Internet Explorer, aka the web browser that comes packaged up with Windows, and that you use exactly once to download Chrome, Firefox or literally any other web browser, is officially being retired.
The Verge report that the announcement was made at the Microsoft Convergence conference, by chief marketing officer Chris Capossela, who also spoke about the company’s plans for the future.
According to him, the upcoming Windows 10 will come with a new browser, which is still in development, and going by the code name Project Spartan for now.
The new features that this browser will offer will include the ability to take notes on and annotate web pages, and a reading mode that “strips away the clutter” of web pages to make them seem “more like books.”
The digital personal assistant Cortana, otherwise known as Microsoft’s answer to Siri, will also be supported.
Internet Explorer was launched in 1995, and hit its peak market share in the early 2000s, before Chrome officially overtook it as the world’s most used browser in 2012.
It will be included in some versions of Windows 10 to ease the transition, but from now on, Project Spartan is Microsoft’s main focus.
R.I.P. you weird, slow, clunky old thing, it was sort of nice knowing you.
