Did you know, roughly 5.5% of UK internet users still use Internet Explorer as their primary tool to browse online. Microsoft have announced they are going to end support of Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) in January 2020, while Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) will remain as the final version of the software.
Internet Explorer 10 made its first appearance back in 2012, and in 2016 Microsoft made a concerted effort to end the programme by focusing its support into Internet Explorer 11. However, not every operating system was capable of actually running IE11 and Microsoft infamously restricted the Edge browser to only the Windows 10 operating system (and later iOS and Android).
Microsoft has now warned that as well as killing off Windows 7 in 2020, those who prefer to take a slower path, will have to update Explorer, since IE10 support will finally end for everything in January 2020.
Internet Explorer is often disregarded by a growing majority of web developers (including us!). People and businesses using the browser to access modern websites (those built in HTML5, like ours are) are at a massive disadvantage. Certain features won’t be available to them on modern websites through IE today.
In fact, Microsoft’s Chris Jackson even refers to IE as a “compatibility solution” rather than a true web browser in the closing arguments of this post. And, that’s how the company has been treating Internet Explorer for several years, at least since the debut of Windows 10. However, far too many are still relying on the app!
Another thing to consider is security. Microsoft fixes bugs in Internet Explorer on a fixed schedule. This means they have set times to look at and fix these bugs. Bugs don’t work like this. They can appear whenever they feel like it. This means IE users remain vulnerable to known bugs until the next scheduled bug fix roll-out. Neither Firefox or Chrome are locked into a schedule.
The technology world at large has been trying to send IE off to the farm for years, but this message from Microsoft is the strongest yet that it plans to do the deed itself soon enough. Prepare yourselves for the end of an era… and start using a decent (proper) web browser already!
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