Microsoft Is Finally Killing Off Internet Explorer, Because Who Besides Your Grandparents Uses It Anyway?

“No Grandpa, the Internet isn’t getting deleted. No, ‘Internet Explorer’ isn’t the actual Internet, it’s just a browser. You know what? Don’t worry about it, just click the little orange fox icon in the corner of the screen to get to the Internet now instead.”

That’s the conversation we’re all going to get sucked into having with the elderly people in our families once Internet Explorer is finally discontinued, since the only demographic that currently uses the browser is over the age of 60 and still hordes canned food because they grew up during the depression. I mean honestly, do you use Internet Explorer? Because if the answer is “Yes” then you need to re-evaluate your life choices because it probably means that you also have an AOL email address and have to plug your computer into a headphone jack for your dialup to work.

According to The Verge,

While Microsoft has dropped hints that the Internet Explorer brand is going away, the software maker has now confirmed that it will use a new name for its upcoming browser successor, codenamed Project Spartan.

Speaking at Microsoft Convergence yesterday, Microsoft’s marketing chief Chris Capossela revealed that the company is currently working on a new name and brand. “We’re now researching what the new brand, or the new name, for our browser should be in Windows 10,” said Capossela.

“We’ll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we’ll also have a new browser called Project Spartan, which is codenamed Project Spartan. We have to name the thing.”

Internet Explorer will still be lurking around in some versions of Windows 10, but Microsoft’s main goal will be for Project Spartan to become users’ main way of accessing the web. While I haven’t used IE in years, it makes me sad to know that a new generation will grow up not understanding the beauty in these gifs, or the struggle of trying to install literally any plug-in and having IE take a step back and be like “Haha what’s a plug-in?”


[H/T The Verge]