Salary Survey Extra is a series of periodic dispatches that give added insight into the findings of our most recent Salary Survey. These posts contain previously unpublished Salary Survey data.

It’s been a while since Microsoft’s clunky, glitchy, leaden Internet Explorer was anyone’s web browser of choice. Particularly since Microsoft itself admitted defeat, kicked Explorer to the curb, and replaced it with the sleeker, faster, and generally more functional Microsoft Edge — built of high-performance parts plundered from Google’s Chromium project — beginning in 2015.

Old tech often doesn’t just vanish into the dustbin of history, however, particularly when it’s been foisted upon the masses as a package deal with Windows for what feels like eons of time (but really only amounts to a couple of decades). To make a long story short, Internet Explorer has been enjoying a prolonged retirement party for going on eight years.

Indeed, Microsoft will continue to support Internet Explorer until June 15 of this year. As the soft-rock philosopher princes of Boyz II Men once opined — in beautifully harmonized vocal synergy, of course — “It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.” Even after the emergence of Edge, Microsoft continued to package Internet Explorer with Windows 10 to maintain compatibility with older version of Windows.

(Windows 11 is reportedly 100 percent IE-free. So, you know, it’s got that going for it.)

At any rate, it will be at least another hot second until Internet Explorer actually, entirely, really for reals exits stage left. Still, it’s never too soon to start thinking about one’s epitaph, and we’re sure that more than one certified IT professional has pondered what IE’s last message to the universe should be.

We’re so sure of it, in fact, that we consulted with quite a few certified IT professionals about this very topic while conducting our 2022 Salary Survey. Yes, this is another of those articles that references a question raised in the Not So Serious part of the survey that we put at the very end (and allow survey takers to totally skip if they’re not in the mood).

What do certified IT professionals think that Microsoft should engrave on the tombstone of Internet Explorer? Here’s what we learned:

Q: Now that Internet Explorer was finally, totally and completely, (mostly) discontinued in August, what should Microsoft put on its tombstone? “Here lies Internet Explorer … “

… Do you want to make Internet Explorer your default browser? — 18.7 percent
… Please wait while page is loading. — 22.2 percent
… We buried the Bing Bar in a separate grave. — 13.7 percent
… Please use Edge to download Chrome or Firefox from now on. — 25.7 percent
… Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. — 19.7 percent

Interestingly, this is one of the more hotly contested Not So Serious questions that we’ve ever reported on. The largest single group of survey respondents would like to remember IE for what was probably its number one use. Don’t pretend that you never logged into a Windows computer for the first time and stepped on the back of poor IE to reach the cookie jar (so to speak).

There wasn’t an overwhelming consensus, however. Nearly as many of those surveyed will get misty-eyed over Internet Explorer (when they think about it at all, of course) on account of its, you know, sub-optimal velocity. The afore-referenced clunkiness of IE looms also large in the memory of many who encountered it, over the years.

And yeah, we know that every browser wants to be your one and only, but IE did always seem particularly eager to put itself forward. And the Bing Bar, it would seem, tends to be recalled about as often as Bing itself. At any rate, we’ll let Microsoft know what the most highly favored option was. If anybody happens to wander past boot hill in Redmond this summer, look for the tombstone and take a photo.

We’d love to find out how this story (finally) ends.

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