It's finally happening! Once the ruler of the internet browser world, Microsoft's Internet Explorer has been on life support for some time. According to a recent blog by the company, they have finally decided it's time to pull the plug.
Not long ago, there was a warning shot across the bows for anyone still clinging to the aging browser with the announcement that all 365 apps will no longer support Internet Explorer from this August. Now the final bell has tolled - on June 15th 2022, Microsoft will be withdrawing all support for the aging browser.
This means that from this date, you should no longer really be using this browser under any circumstances. It's certainly not impossible that, much like Adobe's Flash recently, Microsoft may force the situation and push out an update that disables it to ensure it doesn't become a security risk once it is no longer receiving updates.
For anyone that is currently forced to use Internet Explorer because they have a legacy app for which this is the only option, the best long term option here is to start thinking about getting this app rewritten. If this is not an option, Edge, Internet Explorer's replacement, has a compatibility mode that replicates the behaviour of Internet Explorer. We've covered one method to enable this in a previous blog.
So there we have it. The end of an era. We will no doubt write another blog closer to the time to remind you of the forthcoming demise. As web developers, we would be lying if we said we're sad to see it go!