Before the rise of Google’s Chrome, during the early days of internet, Internet Explorer (IE) was the dominant browser in the market. However, as of January 2023, IE only has a market share of 0.25% worldwide, with Chrome takes the majority of the pie at 65.4% and Edge has a market of 4.46%. This might explain why Microsoft officially stopped supporting IE last year June, but now they’re finally disabling it altogether.
Ars Technica reports that Microsoft officially disabled IE on Windows 10 starting 14 February 2023. If users try to use it, they will be redirected to Edge instead. Microsoft shipped IE11 with Windows 10 for compatibility reasons even though it’s no longer Windows primary browser.
The final few users of Internet Explorer will be fully informed of what is happening as Edge will “automatically” move over bookmarks and other browsing data from IE and display a dialogue box informing them what has happened. Edge will open immediately in its place whenever you click any IE icon or attempt to launch it from the Start or Run menus.
According to Microsoft’s support document, IE11 visual references will continue to exist on Windows 10 until they are removed by a security update scheduled for 13 June 2023. Additionally, IE will continue to work on Windows Server, non-consumer editions of Windows 10 such as the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) versions including Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 IoT, as well as Windows 7 and 8.
The core MSHTML/Trident rendering engine will still be present in Microsoft Edge’s IE compatibility mode, which will be supported until at least 2029. Before discontinuing IE mode, Microsoft promises to give users a year’s notice.
