Microsoft have recently announced that with the advent of Windows 10, they are going to kill off Internet Explorer. This development cannot come soon enough for many of those who are disillusioned with the browser – some to the extent of having created a petition to get rid of it! The petition reads as follows:

“Please discontinue your Internet Explorer product.

It is a bad product. It’s bad for the internet as a whole. It is bad for your customers that use it. There is no upside for its continued existence. I don’t believe your company has the competence to make a standards-compliant web browser. Do the entire world a favor, and save yourself some money at the same time…

Please discontinue Internet Explorer.

There are so many great web browsers out there. Yours is not one of them. Discontinuing Internet Explorer, and forcing Windows users to download one of those many great standards-compliant browsers, will be like taking the handcuffs off the internet. Or like cutting the chain to the internet’s anchor.

Let the internet be free, let it grow and expand. Let it invent new technologies, and use those technologies to the fullest. This can not happen while Internet Explorer exists.

Please discontinue Internet Explorer.

The world will thank you.”

Harsh words indeed! So, what exactly are the issues with Internet Explorer? The main criticism has been to do with speed, particularly when running on a network. This is exacerbated further if you have an older version of Internet Explorer or do not have all the latest updates. Like any other Microsoft product, Internet Explorer needs a cleanup from time to time and it can make a difference if you take the time to delete the entire browsing history along with all the temporary internet and cache files.

Some users find that Internet Explorer does not display web pages properly and often they simply have to use another browser instead. Others have had problems downloading software updates: if it worked at all it was often considerably slower than an iPhone.

There have also been reported security issues with Internet Explorer, leaving users vulnerable to viruses on their machines. For example, last July it came to light that older versions of Internet Explorer were allowing hackers to execute code on an affected machine remotely if users visited a malicious site. Whilst users of Internet Explorer 10 and 11 were relatively safe thanks to the enhanced Protected Mode these browsers offer, older versions do not offer this feature.

So, what will replace Internet Explorer? Microsoft are to launch a new Internet surfing software called Spartan. As well as being a modern browser for general use, it is also going to delight developers in that it will enable them to make extensions similar to those used with Google Chrome, giving more flexibility with minimal effort.

We will focus on Spartan in a future blog. For now, rest assured that the days of internet marketing ideas being ruined by outdated browsers finally seems to be numbered!