I would say the darkest era was after IE7 was released: 2006-2010. You could see all the new features, you could use them, you could design your site around th

I would say the darkest era was after IE7 was released: 2006-2010. You could see all the new features, you could use them, you could design your site around them. But so many people refused to upgrade, so as a web developer you were forced to do stupid things to make IE6 work. And it's not like IE7 was that much better. You needed to put effort into making that work too. At least Chrome and Firefox would usually both do the same thing.