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The author says "Microsoft had a browser that sucked (IE6)." This is not true. Microsoft had the best browser -- fastest, most stable, and friendliest for dev

The author says "Microsoft had a browser that sucked (IE6)." This is not true. Microsoft had the best browser -- fastest, most stable, and friendliest for development. They created many of the standards we now take for granted. IE was literally the Chrome of the day -- the best browser installed by default on the biggest operating system.

bryanlarsen 8y ago
You're both right. At the beginning of it's reign in 2001 IE6 was way better than alternatives. In 2011 IE6 still had a 5% market share and was the bane of every developer's existence.
joel_ms 8y ago
Then they decided to stop improving IE6 (outside security updates) because they (correctly) realized that the web was a threat to the company. IE7 was released 5 years later, literally due to the pressure of other browsers on web standards support. That's when IE 6 sucked, and we all had to live with that suckiness for years on end because of microsofts insane backwards compatibility policies keeping deprecated software alive on life support. Even Microsoft has a IE6 countdown timer now https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/ie6countdown/ https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/ie6coun... IE6 was an unfathomably damaging disaster for the web.
blackbrokkoli 8y ago
"fastest" doesn't mean "fast", "friendliest" doesn't mean "friendly". Suffocating progress with monopoly abuse is not a good platform for claiming to have the "best" browser...
deleted 8y ago
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