Forum Thread: Microsoft Is Ready to Kill Internet Explorer

The last time I used Internet Explorer was when I was in a middle school computer lab class and I didn't know any better in my prepubescent state.

The only reason it's "the most popular" is because more people use Windows over Mac, it comes stock on Windows, and the average user doesn't know any better.

I think re-branding is a great idea. At least in the tech world, "IE" is synonymous with "insecure, and buggy". And I actually love the name Spartan. It continues the theme of capitalizing Halo/Xbox's popularity they started with Cortana. It's true that IE11 is actually pretty solid from a standards compliance standpoint, and even faster than chrome in some areas, but it does still support legacy IE-only stuff, allowing dinosaurs in the enterprise business space to keep using their ancient legacy IE-only sites. So, I think this seems like the best way to stop allowing old enterprise legacy support from holding the rest of the web back.

"even faster than chrome in some areas"

As a Chrome die-hard, I'm about ready to concede this point. The amount of resources used by Chrome is—gulp—significantly higher than that of IE or Firefox.

What about all your Google accounts being neatly tied together in Chrome though? Or is that not an issue?

That's a great point. I can log into any computer with my Google account and have my bookmarks and extensions added in seconds. Spartan is a great name, but hopefully Microsoft can help it become more than just a cool sounding browser.

THIS is a huge issue for me, actually. I guess I got so used to it that it slipped my mind, but account syncing on Chrome is something I'd severely miss.

That, and multiple user accounts.

I'll agree with the re-branding point considering that Internet Explorer, for me, is still synonymous with middle school.

And yeah, Spartan does sound badass.

I think this is the best thing they can do. With the new generation of internet users being told time and time again that IE is only for grandpas, it is right time to try something new. Using a name like Spartan could definitely add a new "cool/hip" factor to the Microsoft image that it has been losing ever since Apple has gained popularity.

I know that when I see a family member get a new computer the first thing I tell them is to ditch IE for Chrome or FireFox because if they were to adopt either of those two platforms I would get a lot less phone calls about how their internet is broken.

"Spartan" definitely sounds like a smart move for Microsoft, and can't wait to try out the annotations for webpages feature. What I'd really like to see is Spartan for Mac, iOS, and Android. Part of what makes Chrome so good is that you can use it on any platform. Not sure that is likely, since they haven't done anything to IE for Mac in over 10 years.

With the news that Cortana may be coming to Android and iOS, it's certainly within the realm of possibility that Spartan will as well.

Yeah, that's certainly hope for Android and iOS, though by the time those are released, it'll have been over a year since Cortana had been released on Windows Phone. Hopefully they'll have Spartan ready by then too, but if not, it could be awhile following that trend. And Mac will most likely be low priority, I'm guessing. Hopefully I'm wrong.