Daily US Times: After more than 26 years of service, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer will finally be retired next year, the tech giant says.
The web browser was released with Windows 95.
Microsoft wrote in a blog that the browser will no longer appear on consumer versions of Windows 10 after June 2022,
Microsoft has been phasing out the old browser for several years – but in 2019 it had to issue an emergency patch for it, for security reasons.
It was estimated at that point that around 8% of people were still using it.
The browser’s replacement, Microsoft Edge, has an Internet Explorer compatibility mode, which will continue to function.
Some very old websites – and crucially, internal company web-based tools – were built on older web technology, which modern browsers have trouble processing.
Microsoft Edge programme manager Sean Lyndersay wrote in a blog that the newer browser was “a faster, more secure and more modern browsing experience”, and was also now better able to handle older applications.
Microsoft clarified in a separate post that there would be some exceptions to the retirement, including on older versions of Windows.
Internet Explorer enjoyed a 90% market share between 2000 and 2005 (Google Chrome is the most used browser today). But in 2013 Microsoft was fined €561m for failing to promote alternative browsers within its Windows operating system.
The tech giant introduced a “browser choice” pop-up in 2010, but the feature was dropped in an update the following year. Microsoft said this had happened by mistake.
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