Microsoft is telling people to stop using Internet Explorer. Microsoft cybersecurity expert Chris Jackson recently published a blog post on the official Windows IT Pro blog titled “The perils of using Internet Explorer as your default browser” in which urges users not to use the old web browser, which was officially discontinued in 2015.
Jackson points out that while most users have moved on to later browsers such as Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, some companies have not upgraded their technology and are still running the older version Microsoft’s web browser. In response, an entire section of his blog post was titled “Enough is Enough,” an effort to explain that its time to stop even calling Internet Explorer a web browser.
He also explained that Internet Explorer’s simplicity offset some “technical debt,” meaning it could be run on systems that were not the most technically advanced. He wrote:
“Internet Explorer is a compatibility solution. We’re not supporting new web standards for it and, while many sites work fine, developers by and large just aren’t testing for Internet Explorer these days.”
The tech expert doesn’t say a specific web browser should replace Internet Explorer and even went on to say the old web browser could be used in certain specific scenarios that required enterprise solutions.
Jackson’s main reason for asking users to stop using Internet Explorer was that the browser hadn’t gotten technical support for some time and many sites stopped supporting the browser long ago. Engineers have stopped testing for bugs and most new sites will not display properly and or would also have limited functionality.
Internet Explorer, which was first called Windows Internet Explorer, was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 in 1995. Internet Explorer was one of the most widely used web browsers, reaching a max usage of about 95 percent in 2002 and 2003. However, it faced stiff competition from the likes of Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome browsers. In May 2012, Internet Explorer’s dominance finally came to an end. Google Chrome had dethroned Internet Explorer as the most used browser in the world.
Instead of completely revamping Internet Explorer, Microsoft launched Microsoft Edge back in 2015. It was partially because the company had two browsers that many assumed that they were both viable.
Microsoft did create issues for itself by bundling the Edge web browser with Windows 10 without supporting the browser on older versions of the Windows operating system. But Microsoft will be able to solve the Edge compatibility issue with its upcoming Chromium-based version of the browser, which will be compatible with Windows 7, Windows 8, and even Mac.
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