14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is getting ready to discontinue Internet Explorer and replace it with Spartan, a brand new browser that’s supposed to mark a fresh start for the software giant in a market that has until now been dominated by Google and Mozilla.
Internet Explorer has been around for so long that it’s still hard to see it go, but there’s no doubt that the rapid development of the browser market in the last decade had a strong impact on users’ perception of an app that always had the advantage of being bundled into the world’s number one desktop operating system.
The negative perception was one of Microsoft’s biggest problems when it comes to Internet Explorer, and no matter how hard it actually tried to improve the browser, people were still looking at the app as “the best browser to download a browser.”
But another factor that had a significant contribution to Internet Explorer’s killing was the impressive growth of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
Highly-customizable, tons of extensions, gorgeous themes
If we’re looking at the current browser market, Internet Explorer lacked what its rivals had from the very beginning. Leaving aside performance and security because these are more or less obvious thanks to benchmarks, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox offer users many more customization options and the possibility to add new features to their browsers by installing extensions.
Themes also made IE’s rivals more eye appealing in a world where Microsoft’s browser had the same clothes for too many years.
According to third-party data, Google Chrome is powering some 40 percent of the world’s browsing on desktops, while IE and Firefox fight for the second position with around 20 percent each. Obviously, these figures cannot be entirely accurate because some people use more than a single browser, but it’s no secret that IE’s popularity fell dramatically in the last years.
And now, in order to improve its browser, Microsoft is again looking at its rivals, which is more or less living proof that the updates that Chrome and Firefox received kind of forced users to dump IE.
For Spartan, Microsoft might be planning to add support for extensions, a feature that was available on Chrome and Firefox for years, and which Redmond hopes will enhance the functionality of its app. Themes might not be offered from the very beginning, but we’re hearing that Spartan, IE’s replacement in Windows 10, could come with dark and light visual styles.
In the end, IE had to die to let Microsoft improve in the software department, and just like some analysts said, Internet Explorer was never as cool as its rivals. Too bad Microsoft didn’t notice this earlier.