Get started with Internet Explorer, Edge is here. Image: Shutterstock
Microsoft is finally saying goodbye to Internet Explorer, a browser whose main purpose, at least in recent years, was to download a different browser in a new installation of Windows.
As of today, the official support for Internet Explorer is over, leaving Microsoft with the task of gradually bringing its customers closer to the Edge browser before it is finally available.
For now, Internet Explorer will still appear on the taskbar, but when you open it, a tab will load a page that recommends that you make Edge your default browser.
Over the next few months, said Sean Lyndersay, CEO of Microsoft Edge Enterprise, clicking on the Internet Explorer icon will open Edge.
Then, with the latest Windows update, the old browser will soon be permanently removed from the devices.
“The incremental improvements to Internet Explorer couldn’t match the overall improvements to the overall web, so we started again,” Lyndersay said in a blog post.
“Microsoft Edge is a faster, more secure, modern browser, the best browser for Windows, designed for today’s Internet.”
Edge is based on Google’s open source Chromium project, which means that many Chrome extensions and APIs are supported by each other.
Microsoft expects Edge to regain a decent share of the browser market, which has been dominated by Chrome and Safari since 2014.
According to Statcounter, around 60% of Australians used Internet Explorer as their primary browser in early 2009, with Firefox in second place.
But Microsoft’s default browser couldn’t keep up with Chrome and iOS Safari’s default browser, which caused a gradual decline in usage before Microsoft decided to take the browser out of its misery.
An example of the redirect that Internet Explorer users will see. Image: supplied
Internet Explorer has a long and intense history that began with the license code for the first Mosaic web browsers, created by Spyglass Inc.
The agreement meant that Microsoft had to pay for the copyright of Spyglass for each distributed copy of Internet Explorer, which had been shipped with a version of Windows 95 and Windows NT.
Spyglass took Microsoft to court, saying it had reduced it to copyright before reaching a $ 8 million deal in 1997.
As this agreement was reached, Microsoft was preparing to dominate the browser market with the release of Internet Explorer 4, which it integrated into its dominant desktop operating system, Windows.
By including Internet Explorer for free and by default, Microsoft positioned its browser to become the most used browser in the world in an attempt to “drown” its rival Netscape Navigator.
The battle for the browser domain was one of the collaborators in an antitrust case against Microsoft in the early 2000s, which included Microsoft trying to prove that Internet Explorer was so vital to Windows that the operating system would be significantly reduced if removed.