Microsoft Sets The Official Death Dates For Internet Explorer And Legacy Edge

Internet Explorer and legacy Edge with Grim Reaper

Internet Explorer was the web browser that opened the gates for the web for most people during the early days of the internet.

The company first unveiled its new Edge browser back in 2015, codenamed Project Spartan. At that time, It was the beginning of the end for the Internet Explorer brand, with Microsoft started labeling Internet Explorer a “compatibility solution” rather than a browser.

And because Microsoft started encouraging users to stop using the old browser, Microsoft also started phasing out Internet Explorer, in order to pass the responsibility to the early version of Edge.

Since then, Microsoft started working on killing off Internet Explorer usage and support for years. But that was even before Microsoft switched the EdgeHTML-powered Edge by giving it an upgrade to Chromium.

Microsoft did this because open web standards and newer browsers in the market have enabled better and more innovative online experiences. Its Internet Explorer and the legacy Edge are two products that couldn't simply keep up.

With its heavy marketing, Microsoft wants the newer Chromium-powered Edge to replace them all. With that in mind, Microsoft is certain that usage of its Internet Explorer and the original Edge will drop.

And after seeing that happens, Microsoft finally sets the death data of the two.

Internet Explorer 11 and legacy Edge are having their days numbered.

In a year, on August 17th, 2021, Internet Explorer 11 will no longer be supported for Microsoft’s online services like Office 365, OneDrive, Outlook, and more.

As for the legacy version of Microsoft Edge, Microsoft will stop supporting it starting March 9th, 2021. After the end of the support date, the legacy version of Edge shall no longer receive security updates.

Video conferencing and collaboration app Microsoft Teams will stop supporting Internet Explorer 11 even sooner - from November 30 2020.

After those dates, “customers will have a degraded experience or will be unable to connect to Microsoft 365 apps and services on IE 11. For degraded experiences, new Microsoft 365 features will not be available or certain features may cease to work when accessing the app or service via IE 11,” said Microsoft in its blog post.

To replace them, Microsoft promises that its Chromium-based Edge browser has "world-class performance", "more privacy and control", and is a better alternative to its biggest competitor that is no other than Google Chrome.

With its huge push, Microsoft managed to quickly surge Edge browser's popularity to surpass Mozilla Firefox, to reach the number two position behind Chrome.

But for enterprise users, things are rather different.

Microsoft may require more time to pry those enterprise users away from Internet Explorer 11. To help with the process, Microsoft outlined that it is “respecting investments” in Internet Explorer 11, and offers those users the new Internet Explorer legacy mode in the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser.

The legacy mode is meant to allow businesses access old websites that were specifically built for Internet Explorer. This is possible because Edge has the ability to run two different engines, Chromium and Trident.

Goodbye Internet Explorer 11 and legacy Edge
Timeline to the death of Internet Explorer 11 and the legacy Edge. (Credit: Microsoft)

Internet Explorer has long been the butt of jokes in the technology community, ridiculed and mocked. Microsoft knew this. And this is why Edge is kind of a rebrand for Internet Explorer, in order to give the browser of Microsoft a new life.

So it's clear from the very beginning after announcing Edge, that Microsoft has plans to end Internet Explorer sooner or later.

“Customers have been using IE 11 since 2013 when the online environment was much less sophisticated than the landscape today."

“We believe that Microsoft 365 subscribers, in both consumer and commercial contexts, will be well served with this change through faster and more responsible web access to greater sets of features in everyday toolsets like Outlook, Teams, SharePoint and more.

"At a time when IT professionals are being asked to do more with less on an unprecedented level, we want to make it simple for our customers to balance productivity, security, privacy, and cost," said Microsoft. "The new Microsoft Edge is our best expression of a modern browser - we’re excited for customers to experience it."

So here, users shouldn't blame Microsoft completely for its aggressive stance to push the Chromium-powered Edge. The company is just taking the advantage of its dominant position in the operating system market, to push Edge to as many users as possible, before the company can finally kill its old and outdated browsers.

But nevertheless, the inability to uninstall Edge is indeed giving users less option.

“While we know this change will be difficult for some customers, we believe that customers will get the most out of Microsoft 365 when using the new Microsoft Edge,” Microsoft said in a blog, adding that it is “committed to helping make this transition as smooth as possible.”

Published: 
19/08/2020