Microsoft shuts down Internet Explorer 27 years after launch

Microsoft, an American multinational technology company, has shut down its web browser — Internet Explorer (IE).

The development comes 27 years after it was launched 

The company announced this on its website on Wednesday.

Last year, the tech giant announced that it would shut down its Internet Explorer version 11 Windows 10 desktop application and replace it with Microsoft Edge.

“After 25 plus years of helping people use and experience the web, Internet Explorer (IE) is officially retired and out of support as of today, June 15, 2022. To many millions of you, thank you for using Internet Explorer as your gateway to the internet,” the company said.

“Over the next few months, opening Internet Explorer will progressively redirect users to our new modern browser, Microsoft Edge with IE mode. Users will still see the Internet Explorer icon on their devices (such as on the taskbar or in the start menu) but if they click to open Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge will open instead with easy access to IE mode. Eventually, Internet Explorer will be disabled permanently as part of a future Windows update, at which point the Internet Explorer icons on users’ devices will be removed.

“As part of this redirection process, users will have their data like favourites, passwords, and settings imported from Internet Explorer—this will help make the transition to Microsoft Edge both familiar and simple. If a user wants to delete or manage their data at any point after, they can always do so in Microsoft Edge from the settings menu.”

Also commenting on the development, Sean Lyndersay, general manager, Microsoft Edge, said the new browser is a better improvement of the former.

“Incremental improvements to Internet Explorer, though couldn’t match the general improvements to the web at large, so the company had to start “fresh” with Edge,” he said.

“To many millions of you, thank you for using Internet Explorer as your gateway to the internet.”

Internet Explorer, formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer was a series of graphical web browsers with 11 versions and was developed by Microsoft and included in the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995.

The browser was first released as part of the add-on package plus for Windows 95 that year. Internet Explorer was once the most widely used web browser, attaining a peak of about 95 percent usage share by 2003.

In March 17, 2015, Microsoft announced the replacement of Internet Explorer with Microsoft Edge as the default browser.