The day is finally here; starting today, Microsoft is permanently disabling Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10 PCs, and making it unavailable for older versions of Windows as well. The final plan to kill off the browser was announced in December, and now, it’s coming to fruition.
Most have probably lost count of how many times the death of Internet Explorer has been reported, and it’s because Microsoft has been dragging out the process for years. The end of support for Windows 11 was first announced in 2020, and in June 2022, Microsoft was supposed to kill off the browser in favor of Edge. What ended up happening, however, is that this date was only when Microsoft began to move users away from Internet Explorer and to Microsoft Edge, so not everyone was immediately affected.
That’s no longer the case now. Today’s update for Microsoft Edge permanently disables Internet Explorer and forces users to transition to the new Chromium-based browser whenever they try to open Internet Explorer. To make things easier, Microsoft Edge has an IE mode, which is supposed to add compatibility for legacy websites that still require Internet Explorer features. Microsoft has been gathering feedback and making improvements to this feature, and hopefully, everyone should have an easier time transitioning to the new browser now.
In addition to disabling Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10, you’re also going to be unable to download the browser on Windows 7, making it near impossible to use the browser after today. Of course, Microsoft also recently dropped support for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, so it doesn’t matter if Internet Explorer runs on those versions. Windows 11 already shipped without any mention of Internet Explorer 11 from the beginning.
While the browser will be disabled, you may still see some icons and references to Internet Explorer on Windows 10 for the time being. Microsoft previously announced that it will remove these references from Windows 10 with an upcoming update coming in June. That doesn’t mean you’ll be able to use the browser until then, though. It will be gone for good after today’s update, which marks the (true) end of an era. If you feel like reminiscing, you can take a look back at the life of Internet Explorer from its inception until the present day.