---
title: "Internet Explorer is dead. Now what?"
date: 2022-06-20
url: https://remiam.co.uk/notes/internet-explorer-is-dead
tags: [Browsers, Web Standards, Industry]
read_time_minutes: 5
description: "Internet Explorer is officially retired in June 2022. What polyfills, hacks, and constraints we get to delete — and what to build now that the floor is finally modern."
---

# Internet Explorer is dead. Now what?

*Published 2022-06-20 · 5 min read · by Liam (Remiam)*

After twenty-seven years, Microsoft has officially retired IE. Every web developer's worst client requirement is gone. Here's what we get to delete, and what to use the headroom on.

On June 15, Microsoft officially retired Internet Explorer. Twenty-seven years of pain ended quietly. Every web developer on Earth had the same reaction, in roughly the same order: relief, disbelief, then a long list of things we get to stop doing.

## What we get to delete

- Babel plugins targeting IE-era ECMAScript. The default target can finally be 'modern evergreen'.
- CSS prefix polyfills, autoprefixer rules tuned for IE, fallback @supports queries written for browsers nobody installs anymore.
- Conditional comments. Conditional anything.
- Flexbox bug workarounds — IE 11's flex implementation was a recurring tax.
- Grid polyfills. Most never really worked anyway.

## What we can finally rely on

- CSS Grid, custom properties, real flexbox, position: sticky.
- ES2017+ syntax in the actual shipped bundle — no transpilation tax.
- Async/await, dynamic imports, fetch — without polyfills, without checks.
- WebP, AVIF, modern image formats by default.

> It is the end of an era. The era was not a good era. We're going to be fine.

## What to use the headroom on

- Faster builds. Modern syntax is smaller, smaller is faster.
- Smaller payloads. The polyfills we shipped 'just in case' added up.
- Better animations. Browser-grade interpolation is now reliable, not a polyfill battleground.
- Container queries when they ship in stable Safari (this year, hopefully).

It is the end of an era. The era was not a good era. We're going to be fine.

## References

1. [Microsoft — Internet Explorer 11 has retired announcement (June 2022)](https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2022/06/15/internet-explorer-11-has-retired-and-is-officially-out-of-support-what-you-need-to-know/)
2. [Can I Use — current browser support tables](https://caniuse.com/)