Project Spartan announcement. Source: Microsoft.

Microsoft this week officially announced that Windows 10 will not come with the standard web browser of Internet Explorer.

They have decided to launch a completely different browser, which is totally new and not linked to Internet Explorer. They are planning to include new features, including saving sites for offline reading, allowing you to write on web pages from your touch screen and making sites more readable.

It is currently codenamed Project Spartan. Microsoft’s marketing chief Chris Capossela revealed that they are now working on the branding behind the browser. The reason behind the rebrand is that Internet Explorer has become synonymous with security problems as it was historically directly developed with Microsoft operating systems and gave malicious hackers an easier entry point into people’s computers in comparison to independent browsers.

“We’re now researching what the new brand, or the new name, for our browser should be in Windows 10. We’ll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we’ll also have a new browser called Project Spartan, which is codenamed Project Spartan. We have to name the thing.”

Microsoft has tried re-brand the negative image of Internet Explorer for years and even used a series of amusing campaigns mocking Internet Explorer 6. Unfortunately the ads didn’t help and their former Internet Explorer chief left the company in December indicating the end of IE.

Microsoft will continue to bundle Internet Explorer with future PC’s to ensure legacy products can still be used by companies that require them.

IE has already pretty much faded away with Firefox & Google Chrome having the market share of PC browsers and now with Windows 10, Spartan will be the primary method of accessing the Web.

Statcounter have tracked the average browser usage and found Internet Explorers market share has sank lower than 20% in recent months.