Re:Why Microsoft really patched XP
by Arainach on Tuesday May 06, 2014 @12:03PM
(#7705275)
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.
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> 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.
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.