Microsoft 365 Apps To Eliminate Support for Internet Explorer Next Year
For many PC users, Internet Explorer has been the default web browser choice for well over a decade. Well, like with all things, every great product cycle must eventually come to an end and it seems Internet Explorer is beginning to slowly go into retirement. Microsoft recently made an announcement that it’s Microsoft 365 app suit will be ending support for Internet Explorer 11 starting Aug. 17, 2021.
For users of the Microsoft Teams collaboration and chat service, support for Internet Explorer 11 will end a little earlier on Nov. 30. All of this news came from an official blog post published to Microsoft’s website in which they also stated that support for Microsoft Edge Legacy desktop app will end on March 9, 2021.
After all of the dates we mentioned above, users of the Teams and 365 app suite platforms will be met with a decreased browser experience or will be unable to use the IE browser to connect to Microsoft 365 services completely.
What to expect
Official Microsoft representatives have stated that the move to discontinue support for the IE browser is part of the natural evolutionary process of internet browsers. Microsoft released an official statement about the announcement in which they stated: “Customers have been using IE 11 since 2013 when the online environment was much less sophisticated than the landscape today, Since then, open web standards and newer browsers like the new Microsoft Edge have enabled better, more innovative online experiences.”
The Microsoft Edge app was released about 5 years ago as an attempt to reboot the Microsoft browser experience once Internet Explorer started to lost it’s appeal. Three years after it’s release, Microsoft went on to entirely rebuild the Edge browser on Google’s Chromium so that it would meet more modern web technology standards.
Ever-Evolving Technology
With Internet Explorer being phased out, Microsoft hopes to provide a more fluid and seamless experience for both users and developers. Microsoft’s Window operating system has been in use by large corporations and regular individuals for years, with all of these improvements coming down the pipeline, let’s hope that it translates to more meaningful user experiences all around.
If you use any of the Microsoft apps or products we’ve mentioned above, make sure you change your default browser from IE to a supported browser before Mar. 9, 2021.
