Microsoft Is Finally Killing Off Its 25-Year-Old Internet Explorer

In a new blog post, Microsoft announced that they will no longer support Explorer 11, the latest and final version of the legendary Internet Explorer browser by November 30, 2020. Meanwhile, Microsoft 365 apps and services will stop supporting the browser by 2021. 

Microsoft said on the post: ‘This means that after the above dates, customers will have a degraded experience or will be unable to connect to Microsoft 365 apps and services on IE 11. For degraded experiences, new Microsoft 365 features will not be available or certain features may cease to work when accessing the app or service via IE 11.’

An alternative to the 25-year-old browser is Microsoft Edge, the new open-source browser based on the Chromium developed by Google for Google Chrome. Meanwhile, the old version of Edge that does not use the open-source Chromium will also be dead on March 9, 2021.

With many websites and apps still using the old browser, Microsoft doesn’t want to have two active browsers at the same time. Instead, the company offers Internet Explorer legacy mode on Microsoft Edge, allowing users to continue to enjoy the benefits of the new technology while maintaining the legacy of the old technology on their apps. 

The death of Internet Explorer and the Microsoft Edge Legacy (non-Chromium version) has been going on for many years now. Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 were discontinued in 2016, a year after Microsoft Edge was introduced.

This also means Google now has even greater influence in browsers, especially since Chromium is not only the base of Google Chrome but also Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Avast Secure Browser, and Opera.

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