Remembering Microsoft Internet Explorer (1995–2021)

Last month, Microsoft announced that it would no longer support the Internet Explorer browser beginning in 2021. Once the dominant way to access the web, IE has been a vital part of the Information Age, and has seen a dramatic rise and fall in popularity.

Editor’s note: Random-Access Memories is a periodic series highlighting the ways in which major historical events have influenced and can be explored through ed tech. Got an idea for a future edition of R-AM? Drop us a line.

If your first experience browsing the internet occurred between 1995 and 2005, it’s likely that you used Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser to access the burgeoning corners of the now-ubiquitous web. Starting next year, however, even IE diehards will have to move to a new browser.