A web developer’s ‘happiest’ announcement: Google Search is saying goodbye to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 11

By

Liam Tung

| October 4, 2021

| Topic: Developer

Developers: Here’s what they really think about the blockchain

Watch Now

Google Search, Google parent Alphabet’s biggest product, has finally dropped support for Internet Explorer 11 (IE 11), Microsoft’s legacy browser. 

Via 9to5Google, Google dropped support for IE 11 because ‘it is time’ and the browser only makes up a small share of browsers used on Google Search.  

SEE: Another reason why developers are quitting: To escape from your bad code

News of Google Search ending official support for IE 11 came from Malte Uble, a software engineer at Google, who explained Google Search now delivers IE 11 browsers a “fall back experience” that offers a pared back version of Google Search. 

“Google Search ended support for IE 11 in its main product (you can still search but will get a fallback experience). I’m mostly posting this so you can send it to your boss. We did the Math. It is time,” he wrote on Twitter. 

While Google’s original product dropping support for IE 11 is a notable event, the move isn’t surprising at all. 

Google cut support for IE 11 from Workspace/G Suite apps in March and did the same for for its video-meeting platform Meet in August. 

Moreover, Microsoft dropped support for its own legacy browser in the web versions of Microsoft 365 apps like Teams and Outlook in August. 

Microsoft still supports IE 11-dependent apps through its Chromium-based browser Edge, which it committed to in 2018 after ditching its browser engine for the Windows-only Edge for Google’s open-source project. The switch to Chromium gave Microsoft a browser with support spanning Windows 7 to Windows 10, as well as macOS and Linux. Nowadays, the new Edge allows legacy IE MHTML files opening in ‘Internet Explorer mode’.  

Related Topics:

Enterprise Software

Open Source

Mobile OS

By

Liam Tung

| October 4, 2021

| Topic: Developer