We’d been hearing reliable rumors, but Microsoft has made it official. When Windows 10 arrives, Internet Explorer is officially being retired.
It is, as we’ve noted, overdue. Internet Explorer has been left behind by, well, pretty much everybody else on the market when it comes to technology. It doesn’t even support extensions. IE has largely endured, thanks to people refusing to upgrade their computers. It may hold a 60 percent market share in browsers, but an enormous chunk of that is thanks to Internet Explorer 8. Really, for many people, the old joke holds true: It’s the browser you use to download a better browser.
In its place, Microsoft is debuting what it’s calling “Project Spartan,” a newly designed web browser that will presumably be more like Chrome and Firefox. Spartan has some interesting features, like annotating web pages and including Cortana functionality, but we doubt many grandparents will find it quite the same experience.
IE isn’t entirely dead; it’ll be included in some versions of Windows 10 to ease enterprise customers into using a browser that isn’t terrible. But IE itself won’t come in the box, and considering its reputation, in the end that’s probably for the best.