Johannesburg - Global software giant Microsoft plans to discontinue support for older versions of its Internet Explorer browsers on Tuesday January 12.
The company said that it would only provide support and security updates for Internet Explorer 11, which offers improved security and better performance.
This means that users who have the older browsers installed will still be able to use them, but that Microsoft will stop updating them with bug fixes and security upgrades. Users of older Internet Explorer browsers will also be prompted to install the latest versions of Microsoft browsers from next week.
The move is expected to make life easier for web developers who currently have to ensure their websites comply with varying standards of older Internet Explorer browsers.
These older versions of the Internet Explorer browsers don’t conform to more modern styling techniques, which can make web developers’ work more time-consuming in terms of catering for these browsers.
“Beginning January 12, 2016, only the most current version of Internet Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive technical supports and security updates,” said Microsoft on its website.
“Internet Explorer 11 is the last version of Internet Explorer, and will continue to receive security updates, compatibility fixes, and technical support on Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10,” said the company.
Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10 were each respectively released in 2009, 2011 and 2012.
Internet Explorer 11 was released in 2013, but the company unveiled a new web browser in 2015 dubbed Microsoft Edge, which is said to comply with all web standards.
The browser wars over the last few years have resulted in Internet Explorer losing market share.
According to W3Counter.com, Google Chrome had a 44.4% share of the global web browser market in December 2015. The same statistics for December 2015 reveal that Apple’s Safari stood at 19.1%, Internet Explorer at 12.5%, Mozilla Firefox at 10.8% and Opera at 3.1%.
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