Goodbye Internet Explorer, I won’t miss you
Internet Explorer has dominated the web for what feels like an eternity. Now, though, it’s gone forever. I won’t miss the Microsoft browser.
On 15 June 2022, Microsoft officially discontinued support for Internet Explorer. It’d been wreaking havoc for long enough. Monopolisation, security holes and missed technical innovation opportunities made it a focus for me at work, but not as a browser of choice.
The meteoric rise and slow decline
In 1995, Microsoft released Internet Explorer. Unable to compete with Netscape Navigator at first, it wasn’t until version 3.0 that Explorer’s functionality was on a par with the competition. In 1997, Microsoft embedded Explorer deeper into its operating system and made it the default on Windows 95. At the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 2000s, it achieved a market share of around 90 per cent. Netscape Navigator was no longer relevant. A short while later, however, competition ratcheted up in the form of Firefox, and most importantly, Chrome. In the years that followed, the ubiquity of Internet Explorer began to fall away, declining rapidly in the 2010s from just over 50 per cent to about 10 per cent within five years. In 2015, Microsoft released «Edge», a new browser which since the end of 2018 has been based on open-source Chromium, replacing Internet Explorer as the default browser on Windows 10. Seven years on from Edge’s release, support for Explorer has been completely scrapped.
Only for downloading another browser
My first order of business on a new Windows computer was always opening Internet Explorer – but only to download another browser. I always tried to avoid Internet Explorer. Despite the fact that numerous websites said they were «optimised for Internet Explorer» during the browser’s heyday, this only encouraged me to look for new alternatives. Netscape Navigator took the top spot at first, followed later by Firefox predecessor Phoenix, then Opera, Dolphin and finally Chrome and Brave. Thinking about my Mac, I never warmed to Safari. Like Internet Explorer, I didn’t like what the operating system was presenting me with. The alternatives were more appealing, more promising.
Most of my encounters with Internet Explorer took place at work, whether it was writing about its security holes or new versions, or introducing people to better alternatives. The antitrust lawsuit brought by the EU against Microsoft for tying Internet Explorer to Windows generated material for plenty of articles. The process ended out of court in 2009 with the browser selection option during the installation of Windows, which indicated alternative browsers. In 2012, Internet Explorer’s monopoly was so crushed that the EU no longer took issue with the fact that other browsers couldn’t get a look-in on the tiles of Windows 8. Nor did it have a problem with the fact that no other browsers could be installed on the tablet version Windows RT. I’d long forgotten about this, despite reporting on it myself in 2012 (linked article in German).
Internet Explorer may have taken up a lot of my brain space over the years, but I won’t miss it as a tool. And I’ll be avoiding Microsoft Edge, too. I also only open that in order to download another browser. Perhaps unfairly so.
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When I was but a young student, I'd sit in my friend's living room with all my classmates and play on his SuperNES. Since then I've had the opportunity to test out all the newest technology for you. I've done reviews at Curved, Computer Bild and Netzwelt, and have now arrived at Galaxus.de.
