Goodbye, Internet Explorer (1995-2022)

Today is the last support date for Internet Explorer 11. I think I’m not the only one who has long since moved away from Internet Explorer, so the news isn’t that dramatic.

If I run iexplore.exe on my Windows 11, it instead launches the modern Microsoft Edge. With default settings, that too is horrible:

I wish that Microsoft retire the msn.com portal also while retiring Internet Explorer.

I do have fond memories of Internet Explorer, though. As of writing this, the oldest version you can download from Microsoft is IE 6.0.

I’m tempted to download and install that to experience life as it was in 2001. There were no tabs, the browser window was never full screen, and everything just worked. A few years before this, I sat in a meeting with Microsoft to discuss Internet Explorer 5.5. One major news then was that the browser would get an Internet Radio Stations button and how this would potentially change the user experience. I’m unsure if I ever clicked the button while using IE 5.5 in 1999 and 2000.

These days, I’m fully on Mozilla Firefox. It’s great and runs on all of my devices well. One of the great things I like about Firefox is that it doesn’t keep adding new buttons and obstacles to get in the way. You sign in initially, and that’s it. Many sysadmins I know dutifully go to Windows Server’s Server Manager to click the IE ESC mode off for admins – because it’s so in the way.

I wouldn’t be here today without Internet Explorer – yet perhaps I’d saved numerous days not needing to optimize intranets and other websites for legacy IEs back in the day. Even then, I’m happy to have experienced the old Internet Explorer versions – even the one with the Internet Radio button!