Microsoft has announced it’s finally pulling the pin on Internet Explorer for Macintosh, and will remove it from download on January 31st, 2006.

In June 2003, Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit announced it would no longer develop the browser, now up to version 5.2, but would continue to support it until 2005.

Microsoft will now end support for the browser as of 31st December 2005. The Mactopia site advises Macintosh users to “migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple’s Safari”.

Many sites still require Internet Explorer to run correctly, and a recent survey in the UK suggested this is as many as one in ten sites.

According to BrowserNews, 83 per cent of all users use Internet Explorer, and says that “many use IE5” and it will “remain a factor for several years.”

It adds that only 2.5 per cent of users have Safari (with a maximum of four per cent based on the number of users with OS X).