The idea of the removal of Internet Explorer (IE) from Windows was proposed during the United States v. Microsoft Corp. case.
The process of removing Internet Explorer from a personal computer has changed over the browser's version history, but the nature of many of its upgrades and installation methods has been a matter of public interest.
[7] The main reason for keeping Internet Explorer in Windows 10 is to run websites based on legacy HTML technologies which are not or improperly supported in Microsoft Edge.
Visual references of the browser were originally designated to be removed on Windows 10 on June 13, 2023,[10] however on May 19, 2023, Microsoft withdrew the change due to objection by organizations.
[10] Since mid-2023, around a year after IE was retired, the MSN website has removed all compatibility with Internet Explorer, resulting in a fallback experience on IE11.
Starting with Windows 2000, it is possible to disable Internet Explorer: The user can no longer launch it but its web browser engine remains operational for applications that use it.
While it is possible to delete the application itself without problem, Safari is in fact merely a front-end for Apple's open source WebKit framework, which is heavily integrated into the operating system and cannot be removed.
[citation needed] In contrast, some programmers and security writers have held that it is possible to have a useful and working Windows system with IE excised.
Australian computer scientist Shane Brooks demonstrated that Windows 98 could in fact run with Internet Explorer removed.
Another programmer named Bruce Jensen published a similar utility called "Revenge of Mozilla", which was freeware and removed many other Windows 98 components identified as "bloatware" or as being of questionable value.
A method developed by Fred Vorck manually alters the setup scripts for Windows 2000 to prevent the installation of IE.