In exactly a year, Microsoft will bid farewell to Internet Explorer 11 by ending support for the browser across its Microsoft 365 Apps and services. Internet Explorer 11 will be shut down on August 17, 2021 and will no longer be supported on Microsoft’s services like OneDrive, Outlook and more. Even before all that, support for Internet Explorer 11 in Microsoft Teams will stop from November 30th.
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has been the ubiquitous browser for many Windows users since the early days of Windows PCs. And with the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge now the default browser on Windows 10 PCs, it’s now time for the old guard to retire. There is still an Internet Explorer Legacy Mode in the Edge browser, for those who won’t let go of the browser.
Having said that, there are still websites in India (primarily of banks and government institutions) that still work best on Internet Explorer, which will have to be used via the legacy mode from next year till Microsoft drops support for Internet Explorer 11 completely from Windows 10 eventually.
Even the legacy version of Microsoft Edge is being retired alongside the old Internet Explorer 11. The legacy version of Microsoft Edge will stop being supported from March 9th, 2021, and will no longer receive security updates. It’s likely a bid to shift the existing legacy Microsoft Edge users to the new Chromium-based Edge browser. The company has said all future Windows updates will include the new Edge browser.
The beginning of the end for Internet Explorer started back in 2015, and like the popular sentiment around the browsers, the end comes five years too late. The browser had its heyday before 2012, after which Google Chrome acquired higher marketshare, just four years after launch. With eleven versions in tow, internet explorer is certainly a legacy early PC users will know to worship. For many, it was the first gateway to the world wide web, and it’s likely the same set of users have migrated over to newer browsers, and the need for Internet Explorer to exist was only for the occasional memes and jokes.