Microsoft is bidding Internet Explorer farewell.
Today, June 15, Microsoft will no longer provide support for the Internet Explorer (IE) 11 desktop application for Windows 10's typical semi-annual channel.
For those users who are still using Windows Server 2022 or an earlier operating system edition that has a long-term service extension, they will continue to receive support for IE11. Nonetheless, this represents the effective end of software updates for the vast majority of consumers. Windows 11 will no longer offer an IE desktop program.
Internet Explorer's Farewell
Microsoft said a few months ago that it would stop supporting the browser. It said, "The Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) desktop application will lose support on Windows 10 Semi-Annual Channels and Windows 10 IoT Semi-Annual Channels on June 15, 2022."
"Customers are encouraged to switch to Microsoft Edge, which works with both old and new websites and apps," the company said.
Microsoft's Edge browser will continue to receive support for its Internet Explorer Mode until at least the year 2029. On the other hand, the company will encourage users to use its more recent browser.
Within the next few months, the company will progressively redirect customers from IE to Edge, and then completely disable the older program by distributing an update for Windows. Microsoft Edge was first released by Microsoft in 2015, and since then, Internet Explorer has been phased out in favor of Edge.
According to Microsoft, the future of Internet Explorer on Windows 10 is Microsoft Edge. Microsoft Edge can not only make browsing faster, safer, and more up-to-date than Internet Explorer, but it can also do all of that and more.
The company added that Edge is also able to address a significant concern, which is compatibility for older, legacy websites and applications. The company has designed the recent Microsoft Edge browser to have a built-in Internet Explorer mode, known as "IE mode." Users will be able to view websites and programs that were designed for older versions of Internet Explorer directly from within Microsoft Edge.
Since Microsoft Edge can do all of these things and more, the desktop application version of Internet Explorer 11 will be shut down on June 15, 2022, and will no longer be supported for some versions of Windows 10.
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Internet Explorer History
Today will bring an end to a chapter in Microsoft's history. According to Engadget, it was the most popular web browser until 2019, when Microsoft Edge surpassed it, after controlling 95% of the market since 2003. It was a significant contributor to the rise in popularity of the internet and, for some people, became associated with getting online.
Before competitors such as Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome stole users away, Internet Explorer was the browser of choice for Windows-based personal computers for many years.
Although including Internet Explorer with Windows was helpful for many who were just getting started on the web, it also inhibited competition. The United States sued Microsoft for antitrust violations in 2001. At the heart of the case was the claim that Microsoft abused IE's limits to keep Windows' market dominance.
Additionally, the browser gained a reputation for having poor security, especially through ActiveX components as well as non-standard rendering, which frequently caused website builders to optimize their sites for Internet Explorer.
Microsoft did eventually fix some of Internet Explorer's most glaring flaws, but the slow pace at which it did so helped other browsers, such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, rise to prominence.
