Internet Explorer 1 (Dinosaur Sightings: A visual history of Internet Explorer from 1 to 7)

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My opinions

Ah yes, IE. A browser that continued to worsen over time, until IE7 finally reversed the trend.

I've actually got less buttons in Firefox than the original IE. Interesting. The text resizing and clipboard buttons eventually migrated to the menu and to keystrokes.

Actually, the worsening of the browser came when Microsoft decided to "integrate" IE with windows, with zero benefits to the consumer (I STILL have yet to see a single benefit of this integration). Basically, it was a move to get rid of Netscape, and unfortunately succeeded for a while - until Netscape launched Mozilla, which later became Firefox.

Integration came with a horrible side effect that overshadowed the nonexistent "benefits" it had: If IE crashed, so did your OS. If IE had a security hole, your OS had it as well. This integration stuff was the absolute worst thing Microsoft could've done.

Another step backwards were the addition of ActiveX and scripting abilities - which only virus writers really used very much. Consumers never really used these "technologies." Maybe a few techies also used them, but it was never a seriously used technology.

Ah yes, that channel bar - the first thing I always turned off.

CSS support was actually decent in the earlier versions of IE - but eventually it fell down on the priority list, and after the browser war with Netscape ended, CSS support quickly became old and outdated, with CSS2 support being quite terrible.

And then, IE6. Not only did it inherit all of the problems from previous versions, it became very, very stale.

IE6 proved that Microsoft isn't interested in their browser unless it had serious competition. It wasn't until Firefox started taking an ever-increasing share that they started paying attention to their browser again.

Without competition, IE6 essentially stopped development except occasional security patches, and fell behind in technology. Firefox and other browsers lept ahead in technology, and IE still has some catching up to do.

Luckily, IE7 reversed that trend. Microsoft finally realized that integration did a lot more harm than good, and started to reverse their direction in that area. In addition, they started paying serious attention to CSS2 and web standards support.

One can only hope Microsoft continues on the path they made with IE7. It was a very welcome change from their previous practices.

Posted by: CobraA1   Posted on: 04/28/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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