that the future of Internet Explorer on Windows 10 is in Microsoft Edge,” Microsoft Edge program manager, Sean Lyndersay, said. Adding that, “The Internet Explorer 11 desktop application will be retired and go out of support on June 15th, 2022, for certain versions of Windows 10.”
Internet Explorer was once the most-used web browser, enjoying a 90% market share —but now according to browser usage tracker NetMarketShare, Google’s Chrome web browser is the browser leader, commanding a 69% share of the market.
The end of Internet Explorer has been a long time coming. Microsoft ended support for Internet Explorer 11 for the Microsoft Teams web app in 2020, and now plans to cut it off from accessing Microsoft 365 services and no longer be supported for Microsoft’s online services like Office 365, OneDrive, Outlook, and more on August 17th, 2021.
Microsoft has also been trying to stop people from using Internet Explorer for more than five years. Microsoft Edge first appeared in 2015, and it kicked off the end of the Internet Explorer brand. Microsoft has since labeled Internet Explorer a “compatibility solution” rather than a browser and encouraged businesses to stop using the aging browser in favor of Edge and its IE mode.
