Mozilla names new CEO as it pivots to data privacy

Re:Mozilla names new CEO as it pivots to data privacy by sydbarrett74 on Thursday February 08, 2024 @12:28PM (#39304801)

IE didn't gain share because it was free (Netscape was, as well). It gained share because, with Windows 95 OSR 2.5, it because integrated into the operating system and no longer had to be downloaded separately.

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Re:Mozilla names new CEO as it pivots to data privacy by VancouverMan on Thursday February 08, 2024 @03:02PM (#39306885)

While being bundled made it easier to start using IE, that didn't guarantee that people would try it, and it didn't guarantee that they'd continue to use it on an ongoing basis after that.

It may not be as obvious now, but at the time, IE often offered a better experience for both users and web developers.

IE tended to be faster and stabler than its competitors, and releases like IE3 and IE5 offered a number of innovative features and technologies.

IE coming with Windows clearly didn't prevent a large number of users from switching to Firefox once Firefox started offering a better experience, and then to Chrome once it started generally offering a better experience than both Firefox and IE did.

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Re:Mozilla names new CEO as it pivots to data privacy by int_19h on Thursday February 08, 2024 @09:01PM (#39310537)

IE had better CSS support, as well, and JS scripting was more powerful (ironic, given that JS was originally a Netscape thing).

I would say that the turning point was when HTML 4 adopted a lot of things based on the way IE did them rather than Netscape (e.g. <div> + CSS rather than <layer> etc). By IE5, if you were on Windows, you pretty much had to be a die-hard Netscape fan to keep using it.

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