Microsoft to offer free upgrades to Windows 10 in China as it kills off Internet Explorer

Microsoft announced this week that it was discontinuing Internet Explorer, its much-maligned but widely used web browser first released in 1995.

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Microsoft chairman Bill Gates launches Internet Explorer 5.0 in Redmond, Washington, in 1999. Photo: AP

Published: 1:00pm, 18 Mar 2015Updated: 6:16am, 19 Mar 2015

Microsoft announced this week that it was discontinuing Internet Explorer, its much-maligned but widely used web browser first released in 1995.

At the Microsoft Convergence conference in Atlanta, Georgia this week, Microsoft head of marketing Chris Capossela said that the company's new browser, announced in January and codenamed Project Spartan, will not continue the Internet Explorer brand.

While Internet Explorer will be available on Windows 10 and older operating systems for compatibility purposes, Spartan will become the company's new flagship browsers and users will be encouraged to switch.

According to Quartz, Microsoft has "been working for years to salvage the Internet Explorer brand, which languished in the public eye thanks to releases like Internet Explorer 6, widely regarded as one of the worst tech products of all time".

Though the most recent release, Internet Explorer 11, has received praise from many quarters, the brand appears to be indelibly marred by past versions, with even Microsoft itself taking shots at IE6 in a recent advertising campaign. Dean Hachamovitch, longtime Internet Explorer chief, left the company in December.

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