Internet Explorer

Microsoft's browser that dominated the web for a decade, refused to die for another two, and became the butt of every developer joke before finally being officially retired.

† 1995 – 2022Killed by parent Died in 2022

Born

1995

Died

2022

Lifespan

27 years

Cause of Death

Killed by parent

What Happened

Internet Explorer launched in August 1995 bundled with Windows 95 Plus!, built on licensed Spyglass Mosaic code. By being pre-installed on every PC, IE crushed Netscape Navigator in the first browser war and reached a staggering 95% market share by 2003.

Then it stopped. After IE6 shipped in 2001, Microsoft disbanded the browser team. For five years there were no meaningful updates. The web moved on — Firefox arrived in 2004, Chrome in 2008 — while developers cursed IE6's broken box model, missing standards support, and security holes. 'Works best in Internet Explorer' became an epitaph for the early 2000s web.

Microsoft tried to catch up with IE7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, but the damage was done. Chrome overtook IE in global share around 2012. By 2015, Microsoft announced Edge as IE's successor and put IE on enterprise life support — still around for legacy compatibility, but frozen in time.

On June 15, 2022, Microsoft officially retired the Internet Explorer 11 desktop application. Japanese government websites panicked. Corporate intranets broke. But the rest of the internet threw a party. The browser that taught a generation what the web was, and then held it back for a decade, was finally gone.

“We're announcing that the future of Internet Explorer on Windows 10 is in Microsoft Edge. Not only is Microsoft Edge a faster, more secure and more modern browsing experience, but it is also able to address a key concern: compatibility for older, legacy websites and applications.”

— Sean Lyndersay, General Manager, Microsoft Edge, May 19, 2021

Last Words — Official Shutdown Notice

“The Internet Explorer 11 desktop application will be retired and go out of support on June 15, 2022, for certain versions of Windows 10. We encourage you to move to Microsoft Edge before that date.”