Internet Explorer is Nearly Dead But Microsoft Might Finish the Job on Feb 14th!

Back in the Summer Microsoft officially announced that support for Internet Explorer had concluded and the browser was now officially in its ‘end-of-life’. – Yep, it had certainly been a pretty (well, mostly) solid 27 years worth of performance, but all good things must come to an end, and, in many respects, while the vast majority of us had clearly transitioned onto newer and better options, it was still sad to see Internet Explorer effectively put out to pasture.

One person was so sad they actually erected a tombstone for it!

The thing is though, while Internet Explorer is technically dead now, Microsoft has still largely been maintaining a very loose ‘legacy’ support for it. Edge users, for example, may notice that they have the option to open a webpage in Internet Explorer 11 mode (albeit, for me, this tends to just make my entire browser crash!).

Following a report via BetaNews, however, while Internet Explorer isn’t quite dead yet, Microsoft is planning to potentially finish the job off. How, well, on February 14th this will see all compatibility for the browser completely removed from Windows 10.

Microsoft Hammers Another Nail in Internet Explorer’s Coffin!

As part of the official announcement, Microsoft seems pretty convinced that the vast majority of individuals and businesses how now completely transitioned away from Internet Explorer 11 meaning that they can now look to bring its legacy support (which is a bit janky) to a complete end:

“The out-of-support Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) desktop application is scheduled to be permanently disabled on certain versions of Windows 10 devices on February 14, 2023, through a Microsoft Edge update, not a Windows update as previously communicated. All remaining devices that have not already been redirected from IE11 to Microsoft Edge are scheduled to be redirected with the Microsoft Edge update scheduled for February 14, 2023. The change to use Microsoft Edge update to disable IE is intended to provide a better user experience and help organizations transition their last remaining IE11 users to Microsoft Edge. As a reminder, IE11 has been out of support since June 15, 2022.”

So, presuming you are still using Internet Explorer (which I suspect is about 0.11% of you) start looking at other options as, regardless of what you might think of Edge, Chrome, Opera, or any of the other alternatives, the writing is on the wall and I suspect that by the end of 2023 you won’t find a sniff of old IE11 on any Microsoft operating system!

What do you think? Which browser do you currently use? What did you use when you first connected to the internet? – Let us know in the comments!