After more than 25 years as the first-mover in the browser world, Microsoft has finally chosen to retire the renowned Internet Explorer next year. However, the browser's popularity dwindled over time as it could no longer compete in terms of performance with browsers like Chrome, Safari, and others. Now, Redmond has confirmed in a statement that the browser will be officially decommissioned on June 15 of next year.

After more than 25 years as the first-mover in the browser world, Microsoft has finally chosen to retire the renowned Internet Explorer next year. However, the browser's popularity dwindled over time as it could no longer compete in terms of performance with browsers like Chrome, Safari, and others. Now, Redmond has confirmed in a statement that the browser will be officially decommissioned on June 15 of next year.

The Windows 10 Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) would include Internet Explorer in 2022, but the support for all the consumer versions of the browser would be ended. It is also expected that the Windows bundle including Internet Explorer would also stop either in June next year itself, or soon afterwards.

This is the last level before Internet Explorer becomes entirely defunct. Last year in August, Redmond had already announced that on August 17, 2021, online Microsoft services including Outlook, OneDrive and Office 365 would stop supporting the browser while the support for Internet Explorer for Microsoft Teams web app has already ended in November 2020.

Most businesses would be able to find an alternative in Microsoft Edge with IE mode, which had been created by Redmond a few years ago to allow businesses to switch to the chromium-based browser even for older legacy websites. The support using this mode will last until at least 2029, the tech giant has promised.

Internet Explorer has been dying a slow death for some time now, ever since it was replaced as the preferred browser very early into the explosion of the world wide web. Even though Windows provided it all the support it could by placing it as the default browser, it had failed to keep the attention of users due to its very slow speed and was largely only used for downloading another browser, something that has made it a subject of humour quite often over the years.

Even Microsoft gave up on the browser and instead developed Microsoft Edge, and it has been trying to get users to stop using Internet Explorer since about 2015.