For many, Internet Explorer has been, as its name implies, a window into the sprawling, sometimes infuriating and always fascinating world of online content. IE sprang into the world in 1997, and was for a time the world's leading browser, even on Macs. According to the site StatCounter, IE use peaked in March of 2003 with a browser share of 88 percent, meaning that nine of ten web pages were viewed through Internet Explorer. But a lot changes over time, and perhaps success can breed complacency ... the end result was that Internet Explorer became one of those things that didn't change enough to keep up.
Last month, well after Microsoft had announced its intention to put IE out to pasture with an 'End of Life' statement in 2016, UNL finally dropped the browser from its supported browsers list (link). IE has long been the one last browser that web developers had to insert 'shims' of special code to support; while some university-supported applications may continue to provide this code, the world at large has moved on. This includes Microsoft, which initially developed its own next-generation browser, Edge, using its own web engine; Edge has lately adopted the Chromium engine.
IE's fortunes at UNL, and globally, have been on a long-term downtrend. Our continuous Google Analytics data reach back to 2008 ... at that time, IE was the dominant browser at UNL. In the spring semester of 2020, though, only 3 percent of UNL web pages were viewed through IE.
Current IE users are advised to choose a new browser; Chrome, Firefox and Safari are all good alternatives.