How are you reading these words right now? You are probably on the TeenHacks LI website on your browser, right? I’m going to go ahead and assume you are not using Internet Explorer. If you are one of the few who are, I have some bad news for you: say goodbye to Internet Explorer as it is heading to its grave on August 17, 2021.

Internet Explorer is Microsoft’s first web browser, released in 1995 during the early days of the dot-com revolution. It was the default browser for all Windows PC’s, and still is on any computer that runs Windows Version 8.1 or earlier. Back in the 2000s, Internet Explorer held about 95% of the market share. As time went on, however, the browser’s effectiveness decreased . It had many security flaws, bugs, and performance problems.

Internet Explorer (IE) is not ideal, and even Microsoft acknowledges this. IE does not support extensions, can’t be used on any device that isn’t Windows, is slow, and messes up the web page displays. Currently, Microsoft only supports the most recent version of IE -- Version 11 -- and any other version would make your device extremely susceptible to viruses and malware.

Because of this, Microsoft has been attempting to kill off IE for a long time. This was especially apparent with the release of Windows 10 and a new browser (Microsoft Edge) in 2015 . However, the original Edge was not working as well, so developers kept Internet Explorer as a fallback.

While Microsoft struggled with its browsers, two new browsers quickly swept the stage: Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. I mean, you’re probably using one of those two browsers right now, right? Google Chrome is the current leading browser, holding about 71% of the market share. Almost every website is designed to work with Google Chrome. As a result, Microsoft Edge switched to using the open-source Chromium codebase that powers Google Chrome.

Therefore, with the new Chromium based Edge, the need for Internet Explorer is eradicated. Beginning November 30, 2020, the Microsoft Teams web app will not support IE, and from August 17 2021 onwards, the rest of the Microsoft 365 apps (One Drive, Outlook, One Note, etc.) will not support Internet Explorer as well. So this means whoever uses IE after next August will have an even more horrible experience with it. The original, non-Chromium based Microsoft Edge Legacy won’t work after March 9, 2021, as Microsoft will stop adding security updates.

The only option now for IE lovers is to switch to the Chromium based Edge or use a rival browser like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, or Opera. After 25 years , it has come time to say farewell to Internet Explorer, the most hated browser. It’s not like you noticed it was automatically installed onto your Windows PC anyways.