The end of an era is upon us, as Internet Explorer is finally retired after more than 26 years of service, both good and bad. Announced last year, the official retirement of Internet Explorer on June 15, 2022, comes 26 years and 10 months (9,801 days, to be exact) after its release on August 15, 1995, back when the public-facing Internet was in its infancy.

From almost the very beginning, it courted controversy. After the launch of Windows 95 (also in August 1995), Microsoft started bundling Internet Explorer with OEM versions of the operating system.

This meant that if you bought a new computer at a time when everyone was buying a new computer, you almost certainly booted it up with a copy of Microsoft’s web browser already installed and set as the default program for interacting with the Internet.

This, of course, is what got Microsoft into trouble with the US government, who lodged a successful antitrust action against the company (United States v. Microsoft) that ultimately forced Microsoft to allow OEMs to install the web browsers of their choice on the machines they shipped.

That strategy was nonetheless successful, and by the turn of the millennium, if you weren’t using some legacy intermediary like AOL, Internet Explorer was how almost everyone else entered the internet, and it was unfathomable that this could change.

Microsoft Internet Explorer loses its edge

Internet Explorer 6 was released in 2001 around the time of the final settlement of Microsoft’s antitrust case, and it didn’t receive a major feature updated for several critical years thereafter. Internet Explorer was by then the dominant web browser the world over, so Microsoft probably thought it could rest on its laurels. This proved consequential for two reasons: ActiveX Controls and Mozilla Firefox.

ActiveX Controls were a feature of Internet Explorer since 1996 that allowed web pages to package executable code into HTML that would run on client-side machines (i.e., your computer) without any user intervention. While this arguably made the internet a richer experience than simple web pages could produce, it also became a security nightmare almost immediately — one that Internet Explorer could never shake off.

Then in 2004, Mozilla Firefox, one of the first major open-source projects on the internet, was released, offering tabbed web browsing, extension support and no ActiveX Control vulnerabilities. As users flocked to Firefox, and a few years later to Google Chrome, Internet Explorer offered little in the way of updates until 2007, with Internet Explorer 7, but by then it was pretty much over. Firefox, and then Chrome, would eventually come to overshadow Internet Explorer and drive down its once dominant market share to once unthinkable lows from which it never recovered.

Microsoft Internet Explorer slouches towards retirement

By 2015, when Microsoft released the new Microsoft Edge browser, it was all but begging Internet Explorer customers to switch, especially those still running Windows XP with Internet Explorer 6, which were mostly businesses and institutions, despite it being riddled with unpatchable vulnerabilities in the evolving, modern Internet. Finally, after announcing it was axing Windows XP support to get hold-outs to switch, Microsoft announced last year that it was pulling the plug on Internet Explorer as well.

That time has finally come. As of now, Internet Explorer – that once all-powerful ruler of the internet – is no longer being supported on most operating systems, with very limited extended security updates for certain enterprise services with extended support agreements Microsoft is contractually obligated to honor. But even those will be done by the end of 2023. It’s done. It’s over. You don’t have to go to Edge, but you stay with Internet Explorer at your own risk.

Original Post: https://www.techradar.com/news/goodbye-internet-explorer-thanks-for-all-the-memories-and-the-malware