The browser will be finished on August 17, 2021. In a blog post, Microsoft explained that the Microsoft Teams web app will no longer support Internet Explorer 11 – the most recent and final iteration of the browser as of November 30, 2020. The remaining Microsoft 365 apps and services will end support for the browser next year.

Replacing the browser is Microsoft Edge, the computer giant’s newest browser which relies on Chromium open-source software, developed by Google for Google Chrome. There’s also an older version of Edge which does not use Chromium which will also be phased out on 9 March 2021.

With many websites and applications still using Internet Explorer, Microsoft is trying to avoid having two active browsers at once. Instead, using Microsoft Edge’s “Internet Explorer Legacy mode” means that users can stay on one browser – to “seamlessly experience the best of the modern web in one tab while accessing a business-critical legacy IE 11 app in another tab”, the company says. This feature is intended to provide access to older websites that were specifically built for Internet Explorer, that is until Microsoft fully drops support for Internet Explorer 11 within the Windows 10 operating system.

The demise of Internet Explorer, and Microsoft’s non-Chromium browsers, has been in the cards for years. Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 were discontinued back in 2016, while Microsoft Edge was introduced one year prior, in 2015.

The move towards Chromium for Microsoft’s browser, compared to its previous proprietary browser, has larger ramifications for the future of the open internet. Those concerns have become more pressing in recent months because of, among other things, the fallout between the US government and TikTok.

Chromium is now the basis of Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Avast Secure Browser, and Opera. This means that Google has greater influence when it comes to what features are developed, practices accepted, and which usability concerns are deemed vital.

The new Edge browser includes a range of features that differentiate it from others like Google Chrome. This includes turning on tracking protection by default, which blocks both advertisements and almost all third-party tracking code.

For those folks still running Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and higher or Windows 8.1
Microsoft is pushing out the Edge browser to your computer. “This update will be downloaded and installed automatically from Windows Update,” Microsoft’s KB4567409 description notes. “Windows 7 official support ended on January 14, 2020. Although Microsoft Edge helps keep your device helps secure on the web, your device may still be vulnerable to security risks. We recommend that you move to a supported operating system.”

The update will not be delivered to any PCs that are running Windows 7 Enterprise or are managed by Active Directory or Azure Active Directory.

Bottom line: If you’re still using Internet Explorer, time is quickly running out. At this point, I can only suggest you jump on the Microsoft band wagon and start using Edge on a daily basis.

For my browser…. I’m sticking with Google Chrome!