Internet Explorer Gravestone

[GeoffF100]

Internet Explorer Gravestone:

https://www.geo.tv/latest/423225-intern ... goes-viral

[pje16]

It has always been the worst browser, should have been killed off at least a decade ago
was only used by those who couldn't be bothered or didn't know how to look for something better

[AF62]

It has always been the worst browser

Back in 1995 many of us were more than happy with a free browser bundled with the operating system, rather than paying for one. They virtually had the whole market for many years and it was only 2010 when it slipped below 50% as Chrome took off.

[Infrasonic]

It has always been the worst browser, should have been killed off at least a decade ago
was only used by those who couldn't be bothered or didn't know how to look for something better

It survived mostly because there was still a need in the enterprise intranet world where things move at a glacial pace on the basis of 'if it isn't broke don't change it'...

[pje16]

It only had a life because Microsoft needed to play catchup as they had missed the boat with the internet
and gave it away for free by bundling it up with Windows
At that time Netscape (Mozilla, Firefox) had an 80% market share which was then decimated by Microsoft
You didn't have to pay for Netscape
and that was also true back in 1995

[UncleEbenezer]

It only had a life because Microsoft needed to play catchup as they had missed the boat with the internet
and gave it away for free by bundling it up with Windows
At that time Netscape (Mozilla, Firefox) had an 80% market share which was then decimated by Microsoft
You didn't have to pay for Netscape
and that was also true back in 1995

It was worse than that. Far worse

MSIE deliberately violated Internet standards. Specifically, MIME standards from 1992/93. And in a specific way that the standards warned against as a serious security risk.

Consequences of that (we can only speculate on which were intended) included:

• Innovation on the 'net was held back by the need to "work" with MSIE[1].
• Because Microsoft had a virtual monopoly of truly clueless developers, sites started to appear that relied on the violations and wouldn't display in a standards-compliant browser. So to the great mass of users, MSIE appeared the more capable browser. And other browsers were dragged into de-facto allowing the same misbehaviour, though they tried to resist by making it user-configurable and warning against it.
• The same standards violation in Outlook led directly to the first generation of email "viruses"[2], and has a lasting legacy of killing off what should be a very simple and effective way of identifying safe vs unsafe internet content.

[1] This screwed my own system - a precursor of the kind of thing that later became familiar as google office - in 1997, which relied on a standards-compliant browser to handle documents in formats it couldn't itself display but had to pass to another application.
[2] Indeed, informational sections in the 1992 and 1993 standards that warned against what MS did could be read as a how-to recipe for writers of viruses.

[XFool]

It only had a life because Microsoft needed to play catchup as they had missed the boat with the internet
and gave it away for free by bundling it up with Windows
At that time Netscape (Mozilla, Firefox) had an 80% market share which was then decimated by Microsoft
You didn't have to pay for Netscape
and that was also true back in 1995

Netscape - Yeah. It was good for a while. They just couldn't keep up with the giant, MS (which was MS's intention).

I remember when I dumped Netscape for IE. They had introduced some kind of modular approach, you could turn on or turn off various Netscape apps/modules - even the Netscape Browser interface itself.

Trouble was, the control interface was in the Netscape browser, rather than a separate control UI. So... I was tempted and succumbed: I turned off the browser module in the browser and restarted Netscape.

No browser, no Netscape user interface, no user interface no way to turn browser app back on! OK, I guess there was some INI text file somewhere to edit - I just reinstalled Netscape. Then thought "If I had been in charge this just wouldn't have been possible. Some issues just shouldn't exist" and then dumped it for Internet Explorer.

[pje16]

I remember when IE trumpetted about tabbed browsing
Something Mozilla (son of Netscape and now known as Firefox ) had had for years
Opensource moves much faster then corporate , did back then and still does now
Open a new tab in Edge and you then you have to select it (yawn)

[servodude]

It only had a life because Microsoft needed to play catchup as they had missed the boat with the internet
and gave it away for free by bundling it up with Windows
At that time Netscape (Mozilla, Firefox) had an 80% market share which was then decimated by Microsoft
You didn't have to pay for Netscape
and that was also true back in 1995

It was worse than that. Far worse

MSIE deliberately violated Internet standards. Specifically, MIME standards from 1992/93. And in a specific way that the standards warned against as a serious security risk.

Consequences of that (we can only speculate on which were intended) included:

• Innovation on the 'net was held back by the need to "work" with MSIE[1].
• Because Microsoft had a virtual monopoly of truly clueless developers, sites started to appear that relied on the violations and wouldn't display in a standards-compliant browser. So to the great mass of users, MSIE appeared the more capable browser. And other browsers were dragged into de-facto allowing the same misbehaviour, though they tried to resist by making it user-configurable and warning against it.
• The same standards violation in Outlook led directly to the first generation of email "viruses"[2], and has a lasting legacy of killing off what should be a very simple and effective way of identifying safe vs unsafe internet content.

[1] This screwed my own system - a precursor of the kind of thing that later became familiar as google office - in 1997, which relied on a standards-compliant browser to handle documents in formats it couldn't itself display but had to pass to another application.
[2] Indeed, informational sections in the 1992 and 1993 standards that warned against what MS did could be read as a how-to recipe for writers of viruses.

I remember it best as the big anti-trust case that kind of kickstarted the "taking this stuff seriously" in the domain

[servodude]

I remember when IE trumpetted about tabbed browsing
Something Mozilla (son of Netscape and now known as Firefox ) had had for years
Opensource moves much faster then corporate , did back then and still does now
Open a new tab in Edge and you then you have to select it (yawn)

Yes... and none of those had a Scott McCloud comic to launch them
https://www.scottmccloud.com/googlechrome/

Netscape wasn't originally opensource though

-sd

[pje16]

I remember when IE trumpetted about tabbed browsing
Something Mozilla (son of Netscape and now known as Firefox ) had had for years
Opensource moves much faster then corporate , did back then and still does now
Open a new tab in Edge and you then you have to select it (yawn)

Yes... and none of those had a Scott McCloud comic to launch them
https://www.scottmccloud.com/googlechrome/

Netscape wasn't originally opensource though

-sd

I know, it was Marc Andreessen's baby, but has been opensource since 1998

[AF62]

You didn't have to pay for Netscape
and that was also true back in 1995

Are you sure? https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and- ... e-streets/ indicates they were charging $50 back in 1995.

I recall it didn’t become free until 1998 and that was because they couldn’t compete with IE being a ‘no cost’ bundled option either Win95.

[Julian]

And no IE obituary would be complete without a reference to this (sorry for the poor quality, it was the best I could find without undue effort) ....



- Julian

[mc2fool]

You didn't have to pay for Netscape
and that was also true back in 1995

Are you sure? https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and- ... e-streets/ indicates they were charging $50 back in 1995.

I recall it didn’t become free until 1998 and that was because they couldn’t compete with IE being a ‘no cost’ bundled option either Win95.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape says "Netscape Navigator was not free to the general public until January 1998..."

[BobbyD]

I remember when IE trumpetted about tabbed browsing
Something Mozilla (son of Netscape and now known as Firefox ) had had for years
Opensource moves much faster then corporate , did back then and still does now
Open a new tab in Edge and you then you have to select it (yawn)

Yes... and none of those had a Scott McCloud comic to launch them
https://www.scottmccloud.com/googlechrome/

Netscape wasn't originally opensource though

-sd

Chrome hasn't featured in a Michael Lewis book yet though....

[UncleEbenezer]

You didn't have to pay for Netscape
and that was also true back in 1995

Are you sure? https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and- ... e-streets/ indicates they were charging $50 back in 1995.

I recall it didn’t become free until 1998 and that was because they couldn’t compete with IE being a ‘no cost’ bundled option either Win95.

They requested, but didn't require, payment.

Not a good business model. I gave it up in about 1997, when I found my own then-ISP was using my software without having paid. Just as I was, erm, using Netscape without ever paying.

[pje16]

From 1995 onwards I used Netscape, then Mozilla and now Firefox
never paid a penny for any of them

[Stompa]

Open a new tab in Edge and you then you have to select it (yawn)

It's already selected for me.