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Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 at the height of cynicism

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Re: Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 at the height of cynicism

#11

Post by boucher »

axod wrote: post #9
mattmaroon wrote: post #5

"First, my memory isn’t so short as to have forgotten that it was Microsoft and their browser (Internet Explorer 6) that held back the web for so many years." That's bullshit. IE6 may have sucked, but it didn't hold anything back. As Firefox proved, anyone could have come along and built a better browser and started sucking up enough market share to make it an industry again.

And so comes the totally unbiased voice of an ms fanboy ;) Seriously. They employed anti competitive practices to grab market share from Netscape. Once they had completely obliterated Netscape, they decided to not update IE6 and leave users suffering. It's like their aim with IE6 was to kill off the web. Or at least make it suck so much that webapps would be delayed for 10 years - which they pretty much achieved. Obv…

I dislike IE6 as much as the next guy (more probably), but people should stop harping on Microsoft like this.

IE6 created the first version of AJAX. It had browser based drawing primitives ages before anyone else. It turns out that IE filters were capable of CSS transforms all this time and nobody even realized it. IE6 was innovative when it was released, at a time when the competition was simply inferior.

It's unfortunate that it took Microsoft so long to release IE7, and it certainly has caused significant pain, but realize that it's not as black and white as people make it out to be.

Re: Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 at the height of cynicism

#12

Post by paulgb »

jackmoore wrote: post #7
timdorr wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to be be fairer, they're not encouraging others to go out and built IE-only sites. They've just designed this site (presumable through a simple JS browser check or UA check on the server side) to only allow entry via IE8. But still, kind of a dick move. The whole "get lost" message isn't really a good marketing move either.

How can they call FireFox 'old'? IE8 may be the best IE, but it's still a year or more behind the other browsers, and FF is very actively being developed. 3.5RC1 just came out in the past 24 hours.

I wonder if they are checking the firefox version number. For me on Firefox 3.0, it just says "you'll never find it with that browser".

Re: Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 at the height of cynicism

#13

Post by rbanffy »

axod wrote: post #9
mattmaroon wrote: post #5

"First, my memory isn’t so short as to have forgotten that it was Microsoft and their browser (Internet Explorer 6) that held back the web for so many years." That's bullshit. IE6 may have sucked, but it didn't hold anything back. As Firefox proved, anyone could have come along and built a better browser and started sucking up enough market share to make it an industry again.

And so comes the totally unbiased voice of an ms fanboy ;) Seriously. They employed anti competitive practices to grab market share from Netscape. Once they had completely obliterated Netscape, they decided to not update IE6 and leave users suffering. It's like their aim with IE6 was to kill off the web. Or at least make it suck so much that webapps would be delayed for 10 years - which they pretty much achieved. Obv…

Their goal with IE _was_ to sabotage any serious effort into turning the web (as a OS-neutral entity defined by w3c standards) into an application-delivery platform. That's why they spent so much effort into obliterating Netscape, into fragmenting Java on the desktop and into preventing OEMs from installing any other browser on their hardware.

And they sort of succeeded. And that's why they have so much trouble on Europe.

Re: Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 at the height of cynicism

#14

Post by rbanffy »

mattmaroon wrote: post #5

"First, my memory isn’t so short as to have forgotten that it was Microsoft and their browser (Internet Explorer 6) that held back the web for so many years." That's bullshit. IE6 may have sucked, but it didn't hold anything back. As Firefox proved, anyone could have come along and built a better browser and started sucking up enough market share to make it an industry again.

I agree. It was not IE6 that held us back. It was Microsoft's anti-competitive behaviour and OEM ties that precluded OEMs from installing anything but Microsoft browsers. IE was only a part in this grand strategy.

Their grip was so strong they rescued Apple and made it bundle IE in MacOS.

Re: Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 at the height of cynicism

#15

Post by [deleted] »

jackmoore wrote: post #6
mattmaroon wrote: post #5

"First, my memory isn’t so short as to have forgotten that it was Microsoft and their browser (Internet Explorer 6) that held back the web for so many years." That's bullshit. IE6 may have sucked, but it didn't hold anything back. As Firefox proved, anyone could have come along and built a better browser and started sucking up enough market share to make it an industry again.

What are you talking about? They couldn't be bothered to update IE6 for years, and it still holds people back every day. How much time is wasted trying to get things to work in IE6? It's a ball an chain that web developers drag around and it slows progress by wasting their time and limiting their applications. Only recently have some websites been dropping support for IE6.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 at the height of cynicism

#16

Post by mattmaroon »

axod wrote: post #9
mattmaroon wrote: post #5

"First, my memory isn’t so short as to have forgotten that it was Microsoft and their browser (Internet Explorer 6) that held back the web for so many years." That's bullshit. IE6 may have sucked, but it didn't hold anything back. As Firefox proved, anyone could have come along and built a better browser and started sucking up enough market share to make it an industry again.

And so comes the totally unbiased voice of an ms fanboy ;) Seriously. They employed anti competitive practices to grab market share from Netscape. Once they had completely obliterated Netscape, they decided to not update IE6 and leave users suffering. It's like their aim with IE6 was to kill off the web. Or at least make it suck so much that webapps would be delayed for 10 years - which they pretty much achieved. Obv…

I haven't used any version of IE (other than for testing, or where sites require it) since the first time I tried out Firefox, which I think was called Phoenix back when I started. But the issue I have with that logic is that nothing ever changed with their so-called "anti-competitive practices", and yet the browser market did drastically when Firefox started picking up steam. IE kept on being bundled with every Windows install. The market worked itself out.

If IE6 were holding it back for so long, why did it miraculously stop, even though nothing changed? The answer, of course, is that it wasn't IE6. It was the lack of a business model, which was inadvertently solved by Google.

Saying IE6 held the browser market back is like saying Yahoo held the search market back by giving it away for free. Just like Yahoo, Microsoft is now feeling the pain of failure to innovate.

Of course, everyone here hates IE6 (understandably) and Microsoft so I'll get downmodded a lot.

Re: Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 at the height of cynicism

#17

Post by axod »

mattmaroon wrote: post #16
axod wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so comes the totally unbiased voice of an ms fanboy ;) Seriously. They employed anti competitive practices to grab market share from Netscape. Once they had completely obliterated Netscape, they decided to not update IE6 and leave users suffering. It's like their aim with IE6 was to kill off the web. Or at least make it suck so much that webapps would be delayed for 10 years - which they pretty much achieved. Obv…

I haven't used any version of IE (other than for testing, or where sites require it) since the first time I tried out Firefox, which I think was called Phoenix back when I started. But the issue I have with that logic is that nothing ever changed with their so-called "anti-competitive practices", and yet the browser market did drastically when Firefox started picking up steam. IE kept on being bundled with every Wind…

  >> If IE6 were holding it back for so long, why did it
  >> miraculously stop, even though nothing changed? The
  >> answer, of course, is that it wasn't IE6. It was the lack
  >> of a business model, which was inadvertently solved by
  >> Google.
I think one reason was that Netscape had got so big and unwieldy that users didn't see a compelling case to switch from IE once MS forced them into using it. Firefox changed all that with innovative features, and a quick easy browsing experience - credit where credit's due.

I don't think the business model really matters TBH. Firefox would have happened without google.

Maybe you have a point though, maybe people could have tried harder, and "Done a firefox" earlier, and still been able to gain market share. I don't know when all the legal stuff against Microsofts anti-competitive business practices started to get stamped out, but it seemed to be around the same time of phoenix/firefox.

Re: Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 at the height of cynicism

#19

Post by mattmaroon »

axod wrote: post #17
mattmaroon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't used any version of IE (other than for testing, or where sites require it) since the first time I tried out Firefox, which I think was called Phoenix back when I started. But the issue I have with that logic is that nothing ever changed with their so-called "anti-competitive practices", and yet the browser market did drastically when Firefox started picking up steam. IE kept on being bundled with every Wind…

>> If IE6 were holding it back for so long, why did it >> miraculously stop, even though nothing changed? The >> answer, of course, is that it wasn't IE6. It was the lack >> of a business model, which was inadvertently solved by >> Google. I think one reason was that Netscape had got so big and unwieldy that users didn't see a compelling case to switch from IE once MS forced them into using it. Firefox changed all th…

It is important to note that IE6 didn't suck at first relative to its competition. It just didn't improve while the rest of the web did at the speed of light. I know it's hard to remember that when you're trying to find workarounds for lack of png transparency or figure out why your divs aren't where they should be.

Firefox clearly started happening before they found such a great way to monetize, but I have a hard time believing it would be what it is today with tens of millions of dollars less coming in. Now there's so much money in it that there are multiple decent competitors to IE.

All of Microsoft's settlements seem to have had no impact on their browser strategy really. Every copy of Windows still has IE on it, just like it did before, and requires a download of Firefox or any other competitor. I don't think their "anti-competitive practices" or the cessation thereof have made any difference at all. Hence my original post.

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