Long Live Internet Explorer: Microsoft Kills Browser on Valentine’s Day – CNET [CNET]

Microsoft disabled the desktop application on Tuesday.

Here lies the body of Internet Explorer 11. She is dead. Microsoft permanently disabled its out-of-support legacy browser on Tuesday in a move to improve user experience and transfer organizations to its newer Edge browser, the computer company said. This applies to “certain versions of Windows 10,” it noted.

“With a growing number of websites no longer supporting Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge offers a faster, more secure, and more modern browsing experience that can still open legacy, Internet Explorer-dependent sites when needed,” Microsoft said in a statement. 

Starting on Tuesday, devices that haven’t already been redirected from IE11 to Microsoft Edge will be, according to Microsoft’s release. 

At one point not so long ago, Internet Explorer ruled the browser game: in 2003, it held 95% of the browser market. The days of Internet Explorer’s reign are over and Microsoft has moved onto Edge, but a new conversation on AI-boosted browsers and chatbots, like Microsoft’s Bing, ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, are drumming up discourse on the role of the browser, 20 years later.

I can’t believe someone in South Korea went to the trouble of commissioning a tombstone for Internet Explorer just so they could kill it a second time with the most vicious roast you’ll ever see pic.twitter.com/5xpePtoPkN

— Cian Maher (@cianmaher0) June 17, 2022

When the news that Microsoft was nixing Internet Explorer spread last summer, the public reaction was emotional and hilarious. The browser got its own headstone in South Korea, and IE memes abounded. 

Editors’ note: CNET is using an AI engine to create some personal finance explainers that are edited and fact-checked by our editors. For more, see this post.