Microsoft Internet Explorer Is Dead as Windows 10 Makes Way for Project Spartan

New browser Project Spartan will be the star of Windows 10.

ByABC News
March 17, 2015, 2:04 PM
A close up photo of an Internet Explorer page, taken April 13, 2001.
A close up photo of an Internet Explorer page, taken April 13, 2001.
Fairfax Media/Getty Images

— -- The Internet Explorer brand is dead as we know it.

The ubiquitous browser, which made its debut two decades ago, has been officially put out to pasture to make way for its younger, sexier relative, Project Spartan, which is set to become the star of Windows 10.

"We’re now researching what the new brand, or the new name, for our browser should be in Windows 10. We’ll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we will also have a new browser called Project Spartan, which is code-named Project Spartan," Chris Capossela said at Microsoft's Convergence event Monday night. "We have to name the thing."

Internet Explorer will exist on some versions of Windows 10 but solely for compatibility purposes, according to The Verge.

Taking the place of Internet Explorer, which has a long-established love-hate relationship with office workers around the world, will be a faster browser with a streamlined user experience to compete with Chrome, Firefox and others.

PHOTO: This screen shot provided by Microsoft Corp. shows Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9
This screen shot provided by Microsoft Corp. shows Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9, Sept. 15, 2010.

Internet Explorer came a long way from its infancy, when it rendered basic HTML and grew into adolescence each year with a progressively better interface and user experience.

After Internet Explorer 6 was released in 2001, the browser hit its first real speed bump in its digital life.

An alert from the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team warned users in 2004 that holes in Internet Explorer could lead to their passwords and other personal information falling into the hands of hackers.

Microsoft rolled out a fix, however, security issues continued to snowball, leading to Internet Explorer having a severe image problem.

Five years after Internet Explorer 6, Microsoft released a series of updates to the browser, however it was never quite able to recover from its battle scars.

With one last-ditch attempt to put the long-suffering Internet Explorer out of its misery, Microsoft rolled out a clever new campaign to breathe life back into the brand for the Internet Explorer 10 release.

The joke: We've moved on from being the "browser you loved to hate."

"Project Spartan is Microsoft’s next generation browser, built just for Windows 10," Microsoft said in a statement to ABC News. "We will continue to make Internet Explorer available with Windows 10 for enterprises and other customers who require legacy browser support."

While critics heralded the updated browser for Windows 8 as a step in the right direction, it seems luck has finally run out for Microsoft's browser of the past two decades.

Whatever Microsoft decides to name Project Spartan, one thing is clear: It's the fresh start Microsoft has been looking for.