On August 17 2021, Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) will no longer be supported by Microsoft’s 365 applications and services.
However, its support for IE11 with the Microsoft Teams web app will end slightly earlier on November 30 this year.
The news was announced by Microsoft on Monday (August 17).
The tech giant explained that after the above dates, customers will have a “degraded” experience or will be unable to connect to Microsoft 365 apps and services on IE11.
It also said that for degraded experiences, new Microsoft 365 features “will not be available”, or certain features may “cease to work” when accessed via IE11.
IE11 will be replaced by the new Microsoft Edge, which is said to be “faster, efficient and cleaner”.
According to Microsoft, the new browser is built on the “Chromium open source engine with the latest in Microsoft enterprise capabilities,” which basically means that it will be similar to Google Chrome.
Since its release in January, “millions of users” have upgraded their home and work browsers to the new Microsoft Edge.
The End Of An Era
Microsoft has been working on reducing the usage of Internet Explorer for years now.
The company first unveiled its new Edge browser back in 2015, and began calling Internet Explorer a “compatibility solution“, rather than a browser.
However, it will definitely be hard to pry some users away from Internet Explorer. After all, it has been around since August 1995.
In the late 1990s to early 2000s, Internet Explorer was one of the most popular browsers.
However, towards the mid to late 2000s, the market share of Internet Explorer steadily decreased, no doubt exacerbated by alternative browsers such as Google Chrome.
“Customers have been using IE11 since 2013 when the online environment was much less sophisticated than the landscape today,” said Microsoft.
“Since then, open web standards and newer browsers — like the new Microsoft Edge — have enabled better, more innovative online experiences.”
Featured Image Credit: Nestia
