Microsoft shut down servers earlier today after nearly 27 years of operation. The aging browser has been on track to be shut down for a while now but things really kicked into gear when Microsoft lunched Microsoft edge in 2020, a direct and better replacement.
Microsoft has already started roiling out a new prompt that will display over internet explorer and redirect users to Microsoft edge, but eventually internet explorer will be completely disabled in the coming months.
While Microsoft edge is now the default on windows 11 it still has parts of internet explorer built in such as the MSHTML engine witch powers internet explorer. It exists within edge purely for IE mode, but according to Microsoft IE mode is to remain supported until at least 2029.
Multiple businesses have already moved to Microsoft Edge’s IE mode for web apps and sites that are so old they still require Internet Explorer, and it supports older ActiveX controls that many legacy sites still use. Internet Explorer will live on through this mode, but will never run as an independent app ever again.