Ding Dong, the (web) glitch is (almost) dead! In news that will please web developers the world over, Microsoft is calling time for support of their aging browser in all of its apps. Internet Explorer once reigned supreme in the browser world. However, as far as Microsoft are now concerned, it's days are literally numbered.
From August 17th 2021, users of any Microsoft app (Word, Outlook etc) will find that they will no longer be able to integrate them with Internet Explorer. This will also be true of Microsoft Teams, although the date here is even sooner - November 30th 2020.
For many people, this news will be neither here nor there. While Internet Explorer used to be the most widely used browser in the world, use has now decreased to just a trickle. Microsoft themselves have long been advising people against using it, and would much rather you were using their new Edge browser (which, now many of us here have tried it, is actually pretty good now!).
However, there's still a few people either stuck with it because their company invested in a system many years ago that only works with this browser, or a handful still using it just out of habit. If you fall into the latter group, you really really should switch to something else!! Most modern websites are not built with Internet Explorer in mind any more, and you will have a better experience if you switch to a more modern browser.
If you fall into the group of people that still has no choice but to use it, Microsoft has that covered to. The latest version of Edge includes an IE Mode that can be enabled for specific websites that don't work in any other browser. We've covered how to enable this in our HowTo this month. This will allow you to carry on using that ancient company intranet while also taking advantage of the years of progress in the web browser world while viewing the rest of the internet.
While this move from Microsoft don't signal the absolute end of the road for IE11 (they haven't announced that they will be dropping all security update support yet), it certainly seems to signal the beginning of the end.