Microsoft is finally ditching Internet Explorer and legacy Edge

With Internet Explorer having shown its age for a very long time, and with Microsoft pushing out the new Chromium-based version of Edge, it is little wonder that the company is ready to kill off its older browsers.

Microsoft has now set out its timetable for sunsetting legacy Edge in Windows 10 and the dropping of support for Internet Explorer. The changes start later this year, and in twelve months' time the process of moving on will be complete -- from Microsoft's point of view, at least.

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While there will undoubtedly be people who will try to doggedly hold on to Internet Explorer and legacy Edge, Microsoft is trying to strongly encourage people to move on. Starting November 30 this year, Microsoft Teams will no longer support IE11 and when August 17, 2021 rolls around, the company says that "the remaining Microsoft 365 apps and services will no longer support IE 11".

Microsoft explains the implications of this:

This means that after the above dates, customers will have a degraded experience or will be unable to connect to Microsoft 365 apps and services on IE 11. For degraded experiences, new Microsoft 365 features will not be available or certain features may cease to work when accessing the app or service via IE 11. While we know this change will be difficult for some customers, we believe that customers will get the most out of Microsoft 365 when using the new Microsoft Edge. We are committed to helping make this transition as smooth as possible.

In the middle of these two dates -- March 9, 2021 to be specific -- Microsoft Edge Legacy reaches end of life. This means that the desktop app will not receive new security updates, and people will be expected to use the new Microsoft Edge based on the Chromium engine.

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