Microsoft Retires Internet Explorer After 26 Years

By Paige Boyd, Managing Editor

Microsoft has finally decided to put its once-popular web browser out of its misery.

After 26 years, the company announced on Wednesday (June 15) that Internet Explorer is now incompatible with Microsoft (MSFT) products, nearly a year after first announcing that they were slowly phasing out the application. As reported by CNN Business, Sean Lyndersay, General Manager of Microsoft Edge Enterprise, posted in a blog post, "The web has evolved and so have browsers. Incremental improvements to Internet Explorer couldn't match the general improvements to the web at large, so we started fresh."

The retirement of IE will affect all currently supported versions of Windows 10 Home, Pro, Enterprise, Edu and IoT.

Debuting in 1995 with Windows 98, Internet Explorer was the go-to browser for the World Wide Web in its infancy. By 2002, it hit its peak, hitting 95% of the browser market. However, with a five-year hiatus from releasing a new version, other popular browsers (Firefox, Google Chrome, etc.) began to gain traction. In addition, IE got overwhelmed by bugs, security issues, and other performance issues. As of now, IE now holds less than 2% of the overall browser market.