Tech giant Microsoft on Wednesday stopped supporting the Internet Explorer web browser after nearly 27 years.
Microsoft had announced last year that the once-dominant browser would be removed from most versions of the Windows 10 operating system.
The company has instead sought to push users to use its Microsoft Edge browser, which it launched in 2015.
"Not only is Microsoft Edge a faster, more secure and more modern browsing experience than Internet Explorer, but it is also able to address a key concern: compatibility for older, legacy websites and applications,'' Sean Lyndersay, general manager of Microsoft Edge Enterprise, wrote in a May 2021 blog post.
'Internet Explorer has stopped working'
Many users loved to hate Internet Explorer, which, over the years, garnered a reputation for being slow, clunky, and unreliable compared to newer browsers like Chrome or Firefox.
Infamous for its error message, "Internet Explorer has stopped working," the browser was prone to crashing regularly, with web surfers calling it the "top browser to install other browsers."
Internet Explorer was first released in 1995 as part of the add-on package for Windows 95. Microsoft's requirement for computer makers to use the browser as a condition for using Windows got the company in legal battles in Europe and the US.
Internet Explorer was the most used web browser in the early 2000s, with a peak of about 95% usage share by 2003. But its usage has declined with the launch of new solutions and its lack of compatibility with mobile operating systems like Android and iOS.
Today, Google's Chrome browser dominates the worldwide browser market, with roughly a 65% share, while Microsoft's Edge lags with about 4%.