Microsoft: Stop using Internet Explorer as if it were a browser
Microsoft warns users that continuing to use Internet Explorer as their primary browser is a considerable risk. The old browser is no longer up to date and must be considered a compatibility tool.
What for many years has been synonymous with Internet access for many people is now little more than an abandoned wreck, a legacy of past times that has no place in modernity. Internet Explorer has long exhausted its function, having been largely overcome and replaced by the competition, and now Microsoft warns: stop using Internet Explorer to browse the Internet, because it is not a browser.
What might seem to be a sensible statement hides a good logic. Internet Explorer has been replaced by other browsers for some time, but there are still some applications that require IE to be used for compatibility: it was not unusual for web-accessible applications to be developed using technologies compatible only with Internet Explorer, making it essential use in order to have access to these applications (sometimes of vital importance for the activity). The reason why it is still included in Windows is exclusively for backward compatibility issues, a bit like the 32-bit layer in a 64-bit.
Microsoft itself acknowledges that using Internet Explorer for browsing the Internet, instead of using it only to access specific applications, is not recommended. Internet Explorer is not (anymore) designed to be used for everyday browsing: it offers neither compatibility with the latest technologies nor the necessary security updates that allow you to surf in peace. It is a ” compatibility tool “, using the words of Microsoft itself. And as such it cannot be used as a browser.
A curious fact is that – paraphrasing a popular saying – one monopoly died, another is done. Internet Explorer was replaced by Chrome in being a monopolist in the browser market. With Firefox remaining the last browser not to use technologies based on Chrome, after the abandonment of Edge (which will still be available, although based on Chromium), the future of the browser market appears today if more bleak than in the times of the Internet Explorer 6, at least in terms of variety and competition.
