From dominance to a joke, Internet Explorer meets its end

Much maligned internet browser Internet Explorer has met its end, maker Microsoft has revealed.

The erstwhile dominant browser is already in the process of being phased out by Microsoft and its desktop version will officially be retired on June 15, 2022. Technical support and further updates will also cease to be provided on the same date.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, Internet Explorer enjoyed unparalleled success as a browser, with its popularity peaking in 2003 when it had amassed a whopping 95 per cent of the internet browser market.

One of the key reasons for its success at the time was that Microsoft used to bundle the browser with its Windows operating system. So every Microsoft Windows client had an online browser straight from the box and would therefore not need to download or purchase an alternative. At the time, this practice helped Internet Explorer win the browser war against Netscape, with the latter having had close to 90 per cent of the market only a few years prior.

Internet Explorer was not perpetually immune to the competition, however. Mozilla’s Firefox, itself rooted in the development of the original Netscape, began squaring off against Internet Explorer in 2004. By 2005, Firefox had gone past Internet Explorer 5, clawing back 8 per cent of the market share in the process.

Additional competition came in 2008 with Google’s Chrome browser, with the latter ultimately becoming the most widely used browser in the world by 2012, a mere four years since Chrome launch.

Another factor for Internet Explorer’s demise is the famous antitrust lawsuit brought against Microsoft for its bundling practices. In 2001’s United States v. Microsoft Corp case, the US government ruled that Microsoft’s practice of including an internet browser pre-installed on its Windows operating system constituted “unlawful monopolisation”.

Moreover, the increasing usage of mobile operating systems like Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android further contributed to the demise of Internet Explorer since it was incompatible with these systems.

The final nail in the coffin was not related to market preferences, however. Rather it was the improved nous and technical knowledge of the average consumer, who was now keenly aware that Internet Explorer was a slow, cumbersome browser, that was riddled with security issues. Security vulnerabilities included weakness in its system architecture, which allowed various pieces of spyware, adware and other computer viruses to attack it.

As recently as January of this year, hackers from North Korea exploited a system vulnerability in Internet Explorer to go after cybersecurity experts, a South Korean firm disclosed.

“A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the way that the scripting engine handles objects in memory in Internet Explorer. The vulnerability could corrupt memory in such a way that an attacker could execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user,” explained Microsoft.

“If the current user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could take control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights,” the post added.

Despite the widespread acceptance that Internet Explorer’s days have long been over, there was still an issue in a business context, where legacy software still in use by certain organisations could only run on Internet Explorer. This has been addressed by Microsoft by adding a special Internet Explorer compatibility mode in the Edge browser, Internet Explorer’s replacement.

“Microsoft Edge has Internet Explorer mode (“IE mode”) built in, so you can access those legacy Internet Explorer-based websites and applications straight from Microsoft Edge,” Microsoft explained.

Microsoft has strongly recommended that Internet Explorer users transition to using Edge before the June 22, 2021 cut-off date. Microsoft outlined three key reasons for recommending Edge over Internet Explorer, including improved security while browsing online, a range of productivity and memory management tools, as well as better compatibility with websites being designed and developed at various periods in time.

“Microsoft Edge is the only browser with built-in compatibility for legacy Internet Explorer-based websites and applications, including support for functionality like ActiveX controls,” said Microsoft.

Microsoft also nodded at Chrome users, essentially assuring them that they wouldn’t be sacrificing anything from an architectural standpoint were they to switch to using Edge.

“Microsoft Edge is also built on the Chromium project – the technology that powers many of today’s browsers – which means it delivers world-class support for modern sites. With the dual engine advantage, you get the best of web, both past and future,” the blog post stated.

Chromium, which Microsoft says it used to build Edge, is an open-source codebase utilised by companies to develop their own version of a browser and is also used by Google Chrome. Chrome has about 65 per cent of the global internet browser market at the time of writing.