Internet Explorer, the leading web browser of the 2000s, comes to an end after 27 years

After 27 years, Internet Explorer (IE) has come to an end. Microsoft will end support for the main browser of the 2000s from this Wednesday (15), when the company starts to dedicate itself exclusively to Edge.

Although the end of Explorer had been expected since the successor’s launch in 2015, the main evidence didn’t arrive until 2020. That year, Microsoft announced that products like Teams and Office 365 would not be compatible with the old browser.

However, the official announcement was made in May 2021, when the company said that IE would be replaced by Edge, the native browser of Windows 10 and 11, starting on June 15, 2022.

“Microsoft Edge is not only a faster, safer, and more modern browser than Internet Explorer, it is also able to address an important concern: compatibility with legacy applications and websites,” Microsoft said in a blog post.

Edge has the option to enable IE mode, in which the user browses the internet as if they were using the old browser. This allows older websites designed for the software to be accessed.

“I can’t thank everyone for supporting Internet Explorer over the years. Many people and companies around the world have relied on IE to help them learn, grow and conduct business online,” the company said.

The latest version of the software is Internet Explorer 11, released in 2013, whose last update is in November 2020.

IE was launched in August 1995, alongside the Windows 95 operating system. The product dominated the market until the early 2010s, when Google Chrome took over as the most popular browser. Due to this hegemony, Internet Explorer was the protagonist of the beginning of internet browsing for many users.