3 ms·

I worked on the front end of Bing (then Live Search) back in 2007, and even within Microsoft, IE6 was hated and rallied against, at least by any team doing web

I worked on the front end of Bing (then Live Search) back in 2007, and even within Microsoft, IE6 was hated and rallied against, at least by any team doing web development. I remember that the former GM of the Internet Explorer 5 and 6 team transferred to my org about a year after I joined. In his intro email, he included a sheepish apology for IE6, which I printed and kept on my office wall for the rest of my time at Bing, it was a prized possession. Man that browser caused so many nightmares. (to clarify, the GM was a good and smart guy, the apology was a little tongue-in-cheek since IE6 was arguably the best browser upon its release - the problem was Microsoft effectively abandoned it and let it languish and stagnate for years while the web moved on without it, which turned it and the IE org into well-deserved pariahs)

gjsman-1000 1y ago
Automatic updates get a bad rap on HN; but it's not like Microsoft wasn't happily giving away Internet Explorer 7 and 8 to any computer listening.
- realityking 1y ago
  It took Microsoft over 5 years to release Internet Explorer 7. That’s what allowed the web to ossify around it. For comparison, Internet Explorer 6 came 2.5 years after 5 and so did 8 after 7.
  - gjsman-1000 1y ago
    Internet Explorer 7 had been on the market for three years, and Internet Explorer 8 for three months, when this story took place. The lesson of IE6 is that people cannot be trusted to handle updating themselves.
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      If IE6 did everything that a user wanted, why should he have to update? I totally disagree with this assumption that we should always have to be on the update treadmill, always changing the software we're using, and if we don't, then it's some kind of user failure showing "we cannot be trusted". Maybe if IE6 was so terrible, Microsoft shouldn't have released it in the first place. Don't blame the user. The only good justification I can think of to update totally working software that I am happy with, is for mitigating security vulnerabilities. And even then, the choice should be on the user.
      - weird-eye-issue 1y ago
        You chose IE6 to make this argument? Your argument defeats itself if you have any context at all
      - dspillett 1y ago
        > If IE6 did everything that a user wanted, why should he have to update? It often didn't, but the user was not always in control. Many business and educational environments held back and their users were in locked down machines (for good reasons) so could not upgrade if they wanted to. This had a secondary effect: parents in households where the kids weren't in control of the tech were wary to upgrade in case it made them incompatible with work or things the kids needed for school. > Maybe if IE6 was so terrible, Microsoft shouldn't have released it in the first place. As has been mentioned a few times, upon release IE6 was the best browser commonly available by a number of metrics. Netscape was properly stagnating around then, Firefox was not yet a thing (even under is earlier names), chrome was even further off, and other alternatives only captured a niche market. A lot changed between then and 2009 but IE6 didn't. > this assumption that we should always have to be on the update treadmill This wasn't the enshitification treadmill that we experience today. Newer browsers at the time were offering key benefits for performance and security as well as significant useful features for designers that had to be inefficiently polyfilled or rejected if you needed to support older UAs. > mitigating security vulnerabilities. And even then, the choice should be on the user. No. As much as I disparage Windows for being the OS that can't be trusted not to randomly reboot if you leave it unattended for 12 hours, security updates are everybody's problem if you get infested with something that goes on to affect the wider network.
      - CursedSilicon 1y ago
        So. Are you still using MS-DOS? Or Commodore Basic? Why evolve software at all?
jiggawatts 1y ago
Microsoft was in such a hurry to kill off IE6 that if install a fresh copy of Windows Server 2022 with the latest updates, then Event Viewer will throw an “Access denied!” error in your face at startup. That’s because the IE6 logs were unceremoniously ripped out, but the default Administrative view still contains it in its list.

gjsman-1000 1y ago

Automatic updates get a bad rap on HN; but it's not like Microsoft wasn't happily giving away Internet Explorer 7 and 8 to any computer listening.

realityking 1y ago
It took Microsoft over 5 years to release Internet Explorer 7. That’s what allowed the web to ossify around it. For comparison, Internet Explorer 6 came 2.5 years after 5 and so did 8 after 7.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  Internet Explorer 7 had been on the market for three years, and Internet Explorer 8 for three months, when this story took place. The lesson of IE6 is that people cannot be trusted to handle updating themselves.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    If IE6 did everything that a user wanted, why should he have to update? I totally disagree with this assumption that we should always have to be on the update treadmill, always changing the software we're using, and if we don't, then it's some kind of user failure showing "we cannot be trusted". Maybe if IE6 was so terrible, Microsoft shouldn't have released it in the first place. Don't blame the user. The only good justification I can think of to update totally working software that I am happy with, is for mitigating security vulnerabilities. And even then, the choice should be on the user.
    - weird-eye-issue 1y ago
      You chose IE6 to make this argument? Your argument defeats itself if you have any context at all
    - dspillett 1y ago
      > If IE6 did everything that a user wanted, why should he have to update? It often didn't, but the user was not always in control. Many business and educational environments held back and their users were in locked down machines (for good reasons) so could not upgrade if they wanted to. This had a secondary effect: parents in households where the kids weren't in control of the tech were wary to upgrade in case it made them incompatible with work or things the kids needed for school. > Maybe if IE6 was so terrible, Microsoft shouldn't have released it in the first place. As has been mentioned a few times, upon release IE6 was the best browser commonly available by a number of metrics. Netscape was properly stagnating around then, Firefox was not yet a thing (even under is earlier names), chrome was even further off, and other alternatives only captured a niche market. A lot changed between then and 2009 but IE6 didn't. > this assumption that we should always have to be on the update treadmill This wasn't the enshitification treadmill that we experience today. Newer browsers at the time were offering key benefits for performance and security as well as significant useful features for designers that had to be inefficiently polyfilled or rejected if you needed to support older UAs. > mitigating security vulnerabilities. And even then, the choice should be on the user. No. As much as I disparage Windows for being the OS that can't be trusted not to randomly reboot if you leave it unattended for 12 hours, security updates are everybody's problem if you get infested with something that goes on to affect the wider network.
    - CursedSilicon 1y ago
      So. Are you still using MS-DOS? Or Commodore Basic? Why evolve software at all?

jiggawatts 1y ago

Microsoft was in such a hurry to kill off IE6 that if install a fresh copy of Windows Server 2022 with the latest updates, then Event Viewer will throw an “Access denied!” error in your face at startup. That’s because the IE6 logs were unceremoniously ripped out, but the default Administrative view still contains it in its list.