The misery is over

There are times when the end of a technology fills you with nostalgia and brings up good memories of the past. I remember when the time came for Nokia, Blackberry and Novell - companies which produced solid products and were on the forefront of innovation.

Then you have products, which when you hear that they've been discontinued, sunset and done, your only thought is 'finally'. One of these products that is finally retiring is Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). On June 15, 2022, the browser was officially done.

IE started in 1994 as the Mosaic browser. It was licensed by Microsoft from Spyglass in late 1994. Mosaic itself was a browser developed at National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).

One of the Mosaic original developers was Marc Andreessen. Yes, that guy who made money from Netscape. That’s the browser that at the beginning was the most popular way to access the Internet (and that scared Bill Gates to no end).

You might remember the memo from Mr. Gates to all Microsoft employees from 1995 describing the Internet as a crucial part of every Microsoft business. That started the browser war that saw the end of Netscape and ultimate victory by IE.

That victory was short-lived, however. Google's Chrome, Apple's Safari and Firefox arrived. If nothing else, the browser war shows you how perceived monopolies in the Internet age are overblown and victories are a fleeting snapshot in time.

Back to IE. To gain dominance in the marketplace, Microsoft incorporated IE into the Windows operating system, making it impossible to uninstall it. In fact, it prevented its customers from installing other browsers. This was one of the factors that led to the famous US vs. Microsoft trial in 2001.

Since Windows was the dominant operating system at the time, with IE as the most popular browser, Microsoft made sure that other browsers would have a hard time competing. How was that done? Through the introduction of non-standard extensions to the way the web pages were rendered.

The outcome was that pages built for IE appeared broken in other browsers. This sneaky tactic fuelled the narrative that the other browsers weren't as good. From my own experience, I can say that web developers had to go through a ton of pain to make sure that the web pages rendered properly in all browsers. (And if you think that it is painful now, you haven’t lived in the 90’s)

But compared to the real problem, this was just a small inconvenience for the developers. The complaints from the competition were probably just music to Microsoft’s ears.

The real issue was IE’s security record. The tight coupling of IE to the operating system meant that spyware, adware and viruses became a nightmare for every user and company out there. Your computer got compromised by just visiting a webpage.

Armies of IT personnel spent years cleaning the aftermath of every new security flaw. Through the years, numerous government organizations and security companies issued notices advising people not to use IE, as it posed a significant security threat.

The only people that were happy about these vulnerabilities? Anti-virus companies like Norton and McAfee, who made millions from this misery.

Does all this sound too negative and harsh? Consider the fact that Microsoft, rather than trying to fix IE, developed a new browser. Even Microsoft realized that IE’s problems just couldn’t be fixed, so they started from scratch. Yes, it was that bad.

After 26 years, it is finally over. The nightmare of IE is gone and we have better browsers to use. Let’s hope that pattern will stay.