3 ms·

Huh? I think you're off by a decade. Microsoft burned a lot of reputation by letting IE stagnate between 2001 (IE6) and 2011 (IE9), but at the time IE5 and IE

Huh? I think you're off by a decade. Microsoft burned a lot of reputation by letting IE stagnate between 2001 (IE6) and 2011 (IE9), but at the time IE5 and IE6 shipped, they were legitimately faster, more compliant, and all-around better browsers than the Netscape versions of the time. I don't remember IE4 to comment on that, but there was certainly a time where IE was the best browser, both to users and developers. They simply failed to keep innovating on it.

drblast 13y ago
When IE4 came out there was no comparison. Netscape Communicator was already a bloated, unstable mess. IE4 was a giant leap forward at the time with a cohesive DOM. And IE 5 brought xmlhttprequest, which became kinda popular.
aleem 13y ago
> They simply failed to keep innovating on it. This was not a failure. Web browsers are a direct threat to the Windows platform and Microsoft consciously chose to drop out of the browser wars.