Microsoft are to ditch Internet Explorer as of Windows 10 according to The Verge.
I can just imagine you reading this on Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, your Android browser or Safari on your iPhone or iPad and thinking “So what!”, and I’d have to agree. No one in their right mind uses Microsoft’s bloated browser, most people already ditched it when Internet Explorer version 6 came out.
Anyway, we know Microsoft have been absolutely rubbish at browsers and apparently they agree, which is why the Internet Explorer brand itself is to be ditched. Apparently the brand is so hated that building a new browser from the ground up needs a new name because if they stuck with IE no one would use it. Microsoft’s challenge is to actually get you to want to use their new browser, which apparently will a cut down streamlined experience more akin to Google Chrome than to IE.
So the good news is that Internet Explorer is out, a new browser (code named Project Spartan, perhaps in reference to a more basic browser) is in. The bad news is that Internet Explorer is here to stay. Microsoft might hide it and present a shiny new interface, but they’re going to have to keep Internet Explorer running in the background because so many programs rely on it to function.
You have to remember that Microsoft saw fit to entwine Internet Explorer so closely with the Windows operating system that you can’t uninstall it. Because of this, many programs which run on Windows closely rely on Internet Explorer to operate. As an example TurboLister from eBay needs Internet Explorer to run.
What this means is that developers will need to continue to support Internet Explorer for many years into the future – at least until the majority of the world has upgraded to Windows 10 or later. Then developers will have to recode their software to remove reliance on Internet Explorer, as it’s still to be built into Windows that’s unlikely to happen.
Effectively the news that Internet Explorer is to be ditched really means it’ll continue exist for many years, but a cut down browser with a different name will try to lure users back from competitors browsers. Microsoft would love to do that as then they’d be able to try and inflict Bing search and a whole load of other properties on their browser users.
3 Responses
Had a message the other day when logging into Sky Go telling me Chrome is fazing out support for Silverlight, suggested I downloaded Internet Explorer 11 as I soon won’t be able to use Chrome. The horror..
😐
I am still a chrome fan currently, but objectively IE really isn’t bad anymore and hasn’t been for years. Most bloat can be attributed to the user installing things they don’t want (PEBCAK!) and if we’re talking about system ‘bloat’ – chrome is unfortunately by far the worst in this regard and not recommendable to people relying on low-to-mid pc’s.
Firefox also tends to be faster with updated functionality with respect to .mp4’s/gifv’s, although this has been settled now.
I’d like to stay on chrome, it’s been by far the most pleasant out of the box and ran circles around IE and outperformed FF – this is no longer the case really.
Google Chrome is still my choice of browser, but I cant wait to try out the new Spartan to see how it compares.