Internet Explorer died officially on 12 January as Microsoft no longer provides support for the twenty-year-old web browser.
Microsoft opened a window on the worldwide web by including a browser in the Windows operating system twenty years ago. Internet Explorer (1) was created by using the source code of Spyglass Mosaic. The browser was released as an add-on for Windows 95 on 16 August 1995. It could be purchased as part of the Internet Jumpstart Kit. Initially, only six people worked on the development of Microsoft’s first programme to open web contents.

Microsoft introduced version 1.5 as part of Windows NT, and could be installed free of charge, which led to dispute. The browser did not generate revenues independently, and royalties due to Spyglass, the license holder, were not paid.
Eventually, Microsoft paid 8 million US dollars in settlement so that they did not have to create a new browser from scratch, and IE could continue to be part of Windows.
Retrospectively, the Redmond giant brought the right decision as the popularity of the browser was mainly thanks to Internet Explorer being part of an operating system used by many people. Alongside Windows, the browser was installed in computers free of charge.
While in the first year adoption rate was 10 percent, the market share of the browser accelerated to 20 percent (IE 2, Windows 95) in 1996, to 40 percent (IE 4, Windows 98) by 1998, and to 80 percent by 2000.
Thus the first browser war, unnoticed for the public, ended with Microsoft’s victory. Netscape Navigator that ruled the market in the 1990s, not only lost its market dominance but has completely disappeared from the life of internet users by today.
A new challenge was posed in 2003 when Internet Explorer had to face rapid decline. The release of smart phones and mobile browsers did not help IE out – on the contrary.
In this light, it is no wonder that Microsoft ends all support for its browser, which was widely in use in the early 2000s. Support for Internet Explorer 8, 9 , and 10 ended on 12 January.