United States: Microsoft is killing off the old browser’s desktop application with an upgrade to the more modern Edge browser after nearly 30 years. The defunct browser’s remnants will be removed from the start menus and taskbars, and users will be routed to Edge. Additional changes are scheduled for the summer of 2023.
“The change to use Microsoft Edge update to disable IE [Internet Explorer] is intended to provide a better user experience and help organisations transition their last remaining IE11 users to Microsoft Edge,” the company remarked.
It explained that customers who click on Internet Explorer will be forwarded to Microsoft Edge until the symbols vanish in June 2023. Their browsing data will be automatically brought over to Microsoft Edge from IE11 so they can seamlessly continue browsing.
Even though many websites were no longer built to be compatible with Internet Explorer by last June, some customers were still using it, as per Microsoft. Microsoft claimed in a submission to a market investigation by an Australian competition watchdog that it had spent years “attempting to address incompatibilities as they arose with different websites, including some of the most popular ones on the internet,” but had ultimately decided that approach “no longer made sense.”
Microsoft bundled the program as a component of the Windows operating system, which led to its dominance in the market. Although its use decreased over time, people continued to recognise its brand. It was judged to be the second-most recognisable browser, behind Google Chrome, in a September 2021 Mr. Roy Morgan survey commissioned by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.