The future of IE is in Microsoft Edge, company says

Mar 17, 2022 22:53 GMT  ·  By

We’ve known for a while that Internet Explorer was set to get the ax this year, but Microsoft wants to be sure everybody knows that its retirement date is looming.

The company has posted a new warning on the Windows message center specifically to remind users that Internet Explorer is set to go dark in June this year, emphasizing that Microsoft Edge packs a dedicated IE mode specifically integrated for compatibility purposes.

In other words, while IE will no longer exist as a standalone app, it’ll continue to be around as part of the Microsoft Edge feature lineup.

Internet Explorer will go dark once and for all in June

For those in need of Internet Explorer due to compatibility reasons, the IE mode obviously comes in handy, at least until their apps are migrated to modern browsers.

“As previously announced, the future of Internet Explorer on Windows is in Microsoft Edge. Internet Explorer mode (IE mode) provides legacy browser support within Microsoft Edge. Because of this, the Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) desktop application will be retired on June 15, 2022, for certain versions of Windows 10. This means that the IE11 desktop application will no longer be supported and afterward will redirect to Microsoft Edge if a user tries to access it,” Microsoft announced.

In the meantime, Microsoft Edge is gaining market share quite fast, though this kind of makes sense given it’s the default browser in Windows now.

Based on Chromium, it has everything Google Chrome has and even more, and this is why Microsoft hopes most users would stick with it in the long term.

Microsoft Edge is also a cross-platform browser, so in addition to Windows 10 and Windows 11, it’s also available on other operating systems, including not only Mac and Linux but also Android and iOS.