Say Goodbye to Internet Explorer!

Microsoft finally has thrown in the towel: somewhere next year (2022) it will stop supporting Internet Explorer. The same applies to Microsoft Edge, which Microsoft will update automatically to Microsoft Edge Chromium.

War of the Browsers

Microsoft and Mosaic (Internet Explorer and Netscape) have been caught up in a healthy competition since the nineties. Eventually Microsoft came out on top, and Internet Explorer dominated the market.

All good things come to an end and the last versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer painfully showed that the developers team in charge of the browser were having trouble catching up on the newest technologies. The once so powerful Internet Explorer grew into a source of frustration with both users and developers. Web users went looking for an efficient solution, and Google gratefully provided the answer.

Google Chrome slowly took over the browser market. Microsoft responded and launched their ‘Spartan’ project, which initiated the work on developing Microsoft Edge.

What was meant to be an ambitious reclaim to the market share throne, grew into one of Microsoft's bigger failures. Again they had to announce the end of their browser, and started working on yet another browser .. based on the successful Google Chrome.

The once so powerful Internet Explorer caused a lot of frustration with users and developers.

Martijn Werbrouck | Front-end developer at Say Hey

Say goodbye to unexpected bugs

Microsoft Edge automatically devolves into Edge Chromium through Windows updates. The browser can also be downloaded on the Microsoft website.

Another big advantage is that Edge Chromium is available for Mac users as well. This means developers using a Mac can now test their designs and websites on a Windows browser on Mac. Hey hey hooray!

The end of creativity

Now that Microsoft made up his mind, a lot of developers wonder if this will be the end of browser creativity. Since Google now has some of his tech in almost every browser, it practically claims a monopoly on web browsers. Only time will tell which consequences Microsoft's decision will have. Let's hope Mozilla can keep Firefox up-to-date and alive, so Google will always be challenged to keep improving as well.

Support

As an end user, you don't have to worry about any of these changes. When updating Windows, Edge Chromium will automatically replace Edge. They haven't explicitly put an end date on the use of Internet Explorer 11 yet, but its light will slowly fade away during 2021.

Your best browsing options

Actually, there aren't any big differences between the popular options. Chrome, Firefox and Safari all are pushing for market share and try to stay up-to-date. All three are very user-friendly and offer you an efficient and easy browse experience.