High tech Internet Explorer, “the browser we love to hate”, bows out


His death is no surprise. Internet Explorer, the browser created by Microsoft, will stop working this Wednesday after 27 years of (not very) good and loyal service. The American firm announced it more than a year ago. For several years now, the software was no longer updated and Microsoft advised its users to favor Edge, its successor launched in 2015. The latest users of Internet Explorer will now be automatically redirected there.

Descent into hell

“Faster, more secure and more modern than Internet Explorer”, in the words of Chris Jackson, Microsoft’s chief security officer, Edge should allow the digital giant to compete with Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox, the three main browsers Internet. In May 2022, Internet Explorer accounted for just 0.64% of global traffic, according to data from StatCounter (compared to 65% for Google Chrome). Nothing to do with the 2000s, when Microsoft software was almost in a monopoly situation.

A descent into hell which is explained first by “the extreme mediocrity of software development” of Internet Explorer, explains Fabrice Epelboin, social media specialist and cybersecurity expert. The rise of Google Chrome and Safari (Apple’s browser), which coincides with the democratization of smartphones, got the better of Internet Explorer, known for its slowness.

But for Fabrice Epelboin, the “patent failure” of Internet Explorer can also be explained by Microsoft’s strategy, which consisted in imposing this software at all costs on Windows users despite the anti-competitive laws in force in the United States. and in Europe. The firm was ordered by the European Commission to pay hundreds of millions of euros in fines. What she did without flinching, but without really changing her practices. A decision that contributed to “tarnish the Explorer brand”, observes the entrepreneur and teacher at Sciences Po Paris.

A legendary slowness

In retrospect, Internet Explorer is “Microsoft’s biggest failure in the ‘consumer software’ category”, “the one we love to hate, which is imposed on us but which no one uses”, continues Fabrice Epelboin. Over the years, it has even become a “meme”, a phenomenon derided by a crowd of Internet users.

We no longer count the number of times when the joke “What is Internet Explorer for?” – To download Google Chrome”, was made. On Twitter, the Microsoft browser even has the right to its parody account in French, followed by more than 173,000 users. Mocking the slowness of the software, @intrnetexp publishes news months or even years late. “Avatar 2 will be released in 2014! We still have time to wait…”, wrote a short time ago.

Does the end of Internet Explorer symbolize the victory by KO of Chrome? Not so sure. Google’s browser “is far from being free from defects and it is quite possible that another software will be needed tomorrow if it is better thought out”, warns Fabrice Epelboin. To supplant the market leaders, Microsoft Edge still has a long way to go: in May, only 5.5% of web browsing was carried out from the heir to Internet Explorer.



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