10 ms·

Internet Explorer is evil (1996)

80 points by Fiveplus 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
alexfromapex 6y ago
Wow haven’t seen that back button in a while
Robotbeat 6y ago
Man, seeing Bill Gates with horns and in a pentagram sure hits different in 2021 due to COVID/antivax and QAnon conspiracy theories than it did in 1996.
- vmception 6y ago
  Prescient :)
careersuicide 6y ago
Check out the "Firefox Doom Party" screen shots: http://toastytech.com/doom/ffdoompics.html http://toastytech.com/doom/ffdoompics.html
- ptr 6y ago
  But most of those screenshots are from Blood!
tech-historian 6y ago
If you want some IE nostalgia, here's a visual history of IE starting in 1995 (v1.0): https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/internet-explorer https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/internet-explorer Factoid: There were versions of IE for both Mac and Solaris.
- LocalH 6y ago
  Factoid addendum: there was also IE for HP-UX
  - tech-historian 6y ago
    Yes! And here's a 1999 Wayback Machine archive of the IE for Unix site on microsoft.com: http://web.archive.org/web/19991128115223/http://www.microsoft.com/unix/ie/default.asp http://web.archive.org/web/19991128115223/http://www.microso... "Internet Explorer 5 for UNIX offers the most complete support of Internet standards and technologies, including XML and DHTML"
    - winrid 6y ago
      Wow, I didn't know the term Intellisense is that old. Thought that was a Jetbrains thing.
- elvis70 6y ago
  IE5 for Mac was very great! The first version to implement tabs if I am not mistaken.
  - Lammy 6y ago
    I always thought tabs were an Opera invention, or maybe one of those IE shells like Maxthon or Neoplanet? IE5:mac was a fantastic browser though and was widely regarded as having the best CSS1 conformance of its time, as well as some cool features like an eBay auction tracker sidebar that seem quaint today but were very useful to me at the time: https://alistapart.com/article/ie5mac/ https://alistapart.com/article/ie5mac/ On the flip side, the only time I can remember hearing an entire crowd boo Stebe Jovs was when he announced that IE 4.5 would ship as the default browser in Mac OS 8: https://youtu.be/WxOp5mBY9IY?t=142 https://youtu.be/WxOp5mBY9IY?t=142
  - kitsunesoba 6y ago
    IE5 for Mac was quite good. It handled transparent PNGs correctly around a decade before its Windows counterpart and was just generally more pleasant to develop for. I always wondered why Tasman never got backported to Windows to act as a next-gen replacement for Trident.
steiner_j 6y ago
"In conclusion, people are finally beginning to understand the hard way: Web Browsers really make poor client application runtimes for all but the most basic of things. ActiveX is a security nightmare and counter to making cross-platform applications. The web is a constantly changing and evolving standard separate from Microsoft or any specific operating system, as such implementing an application for just one specific browser and version with no intent to keep it updated is just asking for disaster. Tying local help files or other local content to a "live" web browser that may change in functionality is a bad idea. But, nobody ever listened to anything I have to say." Narrator: And nobody listened to anything he said.
- inetknght 6y ago
  To this day I detest sites that require javascript, inject tens or hundreds of MB into cache, and make ridiculous demands of rendering.
  - revel 6y ago
    isn't that all of them?
    - airstrike 6y ago
      Except HN <3
      - anthk 6y ago
        But it needs JS to search content, it sucks.
  - ironmagma 6y ago
    At least they don’t leave unremovable or untraceable binaries, configurations, and databases in your system directories and registry.
    - inetknght 6y ago
CountDrewku 6y ago
Ha ha this reminds me of the first website I made. It was a site about Green Day. Of course, I built it on angelfire and it was chock full of gifs and midi music playing in the background. A lot of nostalgia seeing this.
- depingus 6y ago
  If you feel like stepping back in time, check out a game called Hypnospace Outlaw. You play a moderator surfing around an alternate 90's like web space, investigating copyright, abuse, and other stuff. That gets that whole feel from when anyone could post up a webpage.
OliverJones 6y ago
Yes, the Redmond Middle School Science project called Internet Explorer, now in the dumpster of history where it always belonged, was evil. Its over-engineered idiocy (monikers? apartment threading? quirks mode? wtf?) slowed down the development of good internet applications by decades, and caused tens of thousands of lost developer and tester hours that we can never get back. Gates was too greedy to understand why it was a problem. Ballmer was too stupid. Now, Nadella finally figured out that developers might stop hating his company if he finally flushed that toilet. And flush it he did. Edgium is good. As good as all the takes-16-hours-to-compile stuff running on modern desktops.
- TimTheTinker 6y ago
  > quirks mode? Quirks mode was a necessary measure to ensure backwards compatibility for a majority of websites at the time (circa 2000 - this was IE5). If they had switched every website to standards mode, most of the internet at the time would have appeared broken, and people would have blamed Microsoft, not the websites. (To be fair, IE5 through IE7 had a very broken standards mode, but it was much less broken than quirks mode.)
  - Joeri 6y ago
    I remember some web developers would deliberately build for quirks mode because it was a stable target, unlike the always shifting standards mode.
    - TimTheTinker 6y ago
      For better or for worse, IE6 lived on, and on, and on for far too long with no changes. A bigger concern than the changing standards mode in other browsers was the fact that IE6 just wouldn’t die. I had people challenging me “why are you developing for Firefox first and then adapting your app to work on IE? Shouldn’t you be doing it the other way around?” Over 10 years later those apps I built are still working great on the latest browsers, with no layout fixes since then. Meanwhile, many of those “rich”, forward-thinking apps developed for IE and Silverlight are long dead.
stephvd 6y ago
This website is a nostalgia machine. Plus so many links - easy to keep me busy for a few hours.
rangoon626 6y ago
This is some wholesome caustic indignation I can get behind. Surely today’s social media networks would have classified this content as hate speech and inciting violence.
dec0dedab0de 6y ago
I really miss when most of the web looked like this. And average non technical people knew enough html to put something out. In retrospect I think Myspace ruined everything.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
fullshark 6y ago
The rants section has dates from as recent as 2020!
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
srcreigh 6y ago
Don't miss the "Rants" page. Its most recent post is dated august 2020. "Microsoft is really going down the toilet." - april 12, 2018
jtdev 6y ago
Remember, Bill Gates thought this was all a good idea. Maybe he’s not our omniscient savior after all?
lovedswain 6y ago
> In conclusion, people are finally beginning to understand the hard way: > Web Browsers really make poor client application runtimes for all but the most basic of things. Aged like milk
higerordermap 6y ago
Slightly off-topic, this website has a collection of a HUGE number of retro GUI screenshots. (I can't help but feel interfaces were more usable those days, being a millennial)
veidelis 6y ago
"And as if forcing IE on all Windows users wasn't bad enough, Microsoft forced Apple to bundle IE for Mac as their default browser instead of Netscape. If Apple refused, Microsoft would discontinue MS-Office for Mac. Steve Jobs was loudly BOOED as he announced that IE would be the default browser." https://youtu.be/WxOp5mBY9IY?t=142 https://youtu.be/WxOp5mBY9IY?t=142
dang 6y ago
This is a dupe because it had significant attention in the last year - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. Internet Explorer Is Evil (2002) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23013001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23013001 - April 2020 (75 comments) Internet Explorer is evil - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4740890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4740890 - Nov 2012 (10 comments) Edit: btw, since http://toastytech.com/evil/ieisevilstory.html http://toastytech.com/evil/ieisevilstory.html references Netscape 7.1 and that was released in 2002 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_7), it seems like the previous submission was more likely to have the year right?

80 points by Fiveplus 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

alexfromapex 6y ago

Wow haven’t seen that back button in a while

Robotbeat 6y ago

Man, seeing Bill Gates with horns and in a pentagram sure hits different in 2021 due to COVID/antivax and QAnon conspiracy theories than it did in 1996.

vmception 6y ago
Prescient :)

careersuicide 6y ago

Check out the "Firefox Doom Party" screen shots: http://toastytech.com/doom/ffdoompics.html http://toastytech.com/doom/ffdoompics.html

ptr 6y ago
But most of those screenshots are from Blood!

tech-historian 6y ago

If you want some IE nostalgia, here's a visual history of IE starting in 1995 (v1.0): https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/internet-explorer https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/internet-explorer Factoid: There were versions of IE for both Mac and Solaris.

LocalH 6y ago
Factoid addendum: there was also IE for HP-UX
- tech-historian 6y ago
  Yes! And here's a 1999 Wayback Machine archive of the IE for Unix site on microsoft.com: http://web.archive.org/web/19991128115223/http://www.microsoft.com/unix/ie/default.asp http://web.archive.org/web/19991128115223/http://www.microso... "Internet Explorer 5 for UNIX offers the most complete support of Internet standards and technologies, including XML and DHTML"
  - winrid 6y ago
    Wow, I didn't know the term Intellisense is that old. Thought that was a Jetbrains thing.
elvis70 6y ago
IE5 for Mac was very great! The first version to implement tabs if I am not mistaken.
- Lammy 6y ago
  I always thought tabs were an Opera invention, or maybe one of those IE shells like Maxthon or Neoplanet? IE5:mac was a fantastic browser though and was widely regarded as having the best CSS1 conformance of its time, as well as some cool features like an eBay auction tracker sidebar that seem quaint today but were very useful to me at the time: https://alistapart.com/article/ie5mac/ https://alistapart.com/article/ie5mac/ On the flip side, the only time I can remember hearing an entire crowd boo Stebe Jovs was when he announced that IE 4.5 would ship as the default browser in Mac OS 8: https://youtu.be/WxOp5mBY9IY?t=142 https://youtu.be/WxOp5mBY9IY?t=142
- kitsunesoba 6y ago
  IE5 for Mac was quite good. It handled transparent PNGs correctly around a decade before its Windows counterpart and was just generally more pleasant to develop for. I always wondered why Tasman never got backported to Windows to act as a next-gen replacement for Trident.

steiner_j 6y ago

"In conclusion, people are finally beginning to understand the hard way: Web Browsers really make poor client application runtimes for all but the most basic of things. ActiveX is a security nightmare and counter to making cross-platform applications. The web is a constantly changing and evolving standard separate from Microsoft or any specific operating system, as such implementing an application for just one specific browser and version with no intent to keep it updated is just asking for disaster. Tying local help files or other local content to a "live" web browser that may change in functionality is a bad idea. But, nobody ever listened to anything I have to say." Narrator: And nobody listened to anything he said.

inetknght 6y ago
To this day I detest sites that require javascript, inject tens or hundreds of MB into cache, and make ridiculous demands of rendering.
- revel 6y ago
  isn't that all of them?
  - airstrike 6y ago
    Except HN <3
    - anthk 6y ago
      But it needs JS to search content, it sucks.
- ironmagma 6y ago
  At least they don’t leave unremovable or untraceable binaries, configurations, and databases in your system directories and registry.
  - inetknght 6y ago

CountDrewku 6y ago

Ha ha this reminds me of the first website I made. It was a site about Green Day. Of course, I built it on angelfire and it was chock full of gifs and midi music playing in the background. A lot of nostalgia seeing this.

depingus 6y ago
If you feel like stepping back in time, check out a game called Hypnospace Outlaw. You play a moderator surfing around an alternate 90's like web space, investigating copyright, abuse, and other stuff. That gets that whole feel from when anyone could post up a webpage.

OliverJones 6y ago

Yes, the Redmond Middle School Science project called Internet Explorer, now in the dumpster of history where it always belonged, was evil. Its over-engineered idiocy (monikers? apartment threading? quirks mode? wtf?) slowed down the development of good internet applications by decades, and caused tens of thousands of lost developer and tester hours that we can never get back. Gates was too greedy to understand why it was a problem. Ballmer was too stupid. Now, Nadella finally figured out that developers might stop hating his company if he finally flushed that toilet. And flush it he did. Edgium is good. As good as all the takes-16-hours-to-compile stuff running on modern desktops.

TimTheTinker 6y ago
> quirks mode? Quirks mode was a necessary measure to ensure backwards compatibility for a majority of websites at the time (circa 2000 - this was IE5). If they had switched every website to standards mode, most of the internet at the time would have appeared broken, and people would have blamed Microsoft, not the websites. (To be fair, IE5 through IE7 had a very broken standards mode, but it was much less broken than quirks mode.)
- Joeri 6y ago
  I remember some web developers would deliberately build for quirks mode because it was a stable target, unlike the always shifting standards mode.
  - TimTheTinker 6y ago
    For better or for worse, IE6 lived on, and on, and on for far too long with no changes. A bigger concern than the changing standards mode in other browsers was the fact that IE6 just wouldn’t die. I had people challenging me “why are you developing for Firefox first and then adapting your app to work on IE? Shouldn’t you be doing it the other way around?” Over 10 years later those apps I built are still working great on the latest browsers, with no layout fixes since then. Meanwhile, many of those “rich”, forward-thinking apps developed for IE and Silverlight are long dead.

stephvd 6y ago

This website is a nostalgia machine. Plus so many links - easy to keep me busy for a few hours.

rangoon626 6y ago

This is some wholesome caustic indignation I can get behind. Surely today’s social media networks would have classified this content as hate speech and inciting violence.

dec0dedab0de 6y ago

I really miss when most of the web looked like this. And average non technical people knew enough html to put something out. In retrospect I think Myspace ruined everything.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

fullshark 6y ago

The rants section has dates from as recent as 2020!

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

srcreigh 6y ago

Don't miss the "Rants" page. Its most recent post is dated august 2020. "Microsoft is really going down the toilet." - april 12, 2018

jtdev 6y ago

Remember, Bill Gates thought this was all a good idea. Maybe he’s not our omniscient savior after all?

lovedswain 6y ago

> In conclusion, people are finally beginning to understand the hard way: > Web Browsers really make poor client application runtimes for all but the most basic of things. Aged like milk

higerordermap 6y ago

Slightly off-topic, this website has a collection of a HUGE number of retro GUI screenshots. (I can't help but feel interfaces were more usable those days, being a millennial)

veidelis 6y ago

"And as if forcing IE on all Windows users wasn't bad enough, Microsoft forced Apple to bundle IE for Mac as their default browser instead of Netscape. If Apple refused, Microsoft would discontinue MS-Office for Mac. Steve Jobs was loudly BOOED as he announced that IE would be the default browser." https://youtu.be/WxOp5mBY9IY?t=142 https://youtu.be/WxOp5mBY9IY?t=142

dang 6y ago

This is a dupe because it had significant attention in the last year - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. Internet Explorer Is Evil (2002) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23013001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23013001 - April 2020 (75 comments) Internet Explorer is evil - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4740890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4740890 - Nov 2012 (10 comments) Edit: btw, since http://toastytech.com/evil/ieisevilstory.html http://toastytech.com/evil/ieisevilstory.html references Netscape 7.1 and that was released in 2002 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_7), it seems like the previous submission was more likely to have the year right?