Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from dot
Speaker 1: com Either guys, it's Jonathan Strickland with tech Stuff, and
Speaker 1: we're about to jump right into part two of our
Speaker 1: history of Internet Explorer, the full Internet Explorer's story, and
Speaker 1: we even have something to add to that story since
Speaker 1: we recorded this episode. When Nate and I were talking
Speaker 1: about Internet Explorer, neither of us knew the name of
Speaker 1: the successor to Internet Explorer. We just knew the code
Speaker 1: name was Project Spartan. But now we know that the
Speaker 1: name is Microsoft Edge that's going to be the successor.
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to throw that into the intro
Speaker 1: before we got right back into the discussion. And now
Speaker 1: let's rejoin that talk with Nate Langson from gloom Verb.
Speaker 1: In August two one, Microsoft would launch Internet Explorer six,
Speaker 1: which became a huge debacle. Um it was included in
Speaker 1: copies of Windows XP, one of the most popular operating
Speaker 1: systems of all time. I know people who still would
Speaker 1: prefer to use Windows XP to any of the other
Speaker 1: operating systems that have come out since then. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of legacy systems that depend upon Windows XP,
Speaker 1: and you cannot migrate to a new operating system without
Speaker 1: reinventing all these legacy systems that interact with it. Uh there.
Speaker 1: There used to be a joke about how people would
Speaker 1: stay on Windows XP, and now it's kind of a
Speaker 1: sad one. So I E six comes out bundled with
Speaker 1: Windows XP. That also means that I E six has
Speaker 1: continued to be used long after you would expect people
Speaker 1: to have changed, you know, upgrade to some other version
Speaker 1: of Internet Explorer. UM. PC World this is where we
Speaker 1: get the sad part. Called it the least secure software
Speaker 1: on the planet because I had so many vulnerabilities. It
Speaker 1: made the list of twenty five worst tech products of
Speaker 1: all time from PC World. It was number eight and
Speaker 1: number seven was a different Microsoft product, one that I
Speaker 1: did a full episode of tech Stuff about Microsoft Bob
Speaker 1: Bob so it's named by Bill Gates wife. I believe
Speaker 1: we had a whole the episode. If you haven't listened
Speaker 1: to the episode of tech Stuff, I highly recommend you
Speaker 1: go and check that out. Lauren Vogelbaumb was by co
Speaker 1: host on that one, and we had a grand old
Speaker 1: time dissecting Bob uh and and it was her first
Speaker 1: time ever encountering Bob and boy. I mean the fact
Speaker 1: that I E six ranked higher on the list, then
Speaker 1: Bob tells you how bad I E six was, because
Speaker 1: Bob was atrocious. So this was another one of those problem.
Speaker 1: It was ripe with vulnerabilities that allowed hackers to get
Speaker 1: that same kind of level of access to a computer,
Speaker 1: whatever level the user was logged in at. So if
Speaker 1: you were a giant business and you only allowed your
Speaker 1: employees to log in under a lower access level, then
Speaker 1: that was bad but probably manageable. If you were one
Speaker 1: of those businesses that allow employees to log in at
Speaker 1: the admin level, it was catastrophic. And because I E
Speaker 1: six was lumped in with Windows XP, and because Windows
Speaker 1: XP was so popular, it meant that it was a
Speaker 1: target rich environment. Now, Nate, you you being a Mac user,
Speaker 1: Are you one of the Mac users who who very
Speaker 1: smugly trumpets the fact that Max are largely UM free
Speaker 1: from issues of viruses and malware. No, I'm one of
Speaker 1: the people that says that they are. Well, yes I
Speaker 1: am in a way, I am actually completely But what
Speaker 1: I what I don't say is that MAX can't get
Speaker 1: viruses or that they are more secure. Um. They are
Speaker 1: in as much as everyone targets Windows and therefore far
Speaker 1: far fewer people are targeting MAX. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: MAX can also be conduits for viruses, so you are
Speaker 1: able to pass on a virus even if you are
Speaker 1: immune to it. You can you can be a carrier
Speaker 1: but not be be affected by it directly. That said,
Speaker 1: I don't run antivirus because I don't care about Windows users.
Speaker 1: Well why get vaccinated, right, I mean, uh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this this, this is a great but this is a
Speaker 1: great point to make, and that again, PCs had so
Speaker 1: much of the market share. I mean, we're still at
Speaker 1: the point where MAX had not really made a big debt.
Speaker 1: It would be it wouldn't be until the mid to
Speaker 1: late two thousand's that we really started seeing the Mac
Speaker 1: take off on a on a true market share level,
Speaker 1: which meant that if you're a hacker and you're designing
Speaker 1: malware and you're trying to hit as many people as
Speaker 1: possible that's your goal, then you go to where the
Speaker 1: people are, and the people were at PCs on Windows
Speaker 1: based machines, specifically Windows XP and Internet Explorer six had
Speaker 1: all these vulnerabilities. It was open season for hackers, which
Speaker 1: that's why it made this this list of the words
Speaker 1: tech products, I mean, if if it's a gateway, if
Speaker 1: Microsoft had not patch goal of vulnerabilities, it's a huge issue. Now,
Speaker 1: Microsoft did start to issue patches very quickly, but it
Speaker 1: was still one of those things that became a black
Speaker 1: eye for the company. Uh. In fact, the problem was
Speaker 1: so serious that the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team
Speaker 1: told people, Hey, if you don't have to use as
Speaker 1: Internet Explorer, don't use something else. And then the only
Speaker 1: times you should use Internet Explorer is when you have
Speaker 1: no other option, like it's it's something that's only compatible
Speaker 1: with Internet Explorer. Um. I've had I've worked at companies
Speaker 1: where the intranet would only be accessible through Internet Explorer.
Speaker 1: Other browsers just could not render those pages. Um, which
Speaker 1: could be a very frustrating experience for someone who doesn't
Speaker 1: prefer to use Internet Explorer unless I can't I don't
Speaker 1: have any other option. Nate, have you ever had that
Speaker 1: issue too, where you've had to worked someplace where the
Speaker 1: way a system was designed, you had to use a
Speaker 1: specific type of browser to access it. Um. I'm I
Speaker 1: work at one now, so I probably shouldn't say very much.
Speaker 1: But it's a very secure internal culprit environment. Sure, And
Speaker 1: and I mean that that's one of the reasons why,
Speaker 1: I mean, I still have a version of Internet Explorer
Speaker 1: that runs on my machine because, uh, there there are
Speaker 1: certain internal technologies we use that it really only works
Speaker 1: with Internet Exploring. Now once once it's up on the web,
Speaker 1: any browser can see the stuff, but for the internal
Speaker 1: purposes we use things that will only work with Internet Explorer.
Speaker 1: And of course we're also very concerned about security. So
Speaker 1: it's but it's one of those things that you know,
Speaker 1: if if you had built it on Internet Explorer six,
Speaker 1: this would be a huge concern obviously because of those vulnerabilities. Um, Fortunately,
Speaker 1: I think most companies don't rely on that, or they
Speaker 1: are relying on one that has been patched thoroughly so
Speaker 1: that those vulnerabilities are no longer an issue. But it was,
Speaker 1: you know, for someone who doesn't like Grandma, who doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily know how this stuff works, it's a problem, right.
Speaker 1: It's it's not easy to explain to someone who hasn't
Speaker 1: grown up around the world of software and software patches
Speaker 1: that this is an issue at all. It's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's hard enough just to explain that this is not
Speaker 1: the Internet, it's a browser. So yeah, so definitely. It
Speaker 1: was a black mark against Microsoft UM And it's funny
Speaker 1: because I looked on Granted, it depends upon what source
Speaker 1: you use, but I looked at one uh resource that
Speaker 1: looks at the market share various browsers, and three point
Speaker 1: one of users in China, according to this source, are
Speaker 1: still using Internet Explorers six three. It seems like a
Speaker 1: small number, but that means hundreds of thousands of people
Speaker 1: are still using Internet Explorers six and that's yeah, I
Speaker 1: means incredible. China is an interesting one, and because of
Speaker 1: the rempants piracy that has taken place the over the
Speaker 1: last couple of day cades, in particular when it comes
Speaker 1: to computer software, and there are so many old computers
Speaker 1: out there, computers that physically can't run more recent operating
Speaker 1: systems that for some machines that may be the limit
Speaker 1: of what they can even install because of how old
Speaker 1: the hardware is. The same in in in in parts
Speaker 1: of India, so that's probably a factor. The other The
Speaker 1: other thing is that there are a lot of banks,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, that have this really old software installed.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that's the case in China particularly, but
Speaker 1: just generally, there are a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: places and schools too. I mean, and that's the other thing,
Speaker 1: is that when you spend a lot of money and
Speaker 1: energy and resources on building an infrastructure and it's using
Speaker 1: a particular particular suite of software or a particular operating system,
Speaker 1: it's you know, you've created this system that now we
Speaker 1: call legacy system at the time. Of course, it's not
Speaker 1: a legacy. It's just what you built, and you built
Speaker 1: it because you needed something, and this, you know, the
Speaker 1: suite did the stuff you needed. The problem is that,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't necessarily have those resources to dedicate
Speaker 1: to reinventing that every time there's a new operating system
Speaker 1: that comes out, especially if you're talking about really big
Speaker 1: systems where it would require a massive effort across multiple
Speaker 1: locations in order for everyone to stay in communication with
Speaker 1: each other. And that's where you run into these problems.
Speaker 1: I mean, if there are no easy solutions, it's very
Speaker 1: easy for us to say, hey, upgrade your operating system
Speaker 1: or upgrade your browser, because on a user to user level,
Speaker 1: it's not as big a deal. I mean, it might
Speaker 1: require some financial investment. If you're talking about having to
Speaker 1: get a new machine that's capable of running a newer
Speaker 1: version of that software. But ultimately, ultimately it's not as
Speaker 1: big a deal as is telling a an industry or
Speaker 1: even just a particular oller company within that industry, hey
Speaker 1: you need to do this. It's a much larger effort
Speaker 1: on that their part. So as flippant as I'm being,
Speaker 1: I do realize that, you know, it's not so simple
Speaker 1: as oh, we need to we need to install this
Speaker 1: new program. It's you know, sometimes it's not the new browser.
Speaker 1: Like you said, Nate could require uh, more advanced hardware
Speaker 1: or a more advanced operating system. Yeah, all right, So
Speaker 1: that was two thousand one. Now we're going to skip
Speaker 1: ahead to two thousand four because there were no updates
Speaker 1: in that time. But on November nine, two four, a
Speaker 1: big competitor to Internet Explorer would launch the Mozilla foundations
Speaker 1: Firefox one point Oh goes live now. Firefox was the
Speaker 1: first real challenger to the dominance of Internet Explorer, uh,
Speaker 1: to to really you know, capture a lot of people's attention.
Speaker 1: Before there had and devotees of other browsers, but they
Speaker 1: were pretty small audiences. Firefox was one that actually threatened
Speaker 1: to take some real uh chunks out of Microsoft and
Speaker 1: part of that was because there was still this ongoing
Speaker 1: issue with Internet Explorer six and the security vulnerabilities that
Speaker 1: had had such a you know, I had a pretty
Speaker 1: bad reputation. Meanwhile, you might say, well, why why didn't
Speaker 1: Microsoft come out with a new version, Well, until Firefox
Speaker 1: came out, there wasn't really a need for it, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, there were no If you don't have a competitor,
Speaker 1: then you don't have a lot of incentive to improve
Speaker 1: your product. That's one of the problems, one of the reasons,
Speaker 1: one of the big reasons you don't want any monopolies
Speaker 1: out there, because you would rather have competition that drives
Speaker 1: the various entities to continue to innovate and invest in
Speaker 1: their technology so that you ultimately get better stuff out
Speaker 1: of it. If there are no competitors, then you got
Speaker 1: to just hope that the entities are motivated enough to
Speaker 1: continue that innovation and investment, which is not always the case,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't in this one. So October two thousand
Speaker 1: six we see Microsoft launched Internet Explorer seven because Firefox
Speaker 1: was starting to eat at Microsoft's heels. It was starting
Speaker 1: to take up some of that market share, and Microsoft
Speaker 1: suddenly realized, hey, we might have a problem here. We
Speaker 1: might need to to start really looking at innovating in
Speaker 1: this space again, because we're not the only player in
Speaker 1: town anymore. So this was a five year you know,
Speaker 1: absence of updates, and then we finally get one in
Speaker 1: two thousand six. Um. So Internet Explore seven was also
Speaker 1: the first time they changed the name, because the previous
Speaker 1: editions of Internet Explorer were all called Microsoft Internet Explorer whatever.
Speaker 1: This time they were called Windows Internet Explorer whatever. So
Speaker 1: Windows Internet Explorer seven u interesting because of the settlement
Speaker 1: with the United States Department of Justice earlier about how
Speaker 1: they didn't really want to give the indication that Windows
Speaker 1: and Internet Explorer were so tightly integrated. But after the
Speaker 1: settlement of that case, I guess they were. Microsoft was
Speaker 1: looking at it saying, look, if you if you use
Speaker 1: the Windows environment, this is the browser you want. I
Speaker 1: guess that was their marketing push, I suppose, And it
Speaker 1: became the bundled browser for a much maligned piece of software,
Speaker 1: Windows Vista. I think Windows Vista did more for Macintosh
Speaker 1: sales than Apple ever did. Was it wasn't It wasn't
Speaker 1: great to begin with. It was basically all right by
Speaker 1: the end, but yeah, it was. It was one of
Speaker 1: those that did require patches to make it to the
Speaker 1: point where people gave it that kind of damning praise. Right, well,
Speaker 1: it was all right by the end, it was okay,
Speaker 1: but when it came out, it was not okay. Uh.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of issues. I mean, I remember
Speaker 1: all the different permissions windows that would pop up whenever
Speaker 1: you wanted to do anything, and windows and staff and
Speaker 1: it was almost like Microsoft had overreacted to the problems
Speaker 1: it had experienced previously with products like Internet Explorer six,
Speaker 1: where I said, well, we want to make sure that
Speaker 1: we are being really uh concerned with security and safety.
Speaker 1: So now you're going to have to go through five
Speaker 1: permissions pages whenever you want to run anything on your machine,
Speaker 1: every time you want to run it. So this was maligned,
Speaker 1: probably justifiably when it first came out, but then, like
Speaker 1: like we said, it got better with patches, although it
Speaker 1: was too little, too late at that point, I think.
Speaker 1: And essentially you had all these different people and companies,
Speaker 1: school systems, everything saying you know what, we're gonna stick
Speaker 1: with Windows XP because even though this operating system is
Speaker 1: the new one, it breaks everything. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: use this older operating system. Uh. And I can say
Speaker 1: like in my career, we went from Windows XP to
Speaker 1: Windows seven. We did not. We did not transition to Vista.
Speaker 1: I went Windows XP to Mac. Um not particularly because
Speaker 1: of Vista, to be honest, Um, but I but but
Speaker 1: I think that was the turning point for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. It was either ignore Vista and then moved
Speaker 1: to seven, or ignore Vista and moved to the Mac. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, and I think even you know,
Speaker 1: looking at at some of the other operating systems out there,
Speaker 1: things like Lenox, I mean, you know, I don't think well,
Speaker 1: Lennox has its own like devotees who are all the
Speaker 1: developers who who love to work with that operating system
Speaker 1: and help make it better. And it's almost like a
Speaker 1: crowdsourced OS. Uh. But they you know, I think things
Speaker 1: like Vista definitely help fuel that kind of passion because
Speaker 1: you look at what is the product of a corporation
Speaker 1: saying here's what we think at operating system should be
Speaker 1: versus uh, something like uh Mac, which you know, Apple
Speaker 1: has done a great job at positioning themselves as we
Speaker 1: know that you think you know what you want, but
Speaker 1: we're telling you what you want and you're gonna love it,
Speaker 1: and it works because it's designed so well. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then you have the Linux approach, whereas we know what
Speaker 1: we want because we're the ones making it. Yes, well
Speaker 1: there is that as well. And and and Linux is
Speaker 1: so infinitely flexible from the you know, if you want
Speaker 1: to build your own operating system, you know version of
Speaker 1: Linux once that was designed in the style of an
Speaker 1: anime series called Serial Experiments Lane, which is a very
Speaker 1: weird techie anime if you want to check that out.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to point something out that we actually
Speaker 1: didn't discuss and put in show notes here, but it
Speaker 1: just occurred to me as we've been talking that there
Speaker 1: was a there was a it's parallel chain in computer
Speaker 1: usage at this point in the Internet Explorer lifestyle, which
Speaker 1: was the introducing and introduction and success of the netbook
Speaker 1: that did the opposite of what Microsoft would have wanted
Speaker 1: with Vista, which required, you know, more of a high powered,
Speaker 1: high spect machine. It was much visually it was much
Speaker 1: more visually rich. Vista was that is versus XP and
Speaker 1: then the netbook came out and became this giant pre
Speaker 1: iPad pre tablet craze of hundred dollar little portable notebooks
Speaker 1: that needed to run really low power old stuff. So
Speaker 1: they ran XP and they ran I six or they
Speaker 1: ran Linux of course, um, you know, and I think
Speaker 1: that that that was such a popular choice of machine
Speaker 1: for admittedly only maybe a couple of years, but I
Speaker 1: think it may have made a difference at the whole
Speaker 1: XP thing. And definitely once two seven rolls around, you
Speaker 1: had Apple introduced the iPhone, and that really changed the
Speaker 1: game because suddenly you had well, at least here in
Speaker 1: the United States, I mean here in the US. This
Speaker 1: is where Nate can can kind of chuckle, because in
Speaker 1: the US the smartphone was adopted very late on the
Speaker 1: consumer side, Whereas you know, in Europe you had some
Speaker 1: some smartphones that had traction before the iPhone came out.
Speaker 1: Here in the US, the iPhone might as well have
Speaker 1: been the first smartphone ever. The only people who had
Speaker 1: any other type of smartphone were executives who had blackberries
Speaker 1: here in the US. That was very kind of you.
Speaker 1: It was very kind of you to to suggest that
Speaker 1: we were far ahead of the game. I think really
Speaker 1: that the sort of we're in the realms of the
Speaker 1: sort of Nokia Communicate a sort of thing, and they
Speaker 1: weren't they weren't particularly smart, but they were more feature
Speaker 1: rich definitely than in some of the U S phones
Speaker 1: because because no kid didn't do anything really in North
Speaker 1: America at the time, right, yeah, here, if you had
Speaker 1: a phone that could browse the web via text like
Speaker 1: it was just a text based browser, then you were
Speaker 1: ahead of the game. And then but then the iPhone
Speaker 1: comes out, and uh, suddenly you have a new way
Speaker 1: of viewing the web, which would get improved considerably with
Speaker 1: future generations of the iPhone, and then with competitors like
Speaker 1: the Android phone, and ultimately with Windows Mobile, Windows Phone
Speaker 1: and then just Windows for mobile devices. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: that really change the game big time, to the point
Speaker 1: where now if you look at market share of what's
Speaker 1: being used to browse the web, the mobile devices are
Speaker 1: killing it. And so you see things like iOS is
Speaker 1: a huge player in market share for web browsers if
Speaker 1: you're if you include mobile devices, if you look at
Speaker 1: just desktops, then Internet Explorer is still a large a
Speaker 1: large player, especially once you factor in all the different
Speaker 1: versions of Internet Explorer. They're still in use. But two
Speaker 1: thousand seven ends up being a big year because we
Speaker 1: start seeing mobile become a true competitor, or at least
Speaker 1: a a potential competitor in the web browsing space. March
Speaker 1: two thousand nine would be when Microsoft launched Internet Explorer eight,
Speaker 1: which was the first browser to pass the Acid too test.
Speaker 1: Did not pass the acid three tests, but it passed
Speaker 1: the acid to test, which was that's a test designed
Speaker 1: to check a browser's ability to render a web page
Speaker 1: based upon the intended design of that page. This goes
Speaker 1: back to what I was saying before, where you just
Speaker 1: painstakingly create a web page and you can't wait for
Speaker 1: someone to see it. I mean by by can't wait,
Speaker 1: I mean if you if you could go back and
Speaker 1: visit the web pages of the mid nineties, I guarantee
Speaker 1: you that more than eighty percent of them would have
Speaker 1: a counter somewhere on that web page that would tell
Speaker 1: you what number you were to visit that web page. Uh.
Speaker 1: Those were ubiquitous back in the day. Do you remember
Speaker 1: those where you'll be like, oh, look, I I was
Speaker 1: the hundred and third thousand person to visit this website.
Speaker 1: I remember installing one of mine and just thinking like,
Speaker 1: why do I do this? I can like, it's been
Speaker 1: three months and I can still count the number of
Speaker 1: people who have visited my website on two hands. But
Speaker 1: you know, that was one of those things where again,
Speaker 1: you know, you put this care into it, and you
Speaker 1: really wanted to make sure that all the browsers were
Speaker 1: going to render it properly. Uh. And it was very
Speaker 1: important for Microsoft at the time because they were no
Speaker 1: longer like no one version of Internet Explorer was now
Speaker 1: the dominant one because Firefox had done so well. So
Speaker 1: if you're the dominant player, then sure you could essentially
Speaker 1: define how web pages should look. Your browser is the
Speaker 1: one that people should be designing for because you're the
Speaker 1: one that most people are using, and anyone who's using
Speaker 1: a different web browser is going to have a potentially,
Speaker 1: at any rate, a less than ideal experience. But who
Speaker 1: cares because you're the one who's the biggest player in town.
Speaker 1: When you're no longer the biggest player in town or
Speaker 1: there are viable competitors out there, you have to start
Speaker 1: rethinking that strategy. So Microsoft did a good thing here
Speaker 1: and building a web browser that was going to be
Speaker 1: more true to the designs of the web page administrators
Speaker 1: than what they had previously been doing and also benefited
Speaker 1: those of us who actually used Firefox or some other
Speaker 1: browser at that time, So that was that was good
Speaker 1: go ahead. It's an interesting period because all this time,
Speaker 1: all this discussion, Opera was chugging along in the background
Speaker 1: doing its thing. And just as we've been talking, I
Speaker 1: just download and installed Uper on my map because I
Speaker 1: just wanted to see what it looks like these days.
Speaker 1: Is based on Chromium UM, like like Google Chrome is.
Speaker 1: And you know, Opera has always been this underdog. It's
Speaker 1: just never done very well at market share wise, but
Speaker 1: it's always had this incredibly loyal fan base and does
Speaker 1: really innovative things on the mobile side, and always has.
Speaker 1: And I remember and about two thousand and seven, I
Speaker 1: wrote an article of the c net saying Opera should
Speaker 1: stop making desktop browsers and just focus on mobile as
Speaker 1: its future. And I had one person who said that
Speaker 1: I should throw myself off the top of the c
Speaker 1: NET building for saying something so heinous against the beloved
Speaker 1: Opera browser. Right, And I still, you know, nearly ten
Speaker 1: years on, I stand by that they should focus on
Speaker 1: mobile um and I hope that person revisits my article
Speaker 1: from seven and says, oh, yes, you were right. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's very forward thinking because, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: you know, mobile browsing has become so important now that
Speaker 1: that's where everybody is looking. I mean, you know, not
Speaker 1: that desktop browsing has gone away, or that there aren't
Speaker 1: other platforms. I mean, heck, I sometimes I browse the
Speaker 1: web very rarely, but sometimes I browse the web on
Speaker 1: my xbox so that I can watch certain content that
Speaker 1: I couldn't otherwise, or that I, um you know, might
Speaker 1: want to have a podcast on in the background, and
Speaker 1: that's the easy, the best way for me to play it.
Speaker 1: Um so. But the mobile certainly is is at least
Speaker 1: as important, if not more important, than desktop browsing is
Speaker 1: these days. So everyone really needed to be looking at mobile.
Speaker 1: I think you were really just giving some valuable advice, honestly,
Speaker 1: I mean I really I was trolling for page views mostly,
Speaker 1: but but it was based on it was based on
Speaker 1: real opinion and a fact. I believe, you know, we
Speaker 1: we've all engaged in some clickbait at some point or another.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, uh so. Internet Explorer eight is
Speaker 1: currently the second most popular version of Internet Explorer as
Speaker 1: far as market share goes. Keep in mind, we're up
Speaker 1: to eleven now, and in fact, in an Internet Explorer
Speaker 1: eleven is the current most popular version of i E
Speaker 1: on the market. I E eight is second, So that
Speaker 1: means nine and ten didn't do quite so well. Uh.
Speaker 1: And perhaps I'm not saying this is nest necesarily the case,
Speaker 1: but perhaps one of the reasons that it has done
Speaker 1: so well for so long is that is the last
Speaker 1: version of Internet Explorer that's capable of running on a
Speaker 1: Windows XP machine. So it maybe that we have still
Speaker 1: a significant number of folks out there who are running
Speaker 1: the Windows XP operating system. They never upgraded to Vista
Speaker 1: or seven or eight or ten now, Uh, and they're
Speaker 1: they're staying with Windows XP for one reason or another,
Speaker 1: and they might be running Internet Explorer eight. That's a guess,
Speaker 1: but I think it's a fair one. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: in the mobile world, it's I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 1: people listening have had the experience of downloading an app
Speaker 1: and then downloading an update a week later, right firing
Speaker 1: up the app and being told that your OS is
Speaker 1: out of date and you need to update, and that's
Speaker 1: because Apple or or Android or something has been up
Speaker 1: has A has released an update in the time between
Speaker 1: you unloading the app and firing up the app, and
Speaker 1: you've updated the app in that time without firing it
Speaker 1: up or updating your OS, and it's already out of date.
Speaker 1: Like it's crazy. Personally, I haven't had that issue, but
Speaker 1: that's because I use the Next of six, so I
Speaker 1: get those updates like immediately. But then although iPhone users
Speaker 1: out there like, yeah, that's regular uperating procedure for me, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have an Next to six as well, to be fair,
Speaker 1: I do. Yeah, that's so sort of my Android sort
Speaker 1: of test phone thing, of course, because I I used
Speaker 1: that for your main phone has to be an iPhone night,
Speaker 1: I imagine. Yeah, alright, how do you like the Next
Speaker 1: of six? I know this is a tangient, but I
Speaker 1: have to ask. Um. I love it. I really like it. Um.
Speaker 1: I use the iPhone six plus is my main phone.
Speaker 1: To the next is six just feels like an evolution
Speaker 1: of that. UM feel wise and the screens, the screens nice,
Speaker 1: the battery life for me has been pretty good, and
Speaker 1: the I don't know. I just like it, but I
Speaker 1: don't use it that much, to be honest. It was
Speaker 1: it's just like a like a uh, sort of a
Speaker 1: dunny review unit type thing that's just been hanging around, right.
Speaker 1: I just wish it were a little bit larger, so
Speaker 1: that way, if I held it over my head on
Speaker 1: a sunny day, I could shade my entire body. It
Speaker 1: is a big phone. It isn't become but like I said,
Speaker 1: I don't use it that much. It's it's mostly there
Speaker 1: for me to test Android and if I need, if
Speaker 1: I want to review right about new apps, it's just there. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fine, Yeah, I understand. Well, getting back to Internet Explorer,
Speaker 1: this is where we're starting to talk about some of
Speaker 1: the boring ones for me. So I guess that's why
Speaker 1: I'm so eager to go off on tangents. But March
Speaker 1: Internet Explore nine debuts, and I had the tagline the
Speaker 1: Beauty of the Web, so finally we could experience that.
Speaker 1: I was it was good that by two thousand eleven
Speaker 1: we could finally see the beauty of the web after
Speaker 1: all that text and the red x is for images
Speaker 1: that wouldn't load. Um, this one wasn't tied to the
Speaker 1: premiere of any new operating system, which might be one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why it's not as popular as I
Speaker 1: E eight or I E eleven because it was not
Speaker 1: it wasn't bundled with an operating system UM, so it
Speaker 1: could run on Windows Vista Service Pack two or later
Speaker 1: versions of the Windows operating system. There was no support
Speaker 1: for Windows XP. Like we said, I E eight was
Speaker 1: the last Internet Explorer to run on that platform. And
Speaker 1: you could do things like you could pen websites to
Speaker 1: the application bar, which would allow you to navigate straight
Speaker 1: to those right away. So if there were sites that
Speaker 1: you always go to, you know, you just you know there,
Speaker 1: there's always there's three that I always opened up first
Speaker 1: thing in the day, as soon as I load up
Speaker 1: my browser, then it would make sense to pen those
Speaker 1: first three just to be able to click on whichever
Speaker 1: ones or even pin them together. You could do that
Speaker 1: as well, where you could open up multiple tabs and
Speaker 1: just associate the ones that you always go to first thing.
Speaker 1: That way, you don't have to spend those precious that
Speaker 1: calories typing in the first few letters of whatever you
Speaker 1: are l you go to each time. UM but a
Speaker 1: very innovative approach at the time. And UH. It also
Speaker 1: had a download manager that would allow users to pause
Speaker 1: downloads and alert users to potentially malicious files, very important
Speaker 1: as far security is concerned. Something that is pretty much
Speaker 1: standardized throughout all browsers now, but with brand new back
Speaker 1: in at least for Internet Explorer anyway, and its includes
Speaker 1: support for HTML five for audio and video tags. So
Speaker 1: we started to see that that migration, which is still
Speaker 1: happening from four to five UM, so you know, it
Speaker 1: was important. It just didn't make a huge impact. In fact,
Speaker 1: I can't even I don't think I've ever used I
Speaker 1: E nine. I don't think I ever got to a
Speaker 1: point where I used that. I yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think I I think I will have done because
Speaker 1: I was I was all Mac at that point. My
Speaker 1: machine I was at Wired at the time. My all
Speaker 1: my my machines at Wired were all Max as well.
Speaker 1: But I did always have UM either a Parallels installation
Speaker 1: of Windows so I could do my browser test because
Speaker 1: I always did the browser reviews UM for seen it
Speaker 1: in the UK, and then Wired as well after that,
Speaker 1: so I always sort of kept I kept them installed,
Speaker 1: so I must have used it at some point, but
Speaker 1: certainly I seven was the last one that I could
Speaker 1: honestly say I really remember using possibly I E eighty.
Speaker 1: That so no, no, no lasting impression here. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: I imagine that people with MAX would yeah, I run
Speaker 1: boot camp, so I could run I E nine. That
Speaker 1: would really shock me. I would not be I would
Speaker 1: be a well why please tell me what? What's the
Speaker 1: I can tell you why you might want to do that.
Speaker 1: Max or some of the particularly quite a while was
Speaker 1: some of the best Windows machines you could buy, Like
Speaker 1: buy a MacBook Air and put Windows on. It is
Speaker 1: a better experience for most Windows users who didn't want
Speaker 1: to use a map, or rather who didn't want to
Speaker 1: use O S. Turn right, Well did you uh? Do
Speaker 1: you do? You find it amusing when PC users try
Speaker 1: to go the other way and create hackintosh is It
Speaker 1: seems like a bit of a waste of time. But
Speaker 1: I suspect that there are people that are probably doing
Speaker 1: it more for the joy of making it work than
Speaker 1: the fact that it's productive for them to do so.
Speaker 1: Once they've done it, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 1: I also say I mean I am a Windows user.
Speaker 1: I mean my gaming machine is a Windows PC. It's
Speaker 1: a big fat gaming rig with a twenty one nine
Speaker 1: ultra y curved monitor that's all Windows but but it
Speaker 1: literally loads Steam and most realistically, it really loads Elder
Speaker 1: Scrolls Online as soon as I turn it on like
Speaker 1: nothing else. I was gonna say, like, with that huge screen,
Speaker 1: it's got to be papers. Please, you're just playing papers please? Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: it's my immersive Elder Scrolls experience. Well that's that's good now.
Speaker 1: I know. I know what MMO. I could run into
Speaker 1: you if I ever, if I ever dive into that world.
Speaker 1: Oh please, do you all welcome? You would make a
Speaker 1: fantastic nod. I'm still playing. Actually, I'm still playing Skyrim again.
Speaker 1: I mean, I keep playing it through. I don't know
Speaker 1: why I've played. I finally actually finished the game. For
Speaker 1: the longest time, I was not finishing the game. I
Speaker 1: was just doing all the side quests. So maybe I
Speaker 1: need to Maybe I finally need to say goodbye to
Speaker 1: Skyrim and jump on. We should take this conversation offline,
Speaker 1: because I definitely want to persuade you to get into
Speaker 1: Elder Scrolls Online. But we'll we'll save Elder Scrolls for
Speaker 1: a future tech stuff, perhaps because that in itself has
Speaker 1: a rich history as a franchise. We'll revisit. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: actually I remember getting to play the early build of
Speaker 1: that at a c E three several years ago. But okay,
Speaker 1: we'll say that for the next one. Let's let's let's
Speaker 1: power on through the end of Internet Explorer. April twelve, eleven,
Speaker 1: that's when Microsoft announces Internet Explorer ten. It was less
Speaker 1: than a month from releasing Internet Explorer nine, so they
Speaker 1: released nine, and less than a month later they say, Hey,
Speaker 1: Internet Explored ten is coming, which seems like a weird choice,
Speaker 1: especially when Internet Explorer nine wasn't being bundled with an
Speaker 1: operating system. So I don't know why they expected people
Speaker 1: to migrate to nine if they announced, hey, something even
Speaker 1: better is coming really soon. That that to me is
Speaker 1: a very odd decision. Um. I honestly don't understand the
Speaker 1: motivation behind that, unless they just probably for like accounting
Speaker 1: purposes more than anything else to show in return on investment.
Speaker 1: Maybe I mean that since Internet Explorer wasn't like a
Speaker 1: product that you would go out and purchase, maybe they
Speaker 1: just didn't care. It's kind of hard to say. Uh.
Speaker 1: They showed a demo of an early build of I
Speaker 1: E ten at the MIX eleven conference in Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: d M i x UH conference in Vegas, I've never
Speaker 1: been to that one. That's one of the few that
Speaker 1: I have not attended. UH. It was September two thousand eleven.
Speaker 1: They showed the developer preview of Windows eight UM that
Speaker 1: ended up becoming available to the general public. So if
Speaker 1: you wanted to get your hands on an early build
Speaker 1: of Windows eight and then be one of the many
Speaker 1: people who complained about the metro uh layout, you could
Speaker 1: have done that. Then I was one of those people. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We we actually just had a machine here at how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works that was the Windows eight machine, and it
Speaker 1: was a Windows eight machine that did not have a
Speaker 1: well no one, no one was using it. Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, there wasn't a whole lot of software we
Speaker 1: could use with it, and secondly, we didn't have a
Speaker 1: touch sensitive screen. So you were using this interface that
Speaker 1: was clearly designed after the UI you would see in
Speaker 1: a tablet, but transmitted transferred rather to a desktop experience.
Speaker 1: But if you didn't have a touch screen monitor and
Speaker 1: you were navigating it through your basic keyboard and mouse,
Speaker 1: it was not a very satisfied experience, at least not
Speaker 1: for me. I could easily see why it would be
Speaker 1: very attractive if you were using a touch screen device,
Speaker 1: although I'm not big on touch screen monitors because I
Speaker 1: don't like having big, old, greasy fingerprints all over my
Speaker 1: monitor all the time. UM. I prefer my desktop to
Speaker 1: be still keyboard and mouse until something better comes along.
Speaker 1: What about you, do you use touch screen monitors? No point?
Speaker 1: Yeah here, I don't see. I don't see. I don't
Speaker 1: see a benefit to that, at least not in the
Speaker 1: current hardware iterations that are out there. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't like the idea of having to reach across
Speaker 1: and touch the screen anyway. I'm also lazy, so anything
Speaker 1: that smacks of effort I would like to edge away
Speaker 1: from unless it was absolutely necessary. I e. Ten would
Speaker 1: end up being bundled with Windows eight and Window Windows
Speaker 1: Server in the fall, and it had two modes. I
Speaker 1: had the Metro mode, so if you launched it in
Speaker 1: the Metro they they no longer call it Metro, but
Speaker 1: at the time that's what we all referred to it as.
Speaker 1: If you launched it when it was in the Metro layout,
Speaker 1: which was that tiled layout of Windows eight, it had
Speaker 1: a limited limited features and it also ended up eliminating
Speaker 1: uh pretty much the entire user interface was eliminated from
Speaker 1: casual glance. You would have to swipe from the bottom
Speaker 1: or the top in order to pull things up, But
Speaker 1: otherwise it was meant to give the website the entirety
Speaker 1: of your screens landscape. I can appreciate that on one level.
Speaker 1: I like the idea of slimming down your your frames
Speaker 1: so that you're giving the website as much attention and
Speaker 1: as much of the focus of the user as possible.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I want to be able
Speaker 1: to easily navigate to other sites if I need to,
Speaker 1: so I'm not crazy about completely hiding it away. Ah.
Speaker 1: I think that might have been a bit much. If
Speaker 1: you launched it in the desktop version of Internet Explorer,
Speaker 1: it was a little more like the earlier versions, so
Speaker 1: it had more of the capabilities built into it. Um
Speaker 1: I think. I think Windows eight was really Microsoft's approach
Speaker 1: to trying to make the operating system as accessible to
Speaker 1: as broad range of people as possible, and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure clearly they weren't entirely successful. They The rapid development
Speaker 1: of Windows ten kind of points to that, and also
Speaker 1: just the upgrade to Windows eight point one, which ended
Speaker 1: up kind of reversing Microsoft decisions on a lot of
Speaker 1: their original points. But Microsoft tends to do this. It
Speaker 1: sort of take talks between between big success and at
Speaker 1: least the perception of complete disaster, which is Windows uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Windows XP great success for our style, Windows
Speaker 1: Vista disappointment, Windows seven great success, Windows eight bits of disappointment.
Speaker 1: So I sort of feel that they are due a
Speaker 1: great success on the next on the next one, I
Speaker 1: think so, uh, And I guess they'll go out on
Speaker 1: a high point because it's the last one. Uh. You know.
Speaker 1: It's also interesting because this to me parallels a similar
Speaker 1: thing that happened with with Microsoft with the the announcement
Speaker 1: of Xbox one. I remember you and I had a
Speaker 1: conversation about which console we thought one E three that
Speaker 1: year when when the PlayStation four and the Xbox one
Speaker 1: we're both announced. Yes, I remember actually eating a very
Speaker 1: messy hot dog with you while we had the conversation,
Speaker 1: and then we we talked about how Microsoft made all
Speaker 1: these uh at the time, they sounded very bold and
Speaker 1: sometimes slightly dangerous, you know, as far as they're there
Speaker 1: the the way people would view the Xbox One. They
Speaker 1: made these these announcements that ultimately I think would have
Speaker 1: benefited them had they stuck with them. But they listened
Speaker 1: to the initial reaction that gamers had and they reversed
Speaker 1: some of their initial their initial pronouncements which ended up
Speaker 1: negatively impacting certain features down the road. And I think
Speaker 1: it's very similar to the way Windows eight and Internet
Speaker 1: Explorer ten the same sort of situations, they went through
Speaker 1: the same kind of cycles. They went through this like
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're really trying to push innovation. The problem
Speaker 1: was they were pushing the innovation in a direction that
Speaker 1: the the public just didn't get behind. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think this is really it's it is a problem
Speaker 1: born out of the business model. And it's not to
Speaker 1: blame Microsoft at all. This is just the way business is.
Speaker 1: But they needed to They need to give people a
Speaker 1: reason to go through what is a particular in the
Speaker 1: corporate world, a massive, dramatic and expensive and disruptive decision
Speaker 1: to move operating systems through upgrade. So they have to
Speaker 1: change something significantly, which is why it seems to go
Speaker 1: from great too bad, too great, too bad to potentially
Speaker 1: next great again, because basically what they then change is
Speaker 1: they go back to what people wanted in the first place.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a it's the problem with if it
Speaker 1: ain't broke, don't fix it. But if it ain't broke,
Speaker 1: but you need to make more money because that's what
Speaker 1: your business relies on, then maybe you don't fix it,
Speaker 1: just try and do something to it and then fix that, right, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's a that's a great point. And
Speaker 1: I think it has to be endlessly frustrating to Microsoft
Speaker 1: executives to really push for big, big changes, big risks
Speaker 1: and innovation and seeing it fall flat. And then watch
Speaker 1: Apple where it seems like Apple is able to make
Speaker 1: that kind of declaration and uh and do really well
Speaker 1: with it. Now that being said, there are clearly examples
Speaker 1: in Apple's past where updates to certain operating systems or
Speaker 1: software packages have been met with lots of criticism. Uh,
Speaker 1: there're certain OS updates that people absolutely despised in the
Speaker 1: in the process of the evolution of mac os. There's
Speaker 1: also I mean, anyone here at how stuff works who
Speaker 1: works in video could go on and on about changes
Speaker 1: to certain video editing suites. I love that change is brilliant.
Speaker 1: I ditched Premier to move to final cut when they
Speaker 1: change that. Really, everyone here with the other way. That's
Speaker 1: because they were probably doing it for for a living,
Speaker 1: whereas I do it semi professionally, So for me it
Speaker 1: actually sped up a lot of stuff, particularly things like multicam.
Speaker 1: I wasn't doing anything professionally professionally with it, like it
Speaker 1: wasn't my sole job. But but but on the other hand,
Speaker 1: the big differences that Microsoft now does these big, giant,
Speaker 1: huge overhauls and pushes it as the next big thing
Speaker 1: and like the latest innovation and leap in personal and
Speaker 1: profess not computing. Apple makes a big deal about its
Speaker 1: os is, but they're actually incremental them all like service
Speaker 1: packs now and they are free and Apple will trump
Speaker 1: you know, this new innovative feature and that new innovative feature,
Speaker 1: and yeah they are convenient, but you know, would you
Speaker 1: pay for it? Really? I mean people did, but it
Speaker 1: never really felt like a big deal to Apple. It
Speaker 1: more felt like just because they were making boxes and
Speaker 1: putting them on shells and shipping them around the world,
Speaker 1: they should probably charge something for them. But once it's
Speaker 1: all software and download based, it's just like it. So
Speaker 1: they're like completely different. It's they're not chicken and eggs,
Speaker 1: not chicken egg Sorry, they're not chalking cheese. Now, they're
Speaker 1: just we're not comparing apples to apples. By comparing os
Speaker 1: tend to windows updates wise. Was that chalk and cheese
Speaker 1: that I heard? Yeah, that's water past eleven at night.
Speaker 1: I've been up there like eighteen hours at this point.
Speaker 1: I'm fried. I'm just curious if that's if that's a
Speaker 1: common saying, or if that's just a yeah, okay, all right,
Speaker 1: Yeah that's really common. Yeah, they're like chalking cheese, they
Speaker 1: go together. I'll take your word for it. I I've
Speaker 1: never heard that phrase, but I'm I'm a closet, you know.
Speaker 1: I've been very you know, sheltered my entire life. So
Speaker 1: it's quite possible. It just hasn't made its way to
Speaker 1: the Deep South yet. All right, so we're in the
Speaker 1: home stretch. October seventeen two, Microsoft releases the final version
Speaker 1: of Internet Explorer Internet Explorer eleven, which had a lot
Speaker 1: of performance improvements it actually went when it came out,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of reviewers who put it through
Speaker 1: various speed tests and said this was competitive against all
Speaker 1: the other browsers that were current at that time, faster
Speaker 1: than a lot of them. That it had made some
Speaker 1: incredible improvements and was a true contender in the browsers
Speaker 1: space that if. In fact, I remember reading so many
Speaker 1: reviews that said, hey, if you switched the Chrome because
Speaker 1: you wanted it to load web pages faster, you don't
Speaker 1: have that reason anymore because Internet Explorer eleven was doing
Speaker 1: it as fast or faster than Chrome could. So it
Speaker 1: suddenly became clear that Microsoft had really pushed too to
Speaker 1: not just have new features, but to improve the performance
Speaker 1: so that it wasn't going to be viewed as, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's this thing that everyone has because it's bundled with
Speaker 1: your operating system. It was actually valuable browser that could
Speaker 1: stand on its own against uh, all these other competitors.
Speaker 1: So it was one of those things where you started
Speaker 1: hearing some real positive thing, you know, reviews about Internet Explorer.
Speaker 1: And yet it's also the last Internet Explorer. Uh. Microsoft
Speaker 1: announced this year that it is no longer going to
Speaker 1: be developing Internet Explorer. I sort of think that it's
Speaker 1: a necessary it's a necessary change because I think that
Speaker 1: the name I E. Is a lot worse than the
Speaker 1: product itself. Internet Explorer is a perfect good, great, modern
Speaker 1: fast browser now like it is, It's fine it's a
Speaker 1: decent browser. And and if I feel that people said,
Speaker 1: who you know, who say, oh, I use Internet Explorer,
Speaker 1: most of us in the tech would kind of go
Speaker 1: really really, But you know what if you if you're
Speaker 1: using the latest I on Windows eight point one, it's
Speaker 1: not a bad browser you might like. And I mean
Speaker 1: there's objectively speaking, not subjectively like. Objectively it's not a
Speaker 1: poor browser. Um. But the word I E. Just it
Speaker 1: just brings with it this history that you know, people
Speaker 1: just associate with either bad technology or horrible compatibility issues
Speaker 1: like you had with I E eight where you had
Speaker 1: to build basically a version of your website just for
Speaker 1: one browser. Um, there was a lot of problems, and
Speaker 1: obviously the security issues with I E six it's you know,
Speaker 1: get rid of the name. It's it's a real problem.
Speaker 1: It's why people don't really aimed that children after murderers
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of baggage there. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and so the the next one, and who knows,
Speaker 1: by the time this podcast goes live, maybe they'll have
Speaker 1: officially announced the name. But it's code named Project Spartan,
Speaker 1: which is built on different codes. It's code that if
Speaker 1: you trace it back. You know, it has roots that
Speaker 1: are common to Internet Explorer, but again it's a different
Speaker 1: evolutionary path um and it's going to uh be the
Speaker 1: new approach for browsers. There will be continued support for
Speaker 1: Internet Explorer for a while, but we're going to see
Speaker 1: that gradually taper off until we are left with whatever
Speaker 1: project Spartan is named at the time. I am curious
Speaker 1: where they came up with that name because they have
Speaker 1: the personal assistant Cortana, and Cortana that's a character from
Speaker 1: the Halo franchise, which Microsoft owns. Now it's good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so its Halo is cool. Xbox is the coolest thing
Speaker 1: Microsoft's ever done, named after the most popular thing that
Speaker 1: the most popular thing is named after. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they weren't going to call it master Chief, so master Chief.
Speaker 1: The main character in Halo is a Spartan soldier. They
Speaker 1: the type of armor he wears is designated as Spartan.
Speaker 1: So it's possible that this is another Halo reference. It
Speaker 1: could be that Spartan is totally is a Halo reference,
Speaker 1: like it's Spartan either because it's a very bland, open
Speaker 1: interface and then possibly but it's not, is it it's
Speaker 1: it's it's halo. I still think they should call it
Speaker 1: Windows Grunt. Well, I guess, I guess they could call
Speaker 1: it elite. I mean that would be that would be
Speaker 1: something I would have possibly a nicer connotation than grunt
Speaker 1: would although honestly, depending upon what version of Windows you're running,
Speaker 1: grunting might be your natural reaction to booting up your computer. Um,
Speaker 1: because I remember running older visions of Windows on older
Speaker 1: machines and thinking, all right, I've turned my computer on
Speaker 1: in about half an hour, I'll be able to do something.
Speaker 1: Ah at any rate. That's that's it. That is the
Speaker 1: the full blown history of Internet Explorer, from the early
Speaker 1: days before there were even web browsers to the current
Speaker 1: situation where Internet Explorer is is surfing into the sunset.
Speaker 1: I guess since we're talking about the web and we're
Speaker 1: going to get this this new type of browser in
Speaker 1: the future, Uh, it's an interesting story. I mean, you've
Speaker 1: got so much drama there, from the the Anty trust lawsuits,
Speaker 1: the whole dot com bubble, the intense focus on the web.
Speaker 1: Microsoft getting a little maybe not lazy but complacent perhaps
Speaker 1: with its place. I mean, it's it's a you can
Speaker 1: also look at this and the development of the you know,
Speaker 1: the company Microsoft as well, just what that company was
Speaker 1: going through during that time. We could do a parallel
Speaker 1: timeline and really see how there was a lot going on.
Speaker 1: Oh there really was, and and and the popularity of
Speaker 1: Windows of Internet Explorer six and by extension, Internet Explorer
Speaker 1: six itself was both the best and the worst thing
Speaker 1: that happened to i E. As a franchise of browsers.
Speaker 1: You know, it's popularity. It accounted for over nine of
Speaker 1: all browser installations at one point around two thousand three,
Speaker 1: I think. And yet that was the one that effectively
Speaker 1: caused the downfall you know, in terms of actual security issues,
Speaker 1: public perception, um, you know, the the the need for
Speaker 1: something to challenge the dominant, monopolistic looking i E. You know,
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. It caused its own ultimate downfall,
Speaker 1: and the complacency just made that worse. Yeah, without without
Speaker 1: i E. Six, you don't have necessarily the the incentive
Speaker 1: for a group like the Mozilla Foundation to really push
Speaker 1: for an alternative like Firefox. And then Firefox ends up
Speaker 1: becoming not just like first when it debuts it's it's
Speaker 1: definitely the underdog, but then very quickly in the grand
Speaker 1: scheme of things, became a true contender. Uh. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean without without the problems of I six, there wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been I don't think there would have been a
Speaker 1: drive for the alternatives. Uh. And ultimately, when you look
Speaker 1: at the way things have shaken out now, again, like
Speaker 1: we we barely touched the mobile world. But it's also
Speaker 1: what helped drive the development of things like Chromium. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then therefore you could also say it helped drive
Speaker 1: things like Android as well as chromos. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: the world is definitely affected by Internet Explorer. Like we
Speaker 1: we would not have the same experiences that we have
Speaker 1: available to us now were it not for I e.
Speaker 1: Whether it's whether it's from Microsoft or from someone else
Speaker 1: that was trying to compete against them. So I agree.
Speaker 1: I mean, broadly speaking, what a successful product, you know,
Speaker 1: and what a great product for you know, for the
Speaker 1: last two decades. I mean, you know, I say this
Speaker 1: is a Mac user, but as someone has a deep
Speaker 1: amount of respect for Microsoft and and what it does
Speaker 1: and what it has done, and Internet Explorer has to
Speaker 1: go down as one of the most popular, if not
Speaker 1: the most commendable piece of software ever made. You know,
Speaker 1: and I know that's a controversial statement, but but I
Speaker 1: think even the you know what I'm getting at that
Speaker 1: it's it has itself done so much for what the
Speaker 1: modern web is, even if it was by being too
Speaker 1: popular or too bad at one point, it has been
Speaker 1: a driver of change for the modern Internet. Heck, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I feel pretty safe in saying that if
Speaker 1: Internet Explorer had not been If it hadn't been for
Speaker 1: Internet Explorer, for one thing, more people would never have
Speaker 1: been introduced to the Worldwide Web because since it was
Speaker 1: bundled with the operating system, it took that barrier to
Speaker 1: entry and and throw it out the door right. It
Speaker 1: made it. It became something that your computer could do
Speaker 1: as soon as you got it plugged up and connected
Speaker 1: to the Internet. There's still a bit of a barrier
Speaker 1: because you still had to get connected, but once you
Speaker 1: got past that, it was already ready to go. And
Speaker 1: so there was that it helped remove that barrier to entry.
Speaker 1: And because of that, because it had this uh enabling
Speaker 1: factor that drove more people to the Web, it allowed
Speaker 1: for the creation of things like websites like how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com, which means that I ultimately was able
Speaker 1: to land my dream job. So like, I don't know
Speaker 1: that things would have unfolded the same way had Microsoft
Speaker 1: not gotten into this. I'm sure. I mean, it's undoubted,
Speaker 1: there's it's impossible to say, but I mean, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure that there's no way the World Wide Web wouldn't
Speaker 1: still be an incredibly influential part of our lives. But
Speaker 1: whether it would be to the same extent that it
Speaker 1: is now without Internet Explorer, I don't know. Um. I mean,
Speaker 1: something that powerful and useful and uh and and ultimately
Speaker 1: profitable uh could not remain obscure forever, but it certainly
Speaker 1: could have taken longer without Internet Explorer for it to
Speaker 1: to get the traction that it got. So well, here's
Speaker 1: to the next years. Yeah, who knows, who knows what
Speaker 1: you know? Maybe maybe we'll both be using a Microsoft
Speaker 1: machine and at that time and Mac will be a
Speaker 1: distant memory, and my my Chrome U my Chrome browser
Speaker 1: will be seen as as antiquated and cute. Yes, I
Speaker 1: doubt it, but we'll see. I'll be just I'll be
Speaker 1: passing through a midlife crisis and planning a sixtieth birthday. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll be uh, I'll be through my midlife crisis and
Speaker 1: well into my decline. All right, So, Nate Lanks, and
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me for these episodes.
Speaker 1: It has been a pleasure having you on the show.
Speaker 1: I greatly appreciate you taking the time and as as
Speaker 1: people have heard and maybe you maybe you didn't notice,
Speaker 1: but Nate has stayed up, passed his bedtime to be
Speaker 1: on my show. So I appreciate that. Now it's much
Speaker 1: if I if I can stay up for two podcast episodes,
Speaker 1: time to talk about the history of a piece of software.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is that is nerdtastic in my book,
Speaker 1: and it's I'm just about to relaunch an entire publication
Speaker 1: in Europe. And I am well past my bedtime definitely,
Speaker 1: and but but it's been a lot of fun and
Speaker 1: kept me kept me awake despite what I probably should
Speaker 1: have been doing. Well. Well, Nate, I'm going to take
Speaker 1: that as a positive and uh, I hope I can
Speaker 1: have you on the show again in the future. I
Speaker 1: would love to have you back on and chatting about
Speaker 1: well some some other great tech topics. Nate is incredibly
Speaker 1: well versed in tons of technology. Uh. He very graciously
Speaker 1: agreed to be on this episode next time. I promise
Speaker 1: I will give him the full list of choices and
Speaker 1: just open up the option so he can pick whatever
Speaker 1: he wants to Uh, because it was I was playing
Speaker 1: unfairly this time. But guys, if you have any suggestions
Speaker 1: for future topics or potential future co hosts or interviews,
Speaker 1: you want me to do anything along those lines, or
Speaker 1: you just have some feedback that you want to send
Speaker 1: to me, you can send it via my email address
Speaker 1: that would be tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: You can drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter
Speaker 1: or Tumbler. The handle it all three is tech Stuff
Speaker 1: hs W Nate Where can they find your stuff? Well,
Speaker 1: the best thing I can say, apart from Twitter, which
Speaker 1: is at Nate Lankson, is I do a weekly UK
Speaker 1: focused technology podcast. We did a big feature on the
Speaker 1: most recent episode, episode thirteen, still quite a new show
Speaker 1: where we put the world's electrical plug sockets against each other.
Speaker 1: Plug versus plug, Which nation has the best plug? Um
Speaker 1: the answers the English plug But there was a very
Speaker 1: good reason as to why and we know no. We
Speaker 1: spent fifteen minutes exploring exploring that. And I've also got
Speaker 1: a review coming up of the new super thin MacBook
Speaker 1: and a big piece about the new Google mobile algorithm change.
Speaker 1: And the show is called Text Message. I should probably
Speaker 1: say that um T E C H S message that is,
Speaker 1: And you can find that at Nate lengths and dot
Speaker 1: com slash podcast. Definitely go check that out, guys. And
Speaker 1: I love it Nate that I asked you for a
Speaker 1: plug and you plug a podcast about plugs. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't think that's awesome. Yeah, that's that's really well done.
Speaker 1: All right, well, thank you guys. We will talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, is a how stuff Works dot com