Internet Explorer has retired. In fact, the browser no longer even had a 0.5% market share, separated by a chasm from Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Edge, but Microsoft has just given it the final shovel, 27 years after its launch. Over the next few months, anyone who still uses Internet Explorer will be redirected to a download page for Microsoft Edge, the browser that has de facto replaced IE since 2015. IE would also be completely expunged from a future Windows update.
The complete shutdown of IE was announced and prepared for several years, and today sounds like the final end of a bygone era of computing, the one where Microsoft crushed all competition not only with Windows, but also on the web. . In the 90s Internet Explorer literally acted as a single access portal to the Internet. The anti-trust lawsuits did the rest and paved the way for fierce competition... which IE also paid the price for.
Microsoft moved to Edge (powered by Chromium) as the default browser starting with Windows 11. The MSHTML engine that “powers” Internet Explorer is still part of Windows 11. Microsoft says it will support the mode IE in Edge until 2029, at least, which will allow you to go to very old sites that are only compatible with IE.