Why did Internet Explorer become so unpopular?

mr_fegelien · 30-08-2020 03:38PM #1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m90VK3o_jjw

It was before my days but Internet Explorer was the biggest and only viable alternative (compared to Netscape) in the mid-90s. It's dominance on Windows PC's continued until the late noughties where Firefox and Chrome came on the scene.

Now a decade later, not only is internet explorer's share of the browser market actually less than other alternative browsers but it's even deemed as crap.

How did Microsoft let this happen?

stevek93 · 30-08-2020 03:41PM

They have Edge now and it’s pretty good.

Gregor Samsa · 31-08-2020 12:50PM

Despite its massive market share, IE 6 was pretty awful in terms of security and adhering to defined web standards(HTML and CSS), and Microsoft slowly lost market share to Chrome and Firefox. Microsoft were very slow in getting an update out - IE 7 didn't appear until 5 years after IE 6 - and even then it didn't really improved things. IE 6/7 were a nightmare to develop for - you had to use loads of hacks, or have a completely different style sheet for them if you were trying to build a standards compliant site. Developers didn't always get it right, and in some cases just stopped trying, which led to a poor user experience using IE at that time. IE 8 tried to fix that issue with it's "Standards Mode", but that in itself was an inelegant hack. During all of this, Google was aggressively pushing Chrome as a lean, efficient standards compliant alternative that worked extremely well with the other very popular Google tools (Search, Mail, YouTube etc), and FirexFox was pushing itself as a lean, efficient standards compliant independent alternative.

There was also the considerable negative publicity Internet Explorer got during the US Anti-trust trial against Microsoft in 2001. This resulted in MS having to allow users to uninstall IE if they wanted to (up until then, IE was an integral part of the Windows OS), and highlighted the security, performance and standards issues with IE. IE's market share was artificially high because you couldn't uninstall it from Windows, and once users were given this option, they took it.

Edge is a decent browser, and fully standards compliant - it uses the Blink engine, which is the same one that Chrome uses. But MS lost their dominance and momentum years ago, and it's hard to see them get it back.

JoyPad · 31-08-2020 01:17PM

IE has been the butt of many jokes along the years. These are the ones I remember most vividly:

1. Being called "Internet Exploder" or "Internet Exploiter", for obvious reasons.

2. Being called "the best browser for downloading a better browser", because it came pre-installed on Windows, and you could use it right away to go download Chrome or Firefox or Opera.

3. An Australian website charging an "Internet Explorer tax" to online shoppers using IE, because of extra effort spent by developers to make websites compatible with the mess that IE was at the time.

Anyone else?

stevek93 · 31-08-2020 01:24PM

We still use it as our default in work, reason being a lot of internal sites can only work in IE. They are still Active X and sliverlight dependent.

31-08-2020 01:50PM

Still used in our place with no allowance to download an alternative. Very annoying because it's also an old version and a lot of sites don't properly

People do tend to forget or too young to remember but they was s time to needed to pay for a browser. Ie was the first free one

smuggler.ie · 31-08-2020 01:59PM

despite Edge being successor, i personally dislike it, most because it is, again, preinstalled/hard to get rid off, and i hate when MS ignore user preferences(whats new!) each time they issue update, keep pushing, forcing to default, not only for browsing, but for pdf, etc.

Sound like MS just so desperately trying to step on user/% ladder they even got google involved...

CrankyHaus · 31-08-2020 02:02PM

How is Firefox rated these days? Particularly for privacy and security?

RobertFoster · 31-08-2020 02:37PM

CrankyHaus wrote: »

How is Firefox rated these days? Particularly for privacy and security?

I've switched back to Firefox after using Chrome for years.

Their current push is on privacy, with things like Enhanced Tracking Protection and containers being some of the features promoted.

With containers you can silo different websites so they're separate to other websites. So for example, you can be logged into Facebook in a specific container, but outside of this container websites with like buttons and Facebook ad trackers etc. aren't linked to your account.

ELM327 · 31-08-2020 02:59PM

My response is still loading #justIEthings

circadian · 31-08-2020 10:22PM

CrankyHaus wrote: »

How is Firefox rated these days? Particularly for privacy and security?

I'm using Firefox and Brave daily. Excellent browsers, have t touched chrome in over 10 years.

Dyr · 31-08-2020 10:26PM

CrankyHaus wrote: »

How is Firefox rated these days? Particularly for privacy and security?

Firefox is laggy crashy ****e and Mozilla are a basket case

Brave is my browser of choice these days

stevek93 · 01-09-2020 09:00AM

Bambi wrote: »

Firefox is laggy crashy ****e and Mozilla are a basket case

Brave is my browser of choice these days

Firefox always have poor speedtest results for me.

Connavar · 01-09-2020 10:19AM

Bambi wrote: »

Firefox is laggy crashy ****e and Mozilla are a basket case

Brave is my browser of choice these days

Been using Firefox as my default for years and could count the number of times it crashed on one hand.

CrankyHaus · 01-09-2020 11:01AM

Yeah, I've always been using Firefox on PC and Mac, but I wondered if I'd fallen out of touch with progress.

Firefox on mobile (Android) crashes a lot IME. I generally use DuckDuckGo Browser instead.

Johnboy1951 · 01-09-2020 01:15PM

CrankyHaus wrote: »

Yeah, I've always been using Firefox on PC and Mac, but I wondered if I'd fallen out of touch with progress.

Firefox on mobile (Android) crashes a lot IME. I generally use DuckDuckGo Browser instead.

I understood Duckduckgo was a search engine and not a browser ............. do they produce their own browser?

CrankyHaus · 02-09-2020 09:48AM

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I understood Duckduckgo was a search engine and not a browser ............. do they produce their own browser?

Yeah, on Android at least. Android Firefox kept crashing on me and I don't trust the default browsers on privacy.

Kilboor · 02-09-2020 09:50AM

I find all browsers to be ****ty in one way or another these days.

Mainly use Chrome but also have Brave installed for some reason and end up using that a lot with DuckDuckGo because it's the default search.

At work we use Chrome and IE but I also use the new Edge sometimes. Works ok.

Wanderer78 · 02-09-2020 09:52AM

Dirty tricks by monopolies, leaves a sour taste!

Ishmael · 04-09-2020 10:08AM

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

Despite its massive market share, IE 6 was pretty awful in terms of security and adhering to defined web standards(HTML and CSS), and Microsoft slowly lost market share to Chrome and Firefox. Microsoft were very slow in getting an update out - IE 7 didn't appear until 5 years after IE 6 - and even then it didn't really improved things. IE 6/7 were a nightmare to develop for - you had to use loads of hacks, or have a completely different style sheet for them if you were trying to build a standards compliant site. Developers didn't always get it right, and in some cases just stopped trying, which led to a poor user experience using IE at that time. IE 8 tried to fix that issue with it's "Standards Mode", but that in itself was an inelegant hack. During all of this, Google was aggressively pushing Chrome as a lean, efficient standards compliant alternative that worked extremely well with the other very popular Google tools (Search, Mail, YouTube etc), and FirexFox was pushing itself as a lean, efficient standards compliant independent alternative.

There was also the considerable negative publicity Internet Explorer got during the US Anti-trust trial against Microsoft in 2001. This resulted in MS having to allow users to uninstall IE if they wanted to (up until then, IE was an integral part of the Windows OS), and highlighted the security, performance and standards issues with IE. IE's market share was artificially high because you couldn't uninstall it from Windows, and once users were given this option, they took it.

Edge is a decent browser, and fully standards compliant - it uses the Blink engine, which is the same one that Chrome uses. But MS lost their dominance and momentum years ago, and it's hard to see them get it back.

Yeah, the IE6, 7 and 8 bull**** really started companies thinking about other browsers. I was working in tech support during those years and a lot of temp fixes for issues due to an IE update breaking something involved installing Firefox or Chrome to see if they would work. I recall the internal support teams for various applications regularly getting bollocked over breakages especially SAP.

I don't have much loyalty to any browser these days. I usually have a variety installed and will use whichever one gives me the least amount of grief.

Why did Internet Explorer become so unpopular?

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