Slashdot Mirror
Internet Explorer Turns 15
An anonymous reader writes "Software giant Microsoft's Internet Explorer turned 15 years old on Monday. The company recently said it would launch the Internet Explorer 9 public beta version on September 15, 2010. The software giant launched the first version of the browser, Internet Explorer 1, on August 16, 1995. It was a revised version of Spyglass Mosaic, which Microsoft had licensed from Spyglass Inc."
nah its to busy trying to find a job so it can afford their first car next year.
Microsoft signed a deal with the company to pay based on numbers sold and when they started giving it out free to put Netscape out of business, they didn't pay. Microsoft had to be sued to get them to pay for the units shipped even when they had billions in cash. Microsoft even started paying ISP's for IE units shipped to eliminate Netscape Navigator from the market. That was the famous, "kill the baby" tactic.
And 15 years later, Microsoft and IE still suck IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
>>>IE's improved quite a bit recently...
Does it have a built-in dictionary to redline my mis-spelled typos? Does it allow addons like WOT or NoScript? Does it have anything like Opera Turbo for slow dialup/wireless connections, or Opera Link to store bookmarks online and unify all your favorites across the Desktop, Laptop, and Cellphone? Does it have a built-in newsgroup and email client like seaMonkey has? Does IE have any compelling reason for my going back to it?
No.
TRIVIA: Other ancient browsers for home PCs:
17 years - Mosaic on the Commodore Amiga (April 1993)
17 years - Cello for IBM PC (June 1993)
16 years - DOSlynx for IBM PC (April 1994)
16 years - iBrowse for Commodore Amiga (May 1994)
16 years - IBMwebExplorer for OS/2 PC (October 1994)
16 years - Netscape in December 1994 (succeeded by Mozilla/seaMonkey)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
>>>Cool... we can go to web pages!
>>>Eh, I like Netscape better.
Funny but not entirely accurate. Mosaic was the #1 browser of the day (1993-94), followed by Netscape which maintained its #1 spot until 1999 when Microsoft finally surpassed them.
Here's my own personal history:
- Mosaic for Amiga 500 (1993)
- Awesome. It's like a BBS but worldwide. Or Usenet with pictures. Wish I had something faster than a 2 kbit/s modem.
-
- Netscape? No I'm sticking with Mosaic.
- What's that? Netscape was written by the Mosaic guys? Okay I'll try it.
- Microsoft has a web browser? Hahahahaha.
-
- Mozilla Netscape 6 - wow this is pretty bad, but IE 5 sucks worse.
- Mozilla Firefox 1.0 - yay! And of course IE6 is still the suck.
- Whaddya mean I "have" to use IE at work? Why won't you let me install Firefox? Frak. (I have tried every IE ever released but the only one I ever used was IE6, and only because the boss forces me to.)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall