The Verge reports that Microsoft is killing its Internet Explorer brand. Don’t confuse it with the browser though.
Internet Explorer will still exist in some versions of Windows 10 mainly for enterprise compatibility, but the new Project Spartan will be named separately and will be the primary way for Windows 10 users to access the web.
There is no realistic way for Microsoft to kill the MSIE browser. Even if they will completely remove it from all the new installations, there is still a gadzillion computers with it already installed. It doesn’t matter if they “end of life” it or even actively push people to upgrade. It’ll just be dragged around for a few more years.
And what does Microsoft do to help? They introduce yet another browser – Spartan – into the mix. Like we don’t have enough good browsers already. So now web developers will be suffering the pain of not one, but two Microsoft web browsers. And the fun part will be supporting all the old ones, and figuring out all the quirks of the new one.
Thank you very much, dear Microsoft. You’re fun as always.
P.S.: A better solution would be of course to drop their own web browser completely and use one of the existing applications – Firefox, Chromium, Google Chrome, Opera, or anything else. All these options are free, well tested, solid, fast, and secure. Most even have huge communities with extension developers, theme designers, and support forums.