Headline, June 30 2022/ ''' '' BYE -INTERNET EXPLORER- BYE '' '''

''' '' BYE -INTERNET

 EXPLORER- BYE '' '''

SURFING OUT ON A WAVE OF NOSTALGIA. INTERNET EXPLORER browser is recalled with fondness as Microsoft pulls the plug.

IT WAS August. 16, 1995. ''Waterfalls'' by TLC was the No. 1 song in the United States. Bill Clinton was in the White House. And Microsoft introduced a new way to surf the web : Internet Explorer.

It was buggy and slow, many said. But it was always there. Until it wasn't.

On June 15, the web browser, loved and loathed by a generation, was officially retired, swept into the dustbin of Internet history.

The occasion stirred surprisingly strong feelings of Nostalgia fir the 1990s and early 2000s, an era when many first came to know the online world through stuttering dial-up connections, chat rooms and long gone social media sites like, Friendster.

Now that Internet Explorer is no more, many pined for a time when the little blue icon with the lowercase ''e'' was their escape route out of childhood bedrooms, college dorm rooms and office cubicles.

''Even though I don't use it anymore, I'm still going to miss the idea of it,'' said Brett Babino, 27, an Amazon worker from Port Arthur, Texas, who was 11 when he started using the Internet Explorer to do schoolwork and play online games like Club Penguin.

''It was slow,'' Mr. Babino said, ''but it got me through a lot of things.''

He was among many who were greeting the passing of Internet Explorer by fondly recalling how essential it once was, despite its many faults.

Memes and jokes featuring tombstones and grim reapers abounded.

''Today marks the official end of Microsoft's support for Internet Explorer,'' Marques Brownlee, a web video producer, wrote on Twitter. ''RIP to the hashtag ! Chrome Installer of all time.''

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab offered its condolences.

''Rest in peace, Internet Explorer,'' it wrote on Twitter. ''You'll be missed. We feel old.''

Michael L. Nelson, a computer science professor at Old Dominion University in Virginia, said that Microsoft's decision to shut down Internet Explorer and move users to its newer browser, Edge, ''marks the end of an era.''

Internet Explorer's inclusion in the ubiquitous Windows operating system and the requirements that it be used on certain government websites made the browser an inescapable part of the daily life for millions, he said.

It also hastened the demise of Netscape Navigator, the world's first commercial web browser.

''Internet Explorer was certainly not the first browser, but its inclusion in Windows back in the mid-1990s really helped bring the web to a very large user base,'' and made the Internet more widely accessible, Professor Nelson said.

''Even so, he said, '' It was never a great browser.

''If you wanted to do high-performance stuff or you were on the cutting edge, anything from Microsoft was like driving around in your mom's Toyota Camry,'' Professor Nelson said.

''It did the job but nobody got excited about a really low-performance, unlovable browser.''

In a blog post about the retirement of the browser, Sean Lyndersay, general manager of Microsoft Edge Enterprise, said that, despite its remarkable role in the evolution of the web, ''Internet Explorer's reputation is, deservedly, one of a product from an older era - quirky in behaviour and lacking the security of a modern browser.''

In the 1990s, Microsoft was forced to defend Internet Explorer in a major antitrust case brought by the Justice Department.

IN 2001, the department announced that it would no longer seek to split the company in two or contend that Microsoft had illegally tied Internet Explorer to its Windows operating system.

In the years since, many Internet Explorer users switched to Google Chrome, Firefox or Safari, finding them faster, safer and less likely to crash.

When Mr. Babino downloaded Chrome in 2015, he said, he found that it offered more features and extensions and that it was ''more aesthetically pleasing.''

He never clicked on Internet Explorer again. ''It just faded out,'' he said.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Operational Research on Technology, Times and Advances, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Michael Levenson.

With respectful dedication To Bill Gates, and then Microsoft, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society - for every subject in the world : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

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