On June 15, 2022, Microsoft formally retired Internet Explorer, the once-dominant web browser that had defined an entire era of online life. After 26 years—and no small share of controversy—the company decommissioned IE in favor of its successor, Microsoft Edge, signaling the end of a long and often contentious chapter in the history of personal computing.
For those who came of age in the 1990s and early 2000s, Internet Explorer was more than just a program—it was the gateway to the internet itself. First launched in August 1995 as part of the Windows 95 Plus! add-on pack, IE quickly became a cornerstone of Microsoft’s strategy to dominate the burgeoning web. By tightly bundling it with the Windows operating system, the company achieved a virtual monopoly on internet access: by 2003, Internet Explorer controlled over 90 percent of the global browser market. Its blue “e” icon, familiar to hundreds of millions, became as ubiquitous as the desktop itself.
But that dominance came at a price. Microsoft’s aggressive tactics drew the attention of U.S. antitrust authorities, culminating in the landmark Department of Justice v. Microsoft case. Prosecutors argued that by embedding IE into Windows and shutting out competitors like Netscape, Microsoft had abused its market power. Although the company escaped a forced breakup, the legal battle cast a long shadow over its public image—and over Internet Explorer itself.
Even after prevailing in court, Microsoft failed to adapt. As the internet evolved, IE lagged behind. Its architecture grew outdated, burdened by layers of legacy code and an increasingly hostile security landscape. Developers found themselves contorting code to accommodate its quirks, and users suffered through slow load times, frequent crashes, and a growing list of vulnerabilities. In time, IE became a punchline—a digital fossil still haunting modern systems.
The rise of challengers like Mozilla Firefox in 2004 and Google Chrome in 2008 only accelerated the decline. Sleeker, faster, and better aligned with emerging web standards, these new browsers exposed IE as not merely obsolete, but obstructive. Microsoft responded with iterative improvements—Internet Explorer 9 and 10 notably brought HTML5 support and performance upgrades—but the damage was already done. A generation of users had moved on.
By the time Microsoft unveiled Windows 10 in 2015, it was clear a clean break was needed. The company launched Microsoft Edge as its modern browser, designed from the ground up for speed, security, and compatibility. Yet IE endured—maintained largely for institutional users with legacy systems, where ancient intranet applications and custom business software still clung to the past.
That legacy support finally expired in 2022. In a carefully worded blog post, Microsoft’s Sean Lyndersay, general manager of Edge Enterprise, announced that Internet Explorer would be permanently disabled on most versions of Windows 10, with users redirected to Edge’s built-in “IE Mode” for backward compatibility. “The future of Internet Explorer on Windows 10 is in Microsoft Edge,” he wrote. “Not only is Microsoft Edge a faster, more secure and more modern browsing experience than Internet Explorer, but it is also able to address a key concern—compatibility with older, legacy websites and applications.”
And so, with little fanfare, Internet Explorer faded into obsolescence. Not mourned, perhaps, but remembered—if not fondly, then with the kind of grudging nostalgia reserved for once-great empires whose time had long since passed. It was the browser that built the web—and the browser that nearly broke it.
