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Deepak Gupta markTech Graveyard

Tech Graveyard/infrastructure

Internet Explorer (1995-2022)

IE was the browser that defined the internet for half a generation. It died as the browser-as-OS model died. ActiveX, COM, and the whole intranet stack went with it.

Born 1995 · Died 2022 · Status: dead

Certificate of Death

Name of decedent

Internet Explorer

Born
1995
Died
2022
Age
27

Cause of death

Chromium-based browsers and the death of plugin-based web extensibility

Survived by

Microsoft Edge, Chrome, Safari, Firefox

Invented by

Microsoft (originally based on Spyglass Mosaic)

Status: DeadFinal breath: 2022

Filed by D. Gupta · guptadeepak.com

The hook

Microsoft formally retired Internet Explorer on June 15, 2022. The browser that owned 95% market share in 2003 ended with a press release. The corporate intranets it powered are still in transition.

Thesis. IE did not lose because Chrome was faster. IE lost because the model it represented (browser as Windows extension) was the wrong model for the internet. The web won. The platform-as-browser strategy lost.

The story

The origin

August 1995. Microsoft shipped IE 1.0 with the Windows 95 Plus! Pack. The code was licensed from Spyglass. The first browser war started immediately, with Netscape on the other side.

The peak

2003. IE 6 held roughly 95% global browser market share. Microsoft had effectively won and stopped competing. The web standards community went around them. CSS, JavaScript, and HTML evolution slowed for years because IE 6 was the floor.

The first crack

September 2008. Chrome launched with the V8 JavaScript engine and a multi-process architecture. The performance gap became visible to ordinary users in a way no benchmark had managed to communicate before.

The security reckoning

January 2010. Operation Aurora hit Google through an IE 6 zero-day. ActiveX vulnerabilities piled up. IE 11 enterprise mode became a compliance hack to keep ancient intranet apps working. The security debt was structural, not patchable.

The death certificate

Edge replaced IE as the default browser in 2015. Microsoft moved Edge to Chromium in 2020. IE entered formal retirement on June 15, 2022. Enterprise IE Mode in Edge remains the bridge for the long tail of legacy ActiveX apps.

Key data points

  • IE 1.0 launch: August 1995
  • IE 6 peak share: roughly 95% globally in 2003
  • Chrome launch: September 2008
  • Operation Aurora attack on Google via IE: January 2010
  • Edge replaces IE as default: 2015
  • IE retirement: June 15, 2022

Contrarian angle

Most coverage frames IE as a security disaster. The harder truth is that IE 6 became a security disaster because Microsoft won the first browser war and stopped competing. The lesson is that monopoly is what is dangerous in a software category, not any specific vendor. Chrome has 65% share today; the same forces apply.

The flip side

What replaces it

The paired prediction in Future Tech.

Read the prediction

FAQ

What was ActiveX and why did it create security problems?

ActiveX let web pages run native Windows COM components with user-level permissions. It blurred the line between the web and the OS. Any drive-by site could trigger code execution if a user clicked through a dialog.

Why did Microsoft let IE stagnate for so long?

Antitrust constraints from the 2001 settlement, organizational complacency after winning, and an internal product structure where the browser team was treated as a feature of Windows rather than a standalone product.

Are there still applications that require IE compatibility mode?

Yes. Many enterprise apps written for ActiveX or legacy COM integration still run through Edge's IE Mode, which Microsoft has committed to support through at least 2029.

What is the difference between IE and Edge?

IE used the Trident rendering engine. Edge originally used EdgeHTML, then switched to Chromium's Blink in 2020. The two products share branding but no significant code.

Why was Operation Aurora a turning point?

It demonstrated that even Google, the most security-conscious large company at the time, was vulnerable through IE 6. That single incident drove a wave of enterprise IE 6 retirement plans and accelerated Chrome adoption.

More from guptadeepak.com

Want the technical deep-dive on what replaces this?

Read the companion article

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