4 ms·

Nonsense. At the time MSIE was the best, the fastest and most featured (API wise) which is why people started developing for it exclusively. Do you see a recog

Nonsense. At the time MSIE was the best, the fastest and most featured (API wise) which is why people started developing for it exclusively. Do you see a recognisable pattern here? Do you get a sense of deja vu?

Jtsummers 6y ago
MSIE also implemented some of the standards completely opposite of how they were described in the standards. So making something work with MSIE wasn't just about features it had, but the hassle of making two versions: one to deal with IE's bugs and the other for everyone else. Given IE's install base (essentially every system with Windows, which means greater than 90 or 95% of computer users at one point), it made sense to skip support for other browsers.
- wvenable 6y ago
  "In 1998 the Web Standards Project compiled a list of IE's many CSS failings, including this one. Every browser had CSS bugs, however, so this wasn't particularly bad. They made a similar list for Opera and declined to make a list for Firefox's ancestor Netscape claiming that 'trying to list the important bugs would be an exercise in writing long documents'." https://www.jefftk.com/p/the-revenge-of-the-ie-box-model https://www.jefftk.com/p/the-revenge-of-the-ie-box-model
youeseh 6y ago
It was the most popular because people had to download the others themselves. It was also non-standard, so you often had to make a choice: whether to expend resources to build it for IE because it is most popular and not not worry about the rest, or "do the right thing" and use standards and then write more code to support IE as well.
- adamnemecek 6y ago
  You are talking about a different time.
zorked 6y ago
I was a dedicated Netscape user so it pains me to say it, but MSIE 6 was great when it launched, and Netscape was bloating up, unstable, and had its own range of proprietary extensions (anyone remember Netscape's DHTML...). MSIE 6's main problem was the stagnation, but that came later. Well, that, and that ActiveX crap.
panzagl 6y ago
I wonder if the people downvoting you actually remember the Netscape dark ages- IE was a revelation.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Jtsummers 6y ago

MSIE also implemented some of the standards completely opposite of how they were described in the standards. So making something work with MSIE wasn't just about features it had, but the hassle of making two versions: one to deal with IE's bugs and the other for everyone else. Given IE's install base (essentially every system with Windows, which means greater than 90 or 95% of computer users at one point), it made sense to skip support for other browsers.

wvenable 6y ago
"In 1998 the Web Standards Project compiled a list of IE's many CSS failings, including this one. Every browser had CSS bugs, however, so this wasn't particularly bad. They made a similar list for Opera and declined to make a list for Firefox's ancestor Netscape claiming that 'trying to list the important bugs would be an exercise in writing long documents'." https://www.jefftk.com/p/the-revenge-of-the-ie-box-model https://www.jefftk.com/p/the-revenge-of-the-ie-box-model

youeseh 6y ago

It was the most popular because people had to download the others themselves. It was also non-standard, so you often had to make a choice: whether to expend resources to build it for IE because it is most popular and not not worry about the rest, or "do the right thing" and use standards and then write more code to support IE as well.

adamnemecek 6y ago
You are talking about a different time.

zorked 6y ago

I was a dedicated Netscape user so it pains me to say it, but MSIE 6 was great when it launched, and Netscape was bloating up, unstable, and had its own range of proprietary extensions (anyone remember Netscape's DHTML...). MSIE 6's main problem was the stagnation, but that came later. Well, that, and that ActiveX crap.

panzagl 6y ago

I wonder if the people downvoting you actually remember the Netscape dark ages- IE was a revelation.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]