Windows 11 was officially unveiled, and as part of the announcement, the features and applications that will be removed when people upgrade to the new operating system were also listed. Among the removed programs we will find Internet Explorer: Users will have to prepare to say goodbye forever, as Microsoft has disabled it in favor of the feature IE mode in Edge.
“Internet Explorer is disabled. Microsoft Edge is the recommended replacement and includes IE Mode which can be useful in certain scenarios, ”reads Microsoft's list of disabled applications in Windows 11, as reported by BleepingComputer.
The retirement of Internet Explorer in favor of Microsoft Edge is certainly not new. In May, Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer would be reaching end of support on June 15, 2022 for some versions of Windows 10.
“Microsoft Edge comes with Internet Explorer mode (“ IE Mode ”) built in, so you can access those outdated Internet Explorer-based websites and applications directly from Microsoft Edge. With Microsoft Edge able to take on this responsibility and more, the Internet Explorer 11 desktop application will be retired and will no longer be supported from June 15, 2022 for some versions of Windows 10, ″ the official post said.
Windows users who still need Internet Explorer for some obsolete web applications can use the feature “IE Mode” in Microsoft Edge, which opens a website in a dedicated rendering engine in order to function properly. Users will know they are in IE Mode because a small icon of the much loved Internet Explorer will appear in the address bar.
By removing Internet Explorer from Windows 11, Microsoft has proven that wanting to close with his archaic browser and send him permanently into retirement. Born as a cutting-edge browser, over the years - due to some poor choices and persistent use of proprietary APIs by Microsoft - it got slower and slower and little evolved, lagging behind the competition. Around 2010, in fact, it was only appreciated in memes, where users mocked the browser for its incredible slowness. Despite this, it is estimated that currently still the 4,5% of users use Internet Explorer, preferring it to much more modern web browsing programs such as Edge, based on the same system as Chrome.
