RIP Internet Explorer, and thanks for all the memes

This week, Microsoft is finally sending the often slow but always meme-able Internet Explorer to the grave. A year ago, the company announced its intention to retire the application, and starting today, it will stop supporting the 27-year-old era-defining browser. 

Microsoft, instead, will direct users to its Edge browser that launched in 2015, according to AP.  To help with the transition, Microsoft has provided tips and guides to help users adjust to Edge (check out PopSci’s intro to Edge here). The company is also migrating user data such as passwords, favorites, history and cookies over to Edge. Microsoft said that it’s going to permanently disable Internet Explorer in a future update and delete the icon from users’ devices. 

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“We are announcing that the future of Internet Explorer on Windows 10 is in Microsoft Edge. Not only is Microsoft Edge a faster, more secure and more modern browsing experience than Internet Explorer, but it is also able to address a key concern: compatibility for older, legacy websites and applications,” Sean Lyndersay, general manager of Microsoft Edge Enterprise, wrote in the announcement last year. “Microsoft Edge has Internet Explorer mode (“IE mode”) built in, so you can access those legacy Internet Explorer-based websites and applications straight from Microsoft Edge.” 

The reasons for the change, Lyndersay noted, is that Edge could better support both legacy and modern websites, has better, more advanced in-browser features, and has bolstered security. First released in 1995, Internet Explorer, on the other hand, has been notoriously buggy and easy-to-hack.

“In today’s evolved security landscape, it’s also important that Microsoft Edge is more agile when responding to security vulnerabilities,” Lyndersay wrote. “While Internet Explorer 11 packaged security updates monthly, Microsoft Edge can issue security patches for immediate vulnerabilities within days, if not hours.” 

Internet Explorer now joins other famed old-school products from its generation, like the iPod, in the legacy tech memorial, living on only as bytes of our collective memory.