As of Wednesday, Microsoft will no longer support the once dominant browser that Internet legions of haters love to hate – and some still claim to love it. The 27-year-old app is now included in the BlackBerry phones, telephone modems and Palm Pilots in the dustbin of the history of technology. IE’s death was no surprise. A year ago, Microsoft said it was ending Internet Explorer on June 15, 2022, pushing users to the Edge browser, which was released in 2015. The company made it clear that it was time to move on. “Microsoft Edge is not only a faster, more secure, and more modern browsing experience than Internet Explorer, but it also addresses a key concern: compatibility with older Web sites and applications,” said Sean Lyndersay, general manager. manager of Microsoft Edge Enterprise. , wrote in a blog post in May 2021. Users identified Internet Explorer as an unsafe error-prone POS and were the “top browser for installing other browsers”. Users noted Explorer’s move to Twitter, with some calling it “a buggy, insecure POS” or “the top browser for installing other browsers”. For others, it was a moment of nostalgia for the 1990s, and the Wall Street Journal reported a 22-year-old who was saddened to see IE leave. Microsoft released the first version of Internet Explorer in 1995, the pre-flood era of web browsing dominated by the first popular browser, Netscape Navigator. Its release marked the beginning of the end of Navigator: Microsoft continued to tie IE and the ubiquitous Windows operating system so tightly that many people simply used it by default instead of Navigator. The Department of Justice sued Microsoft in 1997, claiming it had violated a previous consent order requiring computer makers to use its browser as a prerequisite for using Windows. It eventually agreed to settle the antitrust battle in 2002 over the use of the Windows monopoly to crush its competitors. He was also embroiled in controversy with European regulators, saying Internet connection to Windows Explorer gave him an unfair advantage over rivals such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome. Users, meanwhile, complained that IE was slow, crash-prone and vulnerable to hacks. IE’s market share, which was over 90% in the early 2000s, began to wane as users found more attractive alternatives. Today, the Chrome browser dominates the global browser market with about 65%, followed by Apple Safari with 19%, according to online analytics firm Statcounter. IE’s successor, Edge, lags by about 4%, just ahead of Firefox.
