A brief walk down memory lane with Internet Explorer as browser finally closes down

After nearly 27 years, Internet Explorer will cease to exist.

Microsoft announced that after Wednesday the web-surfing browser would no longer be supported on their platform. Instead they would be focusing on Microsoft Edge "a faster, more secure and more modern browsing experience than Internet Explorer... able to address a key concern: compatibility for older, legacy websites and applications".

The retirement of Internet Explorer led to some nostalgic posts on Twitter from people who once used the browser on a day-to-day basis.

To mark the end of an era for Microsoft we've decided to take a trip down memory lane in remembrance for Internet Explorer.

Sign up for our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

In 1995, Internet Explorer was born...to be problematic.

At first, Internet Explorer was one of the few options available alongside a handful of others and proved to be a powerful browser.

As Microsoft's first stab at a browser, IE was impressive. With Microsoft's power Internet Explorer was able to fight through the browser wars outliving the popular Netscape Navigator.

This was in part thanks to Microsoft's decision to tie together its Windows operating system with Internet Explorer's web-browsing service. Although it was short-lived, as a United States v. Microsoft lawsuit in 2001, quickly considered it a violation of the Antitrust Act.

But as time went on, Internet Explorer could not live up to the speeds of Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and more.

As quickly as it rose, it fell

Internet Explorer really saw its downfall in the mid-late 2000s when other browsers, especially Chrome, emerged.

Not only did Internet Explorer cease its browser for the Macintosh computers it failed to keep up to the speeds of others, even Firefox and Safari.

It was behind-the-ball in terms of coming up with new and easy-to-use features for users and when it did, Microsoft failed to consider which operating system a majority of users had. Making the newer browsers less accessible.

Eventually, Internet Explorer proved to be the weakest link and led to a plethora of memes still used today to mock the slow processing speeds.

The end of an era

In 2015, Microsoft launched Microsoft Edge as the successor to Internet Explorer and Windows operating system. Following the release of Windows 10, Microsoft said it would no longer create new version of Windows and move toward a Chromium-based browser.

As of January 2021, Internet Explorer has less than 1 per cent of browser market shares worldwide.

Although it had a good run and introduced the world to some incredible technology, like all good things, Internet Explorer had to come to an end.

Mostly because it's been buffering for 25 of those 27 years.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.