Notes

RIP Internet Explorer, the first (and the most Terrible) Internet Browser for Many

For the majority of its existence, Internet Explorer failed us. Today, it's as if we've failed Internet Explorer.



Microsoft updated Windows and its website today in an ode to Internet Explorer, which has been dead for 26 years. Microsoft will now ask you to use Edge instead of Internet Explorer every time you try to download the browser.



The browser's demise isn't surprising. It is also not a major inconvenience for the majority of internet users by 2022. Microsoft began to ring the death knell in 2017 for its previous internet portal. According to Statcounter, IE usage has dropped to less than 1% of the total browser market share, according Web analytics site Statcounter. The world functionally decided it was dead before Microsoft did.



I'm not here to dance on Internet Explorer's grave however. Yes, IE was a terrible browser for a lot of its time. Depending on the time of year and the activities you were doing with it, some websites wouldn't display properly, or you'd get dozens of pop-ups, or even let you open your Windows XP machine to a torrent of viruses. PC users who are older may recall opening IE after a parent or grandparent used it to find seven browser toolbars that were not legitimate and taking up half the screen due to malware.



In all honesty, though, it's also important to remember IE as the primary gateway to the internet for a lot of people (if they didn't already have Netscape Navigator first) because it was included on every Windows PC from 1995 to. As a kid I'd done a bit of browsing on the web using the awful AOL browser, but when my family was moved to broadband internet, IE was the way I was the first to jump on. The early viral memes on eBaum's World before I realized that much of it was stolen without credit or credit. Playing RuneScape or looking up cheat codes for video games (remember those?) IE allowed me to experience these kinds of experiences.
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Like many others (read the term "nerds") at the time we all realized IE was a terrible program and changed to Firefox, Opera, and then Chrome. Internet users, in general, didn't owe IE anything. It was a victim of meritocracy, and even its parent company released a more efficient browser in Edge.



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Good memories aren't able to replace good performance and security. They are a sign of Internet Explorer's importance to the culture of those who grew up with it, and who have seen it transform from the digital Wild West into the cyber-hell we cherish today.


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