It’s time to say goodbye to Internet Explorer: our pain, our portal, our adversary, our old friend. After 27 years, Microsoft is pulling the plug on the beleaguered browser. Goodnight, sweet prince, may your memory be a blessing. That said, if it never really worked, can it ever really retire?
Internet Explorer was born into a world where Netscape Navigator dominated — a 1990s world wide web that might as well have been called the wild wild west. Even back in the early days, columnists were disparaging the browser, pondering questions like how it had “such a large market share when it is so bad?” and comparing the browser to a “boorish neighbor who invites himself over to your house, rearranges the furniture, grabs the remote control and starts helping himself to what’s in the fridge.”
