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Retro Browser War: IE6 Vs. Netscape In 2011

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the gotta-wonder-why dept.

jbrodkin writes "What if you took the raw, pre-patched, 10-year-old versions of Internet Explorer 6 and Netscape 6.1 and tried to surf the modern Web? What would happen? You might think firing up IE6 or Netscape would lead to an immediate onslaught of viruses, but just for fun, I decided to spend some time using these two ancient browsers. It turns out IE6 is still capable of surfing much of the modern Internet, and can play Flash and Java content, but Netscape's troubles show it probably died a justified death."

6 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Or possibly... by bsDaemon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Possibly, the fact that large numbers of corporate desktops still have IE 6 means that a non-trivial number of Web programmers code to where IE6 will still work, whereas no one is using old Netscape, even for fun, except for this dude.

    1. Re:Or possibly... by xSauronx · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Really. I work at corporate for a medical system with a few hospitals and clinics...only late last year was IE7 approved for deployment because (finally) a couple of key software vendors supported it. Deployment is still optional at this point in time, but theres talking of making it automatic soon.

      --
      By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
    2. Re:Or possibly... by w_dragon · · Score: 4, Informative

      They thought of that. He went to great lengths to get a version of IE6 that was released in 2001, no patches allowed. It's in the first page of the article. I know, I must be new here.

  2. Duh by hedwards · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Up until relatively recently you absolutely had to include whatever hacks were necessary to get IE6 running on your site because it was the default browser on Windows and had a huge market share. Netscape hasn't had that sort of status in a really long time. So of course IE6 probably looks pretty good in comparison.

    Now, look at more recent sites that don't include that kludge and see if it still looks OK.

  3. Just got done surfing with IE6 :) by bl8n8r · · Score: 5, Funny

    No viri or malware here!  I was.... uh,popup... *click* ..I was just say... what the?..*click*...*click*... I was just going to sa... *click*..*click*... +++ ath0

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  4. Long live Netscape by just_another_sean · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Posted from SeaMonkey. Personally I still like having an HTML editor, browser and email client all in one package.

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