The withdrawal of Internet Explorer is imminent and Microsoft has issued a final alert to users and companies that still use it so that they establish their own mechanisms to “Disable IE” before June 15, 2022the date set for the final goodbye to this web browser.
Internet Explorer has been almost dead for years at the consumer level, but it is still used in certain business environments. Slow; incompatible with standards; Insecure by default and lacking the capabilities of modern web browsers, IE is absolutely unnecessary in today’s technology world.
Microsoft has been advising against its use and the change to Edge and has only kept it for compatibility reasons in companies and the need to support previous standards for web access and application operation. A couple of years ago it announced the end of its support and a withdrawal that will take place on June 15.
Retirement of Internet Explorer: another era ends
Internet Explorer hit the market 25 years ago as part of the “plus” package released for Windows 95 and based on the Spyglass Mosaic code. It was a time of almost absolute dominance of Netscape Navigator, the first commercial browser, but this release and the subsequent “browser wars” changed everything.
Microsoft didn’t have to work too hard to popularize its browser. It didn’t matter if it was better or worse than the competition, just with include it as part of their operating systems managed to defenestrate Netscape and consolidate a monopoly that lasted 20 years (no less). Its default installation on Windows was the true value, because Mozilla (later Mozilla Firefox), the open development that emerged from the release of Netscape, was the better browser.
Microsoft’s strategy was controversial and there were multiple lawsuits and before the regulatory bodies under the argument of that illicit exploitation of Windows quota that ended up harming the rest of the competitors by not offering alternatives for use. Thus came the “Browser War” and the browser choice screen imposed on Microsoft by the European Union.
Finally, in 2016, the global web browsing market turned upside down when Google Chrome overtook Internet Explorer in market share. Since then the decline has been sharp and Microsoft has lost presence in this important market that opens the way to search engines and Internet advertising.
Internet Explorer: I live in IE mode
Since announcing the withdrawal of Internet Explorer, Microsoft implemented a transitional system that detects when a page is incompatible with new technologies, checks if Microsoft Edge is installed on the system and opens the page there, notifying the problem to the user. user and closing Internet Explorer.
This will end with the end of its support, although it must be said that this browser will live on thanks to “IE Mode“. It is a special system that allows to use a second engine in addition to the Chromium one (MSHTML) specifically targeted to run those applications that have not yet been migrated to other modern browsers.
Runs in a tab of the new Edge Chromium without the need for any other type of software and without having to directly use the obsolete Internet Explorer. Microsoft warns that most web pages will work better in Edge and offers the possibility to quickly return to the new browser by clicking on “Open in Microsoft Edge”.
This IE mode will be useful for those who still need to use Internet Explorer. Well designed by including a second engine to use compatible with IE, but within Edge and Chromium technologies, only occasionally recommended to run web applications that do not work on another browser. The general recommendation is to sign up for the retirement of Internet Explorer ending an era in the history of web browsing.
