The geriatric browser won’t support the full Google experience
Internet Explorer had a good run, but it’s been trying to shake its dodgy reputation for years. Despite Microsoft’s bet efforts, using a third-party browser on your PC became a necessity for many of us. Google ultimately ended up killing Internet Explorer in favor of Microsoft Edge, and the last version of Internet Explorer we got was released in 2013 with Windows 8.1. We’re now in 2021, and it’s far past time to move on, so even Google Search is dropping support for the geriatric browser.
When accessing Google from Internet Explorer 11, you’ll no longer be able to access the full-featured Search site, as per 9to5Google. The company is not cutting off access entirely (and thus crippling the browser), but you will find yourself with a fallback, stripped-down Google experience, able to perform basic searches, but not much more.
Why is this happening? According to Malte Ubl, a software engineer at Google, the search team did an internal assessment and found that it’s simply not worth supporting IE11 if it wants to keep growing the web experience. Users that are too stubborn to move on to a new browser or system will get that fallback experience, so it’s not like Google’s actually kicking anyone out. But this is basically Google’s way to tell you that you need to move on.
Microsoft is officially putting the final nail in Internet Explorer’s coffin on June 15th, 2022, when it will be removing the software from all consumer versions of Windows 10 (it’s still shipped with Windows 10 as a “compatibility solution” for legacy websites, but Edge now has an “IE mode” for that).
Windows 11, the next major version of Microsoft’s operating system, will not come with Internet Explorer by default, shipping only with Microsoft Edge. Using Internet Explorer to try to access many modern websites might also result in a less-than-ideal experience, and soon, it might also become a pretty dangerous one.
Given all that, we have to agree with Google here: it’s time.
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