Bots vs Browsers - Public Bot / User Agent Database & Commentary

Bots vs Browsers - database of 16,250,597 user agents and growing


MAY 19

2021

Goodbye Internet Explorer



For more than 25 years Internet Explorer has helped web users view the web at large, and now Microsoft has announced that they are finally ending support for the legacy browser. At several points in IE's lifespan it carried the distinguished title as the world's most prominently used web browser. IE competed head-to-head with other notable browsers included Netscape, Firefox, and eventually Google Chrome before Microsoft signalled with the 2015 launch of Windows 10 that it would eventually sunset Internet Explorer.

Microsoft's Edge browser is the heir apparent for Windows users to continue on with, as Microsoft has used Edge in recent years to help phase out Internet Explorer by promoting Edge usage with Windows users over Internet Explorer.

Edge is marketted as a more secure and modern browser than IE and could be considered a direct competitor to Google's Chrome web browser, as well as Firefox. Microsoft Edge also offers "IE Mode", which allows users to access legacy Internet Explorer based websites with a similar experience to what was available in IE. This feature is likely the reason Microsoft was finally able to say goodbye to IE by providing an alternative for legacy users and not risk impacting user experience.

Internet Explorer will officially be out-of-support on June 15, 2022. You can read more about the announcement here on the Microsoft blog.

In the 15 years that Bots vs Browsers has been studying user agents, we've cataloged nearly 1 million variations of Internet Explorer in the wild. IE was one of the few browsing options available back in 2006 when we got started, and was a big part of our journey in the early days - RIP MSIE!

Blog Archives:












APR 18

2009

Where did Palm go?







JUL 13

2008

2,000 bots!





JUN 19

2008

And we're back...


JAN 21

2008

Happy 2nd Birthday!


OCT 25

2007

The Creature Post



JUL 22

2007

Hot Summer Bots




JUN 13

2007

Twiceler Strikes!


JUN 3

2007

Land of 1,000 bots




MAR 24

2007

March Bot Madness


MAR 10

2007

Got Spiders?




FEB 3

2007

February Stars


JAN 12

2007

Happy 1st Birthday!




DEC 12

2006

50,000 User Agents!



OCT 17

2006

2 weeks, 30 bots


OCT 2

2006

4 weeks, 23 bots



AUG 26

2006

500 bots!


AUG 20

2006

5 days, 8 bots











MAY 2

2006

A few new bots









JAN 12

2006

Day One


USER AGENT CATEGORIES

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SPAM / HACKS
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