The sun is setting on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser.  Starting today, Microsoft will stop supporting Internet Explorer versions 7, 8, 9 and 10 on most operating systems.  The Redmond, WA based company has been distancing itself from IE since it launched their Edge browser with the release of Windows 10 last summer.  Internet Explorer dominated the web browser market in the 2000’s mostly due to the fact that it pre-installed with Windows.  IE has been notorious for security vulnerabilities that Microsoft has sometimes been slow to patch.  This, in part, has led to the rise of Google’s Chrome and Mozilla Firefox which now hold approximately 65% and 20% of the web browser market respectively.  IE is a distant third with about 7%.

As of today, Microsoft has stated that they will support only the latest version of IE that an operating system can run.  Users of Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 will have to upgrade to IE 11, as they’ll no longer get support for IE 8, 9, or 10.  Microsoft will not create new security patches for the older versions, leaving anyone who doesn’t upgrade vulnerable to new hacks or attacks.  This could be a huge hassle for organizations that use custom-built applications that run correctly only on older versions of Internet Explorer.

We strongly recommend switching to another browser if you’re still using Internet Explorer.  Here are links to the top 2 web browsers for PC:

Google Chrome – https://www.google.com/chrome/
Mozilla Firefox – https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/desktop/

As a side note, Microsoft is also discontinuing support for Windows 8.0 today.  Anybody who was previously running Windows 8.0 should have automatically been upgraded to Windows 8.1 by now.  If you had automatic updates turned off, we recommend turning them back on and download the 8.1 upgrade from the online Windows Store.