Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host
Speaker 1: job and Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are you? It's time for another
Speaker 1: classic episode. This is actually the second part to the
Speaker 1: classic episode we published last Friday. It is called The
Speaker 1: Story of Internet Explorer, Part two and it originally published
Speaker 1: on May sixth, two thousand fifteen, and has special guest
Speaker 1: host Nate Langson on the show. Nate is awesome. If
Speaker 1: you're not familiar with his work, definitely google Nate Langston.
Speaker 1: He's got a ton of work to his name and
Speaker 1: is just a really interesting, intelligent, and entertaining person. Hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this classic episode. I know people who still
Speaker 1: would prefer to use Windows XP to any of the
Speaker 1: other operating systems that have come out since then. There
Speaker 1: are 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, upgraded 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: Oh Bob, so it's named by Bill Gates wife. 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 Vogelbaum 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 a few of people are targeting MAX. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, MAX can also be conduits for viruses,
Speaker 1: so you are able to pass on a virus even
Speaker 1: if you are immune to it. You can you can
Speaker 1: be a carrier but not be be affected by it directly.
Speaker 1: That said, I don't run antivirus because I don't care
Speaker 1: about Windows uses, Well why get vaccinated? Right? I mean,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, yeah, this this this is a great but
Speaker 1: this is a great point to make. And that again,
Speaker 1: PCs had so much of the market share. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're still at the point where Max had not really
Speaker 1: made a big debt. It would be it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: until the mid to late two thousand's that we really
Speaker 1: started seeing the Mac take off on a on a
Speaker 1: true market share level, which meant that if you're a
Speaker 1: hacker and you're designing malware and you're trying to hit
Speaker 1: as many people as possible that's your goal, then you
Speaker 1: go to where the people are, and the people were
Speaker 1: at PCs on Windows based machines, specifically Windows XP and
Speaker 1: Internet ex or six had all these vulnerabilities. It was
Speaker 1: open season for hackers. Which that's why it made this
Speaker 1: this list of the wars tech products. I mean, if
Speaker 1: if it's a gateway, if Microsoft had not patch call
Speaker 1: of vulnerabilities, it's a huge issue. Now Microsoft did start
Speaker 1: to issue patches very quickly, but it was still one
Speaker 1: of those things that became a black eye for the company.
Speaker 1: H In fact, the problem was so serious that the
Speaker 1: United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team told people, Hey, if
Speaker 1: you don't have to use Internet Explorer, don't use something else.
Speaker 1: And then the only times you should use Internet Explorer
Speaker 1: is when you have no other option, like it's it's
Speaker 1: something that's only compatible with Internet Explorer. Um. I've had Uh,
Speaker 1: I've worked at companies where the intranet would only be
Speaker 1: accessible through Internet Explorer. Other browsers just could not render
Speaker 1: those pages. Um, which could be a very frustrating experience
Speaker 1: for someone who doesn't prefer to use Internet Explore unless
Speaker 1: I can't I don't have any other option. Nate, have
Speaker 1: you ever had that issue too, where you've had to
Speaker 1: work someplace where the way a system was designed, you
Speaker 1: had to use a specific type of browser to access it. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm I work at one now, so I probably shouldn't
Speaker 1: say very much. But it's a very secure internal culprit environment, sure,
Speaker 1: and and I mean that that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why I mean, I still have a version of Internet
Speaker 1: Explorer that runs on my machine because, uh, there there
Speaker 1: are certain internal technologies we use that it really only
Speaker 1: works with Internet Exploring. Now once once it's up on
Speaker 1: the web, any browser can see the stuff, but for
Speaker 1: the internal purposes we use things that will only work
Speaker 1: with Internet Explorer. And of course we're also very concerned
Speaker 1: about security. So it's but it's one of those things
Speaker 1: that you know, if if you had built it on
Speaker 1: Internet Explorer six, this would be a huge concern obviously
Speaker 1: because of those vulnerabilities. Um Fortunately, I think most companies
Speaker 1: don't rely on that, or they are relying on one
Speaker 1: that has been patched thoroughly so that those vulnerabilities are
Speaker 1: no longer an issue. But it was, you know, for
Speaker 1: someone who doesn't like Grandma, who doesn't necessarily know how
Speaker 1: this stuff works, it's a problem, right. It's it's not
Speaker 1: easy to explain to someone who hasn't grown up around
Speaker 1: the world of software and software patches that this is
Speaker 1: an issue at all. It's I mean, it's hard enough
Speaker 1: just to explain that this is not the Internet, it's
Speaker 1: a browser. So yeah, so definitely it was a black
Speaker 1: mark against Microsoft. Um and it's funny because I I
Speaker 1: looked on granted, depends upon what source you use, but
Speaker 1: I looked at one, uh resource that looks at the
Speaker 1: market share various browsers, and three point one of users
Speaker 1: in China, according to this source, are still using Internet
Speaker 1: Explorers six. Three seems like a small number, but that
Speaker 1: means hundreds of thousands of people are still using Internet
Speaker 1: Explorers six and that's yeah, I mean incredible. China is
Speaker 1: an interesting one, and because of the rempants piracy that
Speaker 1: has taken place there over the last couple of decades,
Speaker 1: in particular when it comes to computer software, and there
Speaker 1: are so many old computers out there, computers that physically
Speaker 1: can't run more recent operating systems that for some machines
Speaker 1: that may be the limit of what they can even
Speaker 1: install because of how old the hardware is. The same
Speaker 1: in in in in parts of India, So that's probably
Speaker 1: a factor. Um. The other the other thing is that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of banks, believe it or not,
Speaker 1: that have this really old software installed. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that's the case in China particular, but just generally there
Speaker 1: are a lot of a lot of places and schools too,
Speaker 1: I mean. And that's the other thing is that when
Speaker 1: you spend a lot of money and energy and resources
Speaker 1: on building an infrastructure and it's using a particular you know,
Speaker 1: particular suite of software or a particular operating system. It's
Speaker 1: you know, you've created this system that now we call
Speaker 1: legacy system at the time. Of course, it's not a legacy.
Speaker 1: It's just what you've built, and you built it because
Speaker 1: you needed something, and this, you know, the suite, did
Speaker 1: the stuff you needed. The problem is that, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily have those resources to dedicate to reinventing
Speaker 1: that every time there's a new operating system that comes out,
Speaker 1: especially if you're talking about really big systems where it
Speaker 1: would require a massive effort across multiple locations in order
Speaker 1: for everyone to stay in communication with each other. And
Speaker 1: that's where you run into these problems. I mean, if
Speaker 1: there are no easy solutions, it's very easy for us
Speaker 1: to say, hey, upgrade your operating system or upgrade your browser,
Speaker 1: because on a user to user level, it's not as
Speaker 1: big a deal. I mean, it might require some financial
Speaker 1: investment if you're talking about having to get a new
Speaker 1: machine that's capable of running a newer version of that software,
Speaker 1: but ultimately, ultimately it's not as big a deal as
Speaker 1: is telling a an industry or even just a particular
Speaker 1: company within that industry, Hey, you need to do this.
Speaker 1: It's a much larger effort on that their part. So
Speaker 1: as flippant as I'm being, I do realize that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not so simple as oh, we need to we
Speaker 1: need to install this new program. It's you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: it's not the new browser. Like you said, Nate could
Speaker 1: require uh, more advanced hardware or a more advanced operating system. Yeah. Alright,
Speaker 1: So that was two thousand one. Now we're going to
Speaker 1: skip ahead to two thousand four because there were no
Speaker 1: updates in that time. But on November nine, two four,
Speaker 1: a big competitor to Internet Explorer would launch the Mozilla
Speaker 1: foundations Firefox one point Oh goes Live. 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 been 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: micro Soft come out with a new version. Well, until
Speaker 1: Firefox 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. It'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've 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 Explorers 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. Uh. 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 as opposed, and it
Speaker 1: became the bundle browser for a much maligned piece of software,
Speaker 1: Windows Vista. We'll be back with more of this classic
Speaker 1: episode of tech stuff after this quick break. I think
Speaker 1: Windows visted it more from Macintosh sales than Apple ever did.
Speaker 1: It wasn't It wasn't great to begin with. It was
Speaker 1: basically all right by the end, but yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was one of those that did require patches to
Speaker 1: make it to the point where people gave it that
Speaker 1: kind of damning praise. Right, well, it was all by
Speaker 1: the end, it was okay, But when it came out
Speaker 1: it was not okay. There were a lot of issues.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember all the different permissions windows that
Speaker 1: would pop up whenever you wanted to do anything, and
Speaker 1: Windows this stuff, and it was almost like Microsoft had
Speaker 1: overreacted to the problems it had experienced previously with products
Speaker 1: like Internet Explorer six, where I said, well, we want
Speaker 1: to make sure that we are being really uh concerned
Speaker 1: with security and safety. So now you're going to have
Speaker 1: to go through five permissions pages whenever you want to
Speaker 1: run anything on your machine, every time you want to
Speaker 1: run it. So this was maligned, probably justifiably when it
Speaker 1: first came out, But then, like like we said, it
Speaker 1: got better with patches, although it was too little, too
Speaker 1: late at that point, I think. And essentially you had
Speaker 1: all these different people and companies, school systems, everything saying
Speaker 1: you know what, We're gonna stick with Windows XP because
Speaker 1: even though this operating system is the new one, uh,
Speaker 1: it breaks everything, So I'm going to use this older
Speaker 1: operating system. Uh. And I can say, like in my career,
Speaker 1: we went from Windows XP to Windows seven. We did not.
Speaker 1: We did not transition to Vista. I went Windows XP
Speaker 1: to Mac. Um not particularly because of Vista, to be honest, Um,
Speaker 1: but I but but I think that was the turning
Speaker 1: point for a lot of people. It was either ignore
Speaker 1: Vista and then moved to seven, or ignore Vista and
Speaker 1: moved to the Mac. Yeah. I think, you know, and
Speaker 1: and I think even you know, looking at at some
Speaker 1: of the other operating systems out there, things like Lenox,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I don't think well, Lennox has
Speaker 1: its own like uh devotees who are all the developers
Speaker 1: who who love to work with that operating system and
Speaker 1: help make it better, and it's almost like a crowdsourced OS. Uh,
Speaker 1: but they you know, I think things like Vista definitely
Speaker 1: help fuel that kind of passion because you look at
Speaker 1: what is the product of a corporation saying here's what
Speaker 1: we think operating systems should be versus uh something like
Speaker 1: uh Mac, which you know, Apple has done a great
Speaker 1: job at positioning themselves as we know that you think
Speaker 1: you know what you want, but we're telling you what
Speaker 1: you want and you're gonna love it and it works
Speaker 1: because it's designed so well. Uh and then you have
Speaker 1: the Linux approach, whereas we know what we want because
Speaker 1: we're the ones making it. Yes, well there is that
Speaker 1: as well, and and and Linux is so infinitely flexible
Speaker 1: from the you know, if you want to build your
Speaker 1: own operating system. You know t version of Linux once
Speaker 1: that was designed in the style of an anime series
Speaker 1: called Serial Experiments Lane, which is very weird techie anime
Speaker 1: if you want to check that out. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to point something out that we actually didn't discuss and
Speaker 1: put in show notes here, but it just occurred to
Speaker 1: me as we've been talking that there was a there
Speaker 1: was a a parallel change in computer usage at this
Speaker 1: point in the Internet Explorer, a lifestyle, which was the
Speaker 1: introduction and introduction and success of the netbook that did
Speaker 1: the opposite of what Microsoft would have wanted with Vista,
Speaker 1: which required um, 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: run Linux. Of course, Um, you know, and I think
Speaker 1: that that that was such a popular choice of machine
Speaker 1: for admittually 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 thousand seven rolls around,
Speaker 1: you had Apple introduced the iPhone, and that really changed
Speaker 1: the game because suddenly you had well, at least here
Speaker 1: in the United States, I mean here in the US.
Speaker 1: This is where Nate can can kind of chuckle, because
Speaker 1: in the US the smartphone was adopted very late on
Speaker 1: the consumer side, whereas you know and your up you
Speaker 1: had some some smartphones that had traction before the iPhone
Speaker 1: came out. Here in the US, the iPhone might as
Speaker 1: well have been the first smartphone ever. The only people
Speaker 1: who had any other type of smartphone were executives who
Speaker 1: had blackberries here in the US. That was very kind
Speaker 1: of you. It was very kind of you to to
Speaker 1: suggest that we were far ahead of the game. I
Speaker 1: think really that the sort of we're in the realms
Speaker 1: of these sort of Nokia communicate the sort of thing,
Speaker 1: and um, they weren't they weren't particularly smart, but they
Speaker 1: were more feature rich definitely than in some of the
Speaker 1: U S phones because because no kid didn't do anything
Speaker 1: really in North America at the time, right, yeah, here,
Speaker 1: if you had a phone that could browse the web
Speaker 1: via text like it was just a text based browser,
Speaker 1: then you were ahead of the game. Then. But then
Speaker 1: the iPhone comes out and uh, suddenly you have a
Speaker 1: new way of viewing the web, which would get improved
Speaker 1: considerably with future generations of the iPhone, and then with
Speaker 1: competitors like the Android phone, and ultimately with Windows Mobile,
Speaker 1: Windows Phone and then just Windows for mobile devices. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know that really change the game big time,
Speaker 1: to the point where now if you look at market
Speaker 1: share of what's being used to browse the web, the
Speaker 1: mobile devices are killing it. And so you see things
Speaker 1: like iOS is a huge player in market share for
Speaker 1: web browsers if you're if you include mobile devices, if
Speaker 1: you look at just desktops, then Internet Explorer is still
Speaker 1: a large a large player, especially once you factor in
Speaker 1: all the different versions of Internet Explorer. They're still in use.
Speaker 1: But two thousand seven ends up being a big year
Speaker 1: because we start seeing mobile become a true competitor or
Speaker 1: at least a a potential competitor in the web browsing space.
Speaker 1: March two thousand nine would be when Microsoft launched Internet
Speaker 1: Explorer eight, which was the first browser to pass the
Speaker 1: ACID two test. Did not asked the ACID three tests,
Speaker 1: but it passed the ACID to test, which was that's
Speaker 1: a test designed to check a browser's ability to render
Speaker 1: a web page based upon the intended design of that page.
Speaker 1: This goes back to what I was saying before, where
Speaker 1: you just painstakingly create a web page and you can't
Speaker 1: wait for someone to see it. I mean by by
Speaker 1: can't wait, I mean if you if you could go
Speaker 1: back and visit the web pages of the mid nineties,
Speaker 1: I guarantee you that more than eighty percent of them
Speaker 1: would have a counter somewhere on that web page that
Speaker 1: would tell you what number you were to visit that
Speaker 1: web page. Uh. Those were ubiquitous back in the day.
Speaker 1: Do you remember those where you'll be like, oh, look,
Speaker 1: I I was the hundred and third thousandth person to
Speaker 1: visit this website. I remember installing one of mine and
Speaker 1: just thinking like, why do I do this? I can
Speaker 1: like it's been three months and I can still count
Speaker 1: the number of people who have visited my website on
Speaker 1: two hands. But you know that was one of those
Speaker 1: things where again, you know, you put this care into
Speaker 1: it and you really wanted to make sure that all
Speaker 1: the browsers were going to render it properly. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it was very important for Microsoft at the time because
Speaker 1: they were no longer like no one version of Internet
Speaker 1: Explorer was now the dominant one because Firefox had done
Speaker 1: so well. So if you're the dominant player, then sure
Speaker 1: you could essentially define how web pages should look. Your
Speaker 1: browser is the one that people should be designing for
Speaker 1: because you're the one that most people are using, and
Speaker 1: anyone who's using a different web browser is going to
Speaker 1: have a potentially, at any rate, a less than ideal experience.
Speaker 1: But who cares because you're the one who's the biggest
Speaker 1: player in town. When you're no longer the biggest player
Speaker 1: in town or there are viable competitors out there, you
Speaker 1: have to start rethinking that strategy. So Microsoft did a
Speaker 1: good thing here and building a web browser that was
Speaker 1: going to be more true to the designs of the
Speaker 1: web page administrators than what they had previously been doing,
Speaker 1: and also benefited those of us who actually used Firefox
Speaker 1: or some other browser at that time, so that was
Speaker 1: that was good, go ahead. It's an interesting period because
Speaker 1: all this time or this discussion, Opera was chugging along
Speaker 1: in the background doing its thing. And just as we've
Speaker 1: been talking, I just download and installed up on my
Speaker 1: map because I just wanted to see what it looks
Speaker 1: like these days. It's based on chromium UM, like like
Speaker 1: Google chromes. And you know, Opera has always been this underdog.
Speaker 1: It's just never done very well at market share wise,
Speaker 1: but it's always had this incredibly loyal fan base and
Speaker 1: does 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 for s net saying Opera should stop
Speaker 1: making desktop browsers and just focus on mobile as its future.
Speaker 1: And I had one person who said that I should
Speaker 1: throw myself off the top of the s NET building
Speaker 1: for saying something so heinous against the beloved right. And
Speaker 1: I still, you know, nearly ten years on, I stunned
Speaker 1: by that they should focus on mobile UM And I
Speaker 1: hope that person revisits my article UM from and says, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: you were right. Well, you know, it's very forward thinking
Speaker 1: because as it turns out, you know, mobile browsing has
Speaker 1: become so important now that that's where everybody is looking.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, not the desktop browsing has gone away,
Speaker 1: or that there aren't other platforms. I mean, heck, I
Speaker 1: sometimes I browse the web very rarely, but sometimes I
Speaker 1: browse the web on my Xbox so that I can
Speaker 1: watch certain content that I couldn't otherwise, or that I, um,
Speaker 1: you know, might want to have a podcast on in
Speaker 1: the background and that's the easiest way for me to
Speaker 1: play it. Um So, But the mobile certainly is is
Speaker 1: at least as important, if not more important, than desktop
Speaker 1: browsing is these days. So everyone really needed to be
Speaker 1: looking at mobile. I think you were really just giving
Speaker 1: some valuable advice, honestly. I mean I really I was
Speaker 1: trolling for page views mostly, but but it was based
Speaker 1: on it was based on real opinion and a fact.
Speaker 1: I believe. You know, we we've all engaged in some
Speaker 1: clickbait at some point or another. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we've got more to say in this classic episode of
Speaker 1: tech stuff after these quick messages. So the Internet Explorer
Speaker 1: eight is currently the second most popular version of Internet
Speaker 1: Explorer as far as market share, goes. Keep in mind,
Speaker 1: we're up to eleven now, and in fact, in an
Speaker 1: Internet Explorer eleven is the current most popular version of
Speaker 1: i E on the market. I E eight is second,
Speaker 1: So that means nine and ten didn't do quite so well. Uh.
Speaker 1: And perhaps I'm not saying this is necessarily the case,
Speaker 1: but perhaps it's one of the reasons that it has
Speaker 1: done so well for so long is that is the
Speaker 1: last version of Internet Explorer that's capable of running on
Speaker 1: a Windows XP machine. So it may be that we
Speaker 1: have still a significant number of folks out there who
Speaker 1: are running the Windows XP operating system. They never upgraded
Speaker 1: to Vista or seven or eight or ten now, uh,
Speaker 1: and they're they're staying with Windows XP for one reason
Speaker 1: or another, and they might be running Internet Explorer eight.
Speaker 1: That's a guess, but I think it's a fair one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, in the mobile world, it's I'm sure a
Speaker 1: lot of people listening have had the experience of downloading
Speaker 1: an app and then downloading an update. A week later,
Speaker 1: firing up the app and being told that your OS
Speaker 1: is out of date and you need to update, and
Speaker 1: that's because Apple or or Android or something has been
Speaker 1: up has a has released an update in the time
Speaker 1: between you downloading the app and firing up the app,
Speaker 1: and you've updated the app in that time without firing
Speaker 1: it up or updating your OS, and it's already out
Speaker 1: of date. Like it's crazy. Personally, I haven't had that issue,
Speaker 1: but that's because I use the Next of six, so
Speaker 1: I get those updates like immediately. But then although iPhone
Speaker 1: users out there like, yeah, that's regular, I'll breaking procedure
Speaker 1: for me, Yeah, I have an Next to six as well.
Speaker 1: To be fair, I do. Yeah, that's so sort of
Speaker 1: my Android sort of test phone thing because I I
Speaker 1: used that for your main phone has to be an
Speaker 1: iPhone night, I imagine. Yeah, alright, how do you like
Speaker 1: the Next of six? I know this is a tangent,
Speaker 1: but I have to ask. Um. I love it. I
Speaker 1: really like it. Um. I use the iPhone six Plus
Speaker 1: is my main phone, so the next is six just
Speaker 1: feels like an evolution of that. UM feel wise and
Speaker 1: the screens, the screens nice, The battery life for me
Speaker 1: has been pretty good, and the I don't know. I
Speaker 1: just like it, but I don't use it that much,
Speaker 1: to be honest. It was it's just like a like
Speaker 1: a sort of a dunny review unit type thing that's
Speaker 1: been hanging around, right. I just wish it were a
Speaker 1: little bit larger, so that way, if I held it
Speaker 1: over my head on a sunny day, I could shade
Speaker 1: my entire body. It is a big phone. It isn't
Speaker 1: become But like I said, I don't use it that much.
Speaker 1: It's it's mostly that for me to test Android and
Speaker 1: if I need, if I want to review or right
Speaker 1: about new apps, it's just there. Um, yeah, it's fine, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I understand. Well, getting back to Internet Explorer, this is
Speaker 1: where we're starting to talk about some of the boring
Speaker 1: ones for me. So I guess that's why I'm so
Speaker 1: eager to go off on tangents. But March four, Internet
Speaker 1: explored nine debuts and it had the tagline the Beauty
Speaker 1: of the Web, So finally we could experience that. I
Speaker 1: was it was good that by two thousand eleven we
Speaker 1: could finally see the beauty of the web after all
Speaker 1: that text and the red exes for images that wouldn't load. Um,
Speaker 1: this one wasn't tied to the premiere of any new
Speaker 1: operating system, which might be one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: it's not as popular as I E eight or I
Speaker 1: E eleven because it was not it wasn't bundled with
Speaker 1: an operating system UM, so it could run on Windows
Speaker 1: Vista Service Pack two or later versions of the Windows
Speaker 1: operating system. There was no support for Windows XP. Like
Speaker 1: we said, I E eight was the last Internet Explorer
Speaker 1: to run on that platform. And you could do things
Speaker 1: like you could pen websites to the application bar, which
Speaker 1: would allow you to navigate straight to those right away.
Speaker 1: So if there were sites that you always go to,
Speaker 1: you know, you just you know there, there's always there's
Speaker 1: three that I always opened up first thing in the day,
Speaker 1: as soon as I load up my browser, then it
Speaker 1: would makes sense to pen those first three just to
Speaker 1: be able to click on whichever ones or even pin
Speaker 1: them together. You could do that as well, where you
Speaker 1: could open up multiple tabs and just associate the ones
Speaker 1: that you always go to first thing. That way, you
Speaker 1: don't have to spend those precious that calories typing in
Speaker 1: the first few letters of whatever you are l you
Speaker 1: go to each time. UM but a very innovative approach
Speaker 1: at the time. And UH. It also had a download
Speaker 1: manager that would allow users to pause downloads and alert
Speaker 1: users to potentially malicious files. Very important as far security
Speaker 1: is concerned. Something that is pretty much standardized throughout all
Speaker 1: browsers now, but was brand new back in at least
Speaker 1: for Internet Explorer anyway, and it includes support for HTML
Speaker 1: five for audio and video tags. So we started to
Speaker 1: see that that migration, which is still happening from four
Speaker 1: to five UM. So you know, it was important. It
Speaker 1: just didn't make a huge impact. Ah. In fact, I
Speaker 1: can't even I don't think I've ever used E E nine.
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever got to a point where
Speaker 1: I used that. I yeah, I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: I think I will have done because I was I
Speaker 1: was all Mac at that point. My machine I was
Speaker 1: at Wired at the time, My all my my machines
Speaker 1: at wide would MAX as well. But I did always
Speaker 1: have UM either a Parallels installation of Windows so I
Speaker 1: could do my browser test because I always did the
Speaker 1: browser reviews UM for seen it in the UK, and
Speaker 1: then Wired as well after that, so I always sort
Speaker 1: of kept I kept them installed, so I must have
Speaker 1: used it at some point, but certainly I E seven
Speaker 1: was the last one that I could honestly say I
Speaker 1: really remember using. Possibly I E eighty. That so no, no,
Speaker 1: no lasting impression here. Um. Yeah, I imagine that people
Speaker 1: with MAX would yeah, I run boot camp, so I
Speaker 1: could run I e nine. That would really shock me.
Speaker 1: I would not be I would be a well why
Speaker 1: please tell me what what's the I can tell you
Speaker 1: why you might want to do that. Max or some
Speaker 1: of the particularly quite a while was some of the
Speaker 1: best Windows machines you could buy. That's like, buy a
Speaker 1: MacBook Air and put Windows on It is a better
Speaker 1: experience for most Windows is who didn't want to use
Speaker 1: a map, or rather who didn't want to use those
Speaker 1: turn right? Well did you? Uh? Do you? Do? You
Speaker 1: find it amusing when PC users try to go the
Speaker 1: other way and create hackintosh is. It seems like a
Speaker 1: bit of a waste of time. But I suspect that
Speaker 1: there are people that are probably doing it more for
Speaker 1: the joy of making it work than the fact that
Speaker 1: it's productive for them to do so. Once they've done it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But I also say I
Speaker 1: and I am a Windows user. I mean my gaming
Speaker 1: machine is a Windows PC. It's a big fat gaming
Speaker 1: rig with a twenty one nine ultra y curved monitor
Speaker 1: that's all Windows. But but it literally loads Steam and
Speaker 1: most realistically, it really loads Elder Scrolls Online as soon
Speaker 1: as I turn it on, like nothing else. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, like, with that huge screen, it's got to
Speaker 1: 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 are well? You would make a
Speaker 1: fantastic Nord. 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: eldest Rolls online. But we'll we'll save eldest Rolls 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,
Speaker 1: two eleven, that's when Microsoft announces Internet Explorer ten. It
Speaker 1: was less than a month from releasing Internet Explorer nine,
Speaker 1: so they released nine, and less than a month later
Speaker 1: they say, hey, Internet Explored tennis coming, which seems like
Speaker 1: a weird choice, especially when Internet Explorer nine wasn't being
Speaker 1: bundled with an operating system. So I don't know why
Speaker 1: they expected people to migrate to nine if they announced, hey,
Speaker 1: something even better is coming really soon. That that to
Speaker 1: me is a very odd decision. Um. I honestly don't
Speaker 1: understand the motivation behind that, unless they probably for like
Speaker 1: accounting purposes more than anything else, to show the return
Speaker 1: on investment. Maybe I mean that since Internet Explorer wasn't
Speaker 1: like a product that you would go out and purchase,
Speaker 1: maybe they 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 a Meveloper 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 satisfying 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? Noo? Yeah, here,
Speaker 1: I don't see. I don't see. I don't see a
Speaker 1: benefit to that, at least not in the current hardware
Speaker 1: iterations that are out there. Yeah, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: like the idea of having to reach across and touch
Speaker 1: the screen anyway. I'm also lazy, so anything that smacks
Speaker 1: of effort I would like to edge away from unless
Speaker 1: it was absolutely necessary. I e. Ten would end up
Speaker 1: being bundled with Windows eight and Window Windows Server in
Speaker 1: the fall of and it had two modes. It had
Speaker 1: the Metro mode, so if you launched it in the
Speaker 1: Metro they no longer call it Metro, but at the
Speaker 1: time that's what we all referred to it as. If
Speaker 1: 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: of 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 liked 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. It
Speaker 1: had more of the capabilities built into it. Um I think.
Speaker 1: I think Windows eight was really Microsoft's approach to trying
Speaker 1: to make the operating system as accessible to as broad
Speaker 1: range of people as possible, and I'm not sure clearly
Speaker 1: they weren't entirely successful. They The rapid development of Windows
Speaker 1: ten kind of points to that, and also just the
Speaker 1: upgrade to Windows eight point one, which ended up kind
Speaker 1: of reversing Microsoft decisions on a lot of their original points.
Speaker 1: But Microsoft tends to do this. It sort of take
Speaker 1: the talks between between big success and at least the
Speaker 1: perception of complete disaster, which is Windows uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Windows XP great success for our style, Windows Vista disappointment,
Speaker 1: Windows seven great success, Windows eight bits of disappointment. So
Speaker 1: I sort of feel that they are due a great
Speaker 1: success on the next on the next one, I think so, uh,
Speaker 1: and I guess they'll go out on a high point
Speaker 1: because it's the last one. Uh. You know. It's also
Speaker 1: interesting because this to me parallels a similar thing that
Speaker 1: happened with with Microsoft with the the announcement of Xbox one.
Speaker 1: I remember you and I had a conversation about which
Speaker 1: console we thought one E three that year when when
Speaker 1: the PlayStation four and the Xbox one we're both announced. Yes,
Speaker 1: I remember actually eating a very messy hot dog with
Speaker 1: you while we had that conversation, and then we we
Speaker 1: talked about how Microsoft made all these uh at the time,
Speaker 1: they sounded very bold and sometimes slightly dangerous, you know,
Speaker 1: as far as they're there the the way people would
Speaker 1: view the Xbox One. They made these these announcements that
Speaker 1: ultimately I think would have benefited them had they stuck
Speaker 1: with them. But they listened to the initial reaction that
Speaker 1: gamers had and they reversed some of their initial sholl
Speaker 1: their initial pronouncements, which ended up negatively impacting certain features
Speaker 1: down the road. And I think it's very similar to
Speaker 1: the way Windows eight and Internet Explorer ten the same
Speaker 1: sort of situations, they went through the same kind of cycles.
Speaker 1: They went through this like we're gonna we're really trying
Speaker 1: to push innovation. The problem was they were pushing the
Speaker 1: innovation in a direction that the the public just didn't
Speaker 1: get behind. And you know, I think this is really
Speaker 1: it's it is a problem born out of the business model.
Speaker 1: And it's not to blame Microsoft at all. This is
Speaker 1: just the way business is. But they needed to They
Speaker 1: need to give people a reason to go through what
Speaker 1: is a particularly in the corporate world, a massive, dramatic
Speaker 1: and expensive and disruptive decision to move operating systems through upgrade.
Speaker 1: So they have to change something significantly, which is why
Speaker 1: it seems to go from great too bad, too great,
Speaker 1: too bad to potentially next great again, because basically what
Speaker 1: they then change is they go back to what people
Speaker 1: wanted in the first place. You know it's a it's
Speaker 1: the problem with if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Speaker 1: But if it ain't broke, but you need to make
Speaker 1: more money because that's what your business relies on, then
Speaker 1: maybe you don't fix it, just try and do something
Speaker 1: to it and then fix that, right right, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that's that's a that's a great point, and I
Speaker 1: think it has to be endlessly frustrating to Microsoft executives
Speaker 1: to really push for big, big change is 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
Speaker 1: multi cam. I wasn't doing anything professionally professionally with it,
Speaker 1: like it wasn't my sole job. But but but on
Speaker 1: the other hand, the big differences that Microsoft now does
Speaker 1: these big, giant, huge overhauls and pushes it as the
Speaker 1: next big thing and like the latest innovation and leap
Speaker 1: in personal and professional computing. Apple makes a big deal
Speaker 1: about its os is, but they're actually incremental. They'm all
Speaker 1: like service packs now and they are free. An Apple
Speaker 1: will trump you know, this new innovative feature and that
Speaker 1: new innovative feature, and yeah they are convenient, but you know,
Speaker 1: would you pay for it? Really? I mean people did,
Speaker 1: but it never really felt like a big deal to Apple.
Speaker 1: It more felt like just because they were making boxes
Speaker 1: and 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 me have it.
Speaker 1: So 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 read? Yeah, that's it'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, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really common. Yeah, they're like chalk and cheese. They
Speaker 1: don't go together. I'll take your word for it. I've
Speaker 1: never heard that phrase. But I'm I'm a clause. 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. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion
Speaker 1: of this tex Stuff Classic episode right after we take
Speaker 1: this break. Alright, so we're in the home stretch. October
Speaker 1: sevent Microsoft releases the final version of Internet Explorer Internet
Speaker 1: Explorer eleven, which had a lot of performance improvements. It
Speaker 1: actually went when it came out. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of reviewers who put it through various speed tests and
Speaker 1: said this was competitive against all the other browsers that
Speaker 1: were current at that time, faster than a lot of them,
Speaker 1: that it had made some incredible improvements and was a
Speaker 1: true contender in the browsers space that if And in fact,
Speaker 1: I remember reading so many reviews that said, hey, if
Speaker 1: you switched the Chrome because you wanted it to load
Speaker 1: web pages faster, you don't have that reason anymore because
Speaker 1: Internet Explorer eleven was doing it as fast or faster
Speaker 1: than Chrome could. So it suddenly became clear that Microsoft
Speaker 1: had really pushed to to not just have new features,
Speaker 1: but to improve the performance so that it wasn't going
Speaker 1: to be viewed as, oh, yeah, it's this thing that
Speaker 1: everyone has because it's bundled with your operating system. It
Speaker 1: was actually a valuable browser that could stand on its
Speaker 1: own against uh, all these other competitors. So it was
Speaker 1: one of those things where you started hearing some real
Speaker 1: positive thing, you know, reviews about Internet Explorer. And yet
Speaker 1: it's also the last Internet Explorer. Uh. Microsoft announced this
Speaker 1: year that it is no longer going to be developing
Speaker 1: Internet Explorer. I sort of think that it's a necessary
Speaker 1: it's a necessary change because I think that the name
Speaker 1: I E. Is a lot worse than the product itself.
Speaker 1: Internet Explorer is a perfectly good, great, modern, fast browser
Speaker 1: now like it is. It's fine. It's a decent browser.
Speaker 1: And and if I feel that people say who you
Speaker 1: know who say, oh, I use Internet Explorer, most of
Speaker 1: us in the tech world kind of go really really,
Speaker 1: But you know what if you if you're using the
Speaker 1: latest I E on Windows eight point one, it's not
Speaker 1: a bad browser you might like. And I mean there's
Speaker 1: objectively speaking, not subjectively like objectively it's not a poor browser. Um.
Speaker 1: But the word I E. Just it just brings with
Speaker 1: it this history that you know, people just associate with
Speaker 1: either bad technology or horrible compatibility issues like you had
Speaker 1: with i E eight where you have to build basically
Speaker 1: a version of your website just for warm browser. Um,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of problems and obviously the security
Speaker 1: issues with i E six. It's you know, get rid
Speaker 1: of the name. It's a it's a real problem. Is
Speaker 1: why people don't really name their children after murderers, because
Speaker 1: well there's a yeah, yeah, exactly yeah, and and so
Speaker 1: the the next one, and who knows, by the time
Speaker 1: this podcast goes live, maybe they'll have officially announced the name.
Speaker 1: But it's code named Project Spartan, which is built on
Speaker 1: different codes. It's code that if you trace it back,
Speaker 1: you know it has roots that are common to Internet Explorer,
Speaker 1: but again it's a different evolutionary path um and it's
Speaker 1: going to uh be the new approach for browsers. There
Speaker 1: will be continued support for Internet Explorer for a while,
Speaker 1: but we're going to see that gradually taper off until
Speaker 1: we are left with whatever Project Spartan is named at
Speaker 1: the time. I am curious where they came up with
Speaker 1: that name because they have the personal assistant Cortana and Quartana.
Speaker 1: That's a character from the Halo franchise, which Microsoft owns.
Speaker 1: Now it's good PR, it's good PR. Yeah, so Halo
Speaker 1: is cool. Xpox is the coolest thing Microsoft's ever done,
Speaker 1: named after the most popular thing. That the most popular
Speaker 1: thing is named after. Yeah, I mean they weren't going
Speaker 1: to call it master Chief, so master Chief. The main
Speaker 1: character in Halo is a Spartan soldier. They the type
Speaker 1: of armor he wears is designated as Spartan. So it's
Speaker 1: possible that this is another Halo reference. It could be
Speaker 1: that Spartan is totally is a Halo reference, like it's
Speaker 1: spartan either because it's a very bland, open interface, and
Speaker 1: then possibly but it's not, is it it's it's it's halo.
Speaker 1: I still think they should call it Windows grunt Well,
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess they could call it elite. I
Speaker 1: mean that would be that would be something I would
Speaker 1: have possibly an is our connotation than gruntwood. Although honestly,
Speaker 1: depending upon what version of Windows you're running, grunting might
Speaker 1: be your natural reaction to booting up your computer. Um,
Speaker 1: because I remember running older versions 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: Uh 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 any 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 in an 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 accounts 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 that stuff. It caused its own ultimate downfall, and
Speaker 1: the complacency just made that worse. Yeah, without without i E.
Speaker 1: Six you don't have necessarily the the incentive for a
Speaker 1: group like the Mozilla Foundation to really push for an
Speaker 1: alternative like Firefox. And then Firefox ends up becoming not
Speaker 1: just like first it when it debuts, it's it's definitely
Speaker 1: the underdog, but then very quickly in the grand scheme
Speaker 1: of things, became a true contender. Uh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: without without the problems of I E. 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 and
Speaker 1: a driver of change for the modern Internet. Hey god,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I feel pretty safe in saying
Speaker 1: that if Internet Explorer had not been If it hadn't
Speaker 1: been for Internet Explorer, for one thing, more people would
Speaker 1: never have been introduced to the Worldwide Web because since
Speaker 1: it was bundled with the operating system, it took that
Speaker 1: barrier to entry and throw it out the door right.
Speaker 1: It made it It became something that your computer could
Speaker 1: do as soon as you got it plugged up and
Speaker 1: connected to the Internet. There's still a bit of a
Speaker 1: barrier because you still had to get connected, but once
Speaker 1: you got past that, it was already ready to go.
Speaker 1: And so there was that it helped remove that barrier
Speaker 1: to entry. And because of that, because it had this
Speaker 1: uh enabling factor that drove more people to the Web.
Speaker 1: It allowed for the creation of things like websites like
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot Com, which means that I ultimately
Speaker 1: was able to land my dream job. So like, I
Speaker 1: don't know that things have unfolded the same way had
Speaker 1: Microsoft 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 uh part of our lives.
Speaker 1: But whether it would be to the same extent that
Speaker 1: it is now without Internet Explorer, I don't know. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, something that powerful and useful and uh and
Speaker 1: and ultimately profitable uh could not remain obscure forever, but
Speaker 1: it certainly could have taken longer without Internet Explorer for
Speaker 1: it to to get the traction that it got. So well,
Speaker 1: here's to the next years. Yeah, who knows, who knows?
Speaker 1: What you know? Maybe maybe we'll both be using a
Speaker 1: Microsoft machine and at that time and Mac will be
Speaker 1: a distant memory, and my my Chrome U my Chrome
Speaker 1: browser will be seen as as antiquated and cute. Yes,
Speaker 1: I doubt it, but we'll see. I'll be just I'll
Speaker 1: be passing through a midlife crisis and planning a sixtieth birthday. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll be. I'll be through my midlife crisis and well
Speaker 1: into my decline. All right. So Nate Lank said, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining me for these episodes. It
Speaker 1: has been a pleasure having you on the show. I
Speaker 1: greatly appreciate you taking the time and as as people
Speaker 1: have heard and maybe you maybe you didn't notice, but
Speaker 1: Nate has stayed up passed as bedtime to be on
Speaker 1: my show. So I appreciate that. Now it's much if
Speaker 1: I if I can stay up for two epic podcast episodes,
Speaker 1: time to talk about the history of a piece of software.
Speaker 1: I mean that is that is nerd tactic 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. Well, well, Nate, I'm going to take that
Speaker 1: as a positive and uh, I hope I can have
Speaker 1: you on the show again in the future. I would
Speaker 1: love to have you back on and chatting about some
Speaker 1: some other great tech topics. Nate is incredibly well versed
Speaker 1: in tons of technology. Uh. He very graciously agreed to
Speaker 1: be on this episode next time, I promise I will
Speaker 1: give him the full list of choices and just open
Speaker 1: up the option so he can pick whatever he wants to. UH,
Speaker 1: because it was I was playing unfairly this time. And
Speaker 1: that wraps up the story of Internet Explorer, at least
Speaker 1: as far as it went there. Obviously, we could talk
Speaker 1: a lot more about Internet Explorer today and the emergence
Speaker 1: of Edge as well, and UH probably will do that
Speaker 1: at some point. Maybe I'll even get Nate back on
Speaker 1: the show. If you have suggestions for topics I should
Speaker 1: cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, please reach out
Speaker 1: to me. You can do so on Twitter. The handle
Speaker 1: for the show is tech Stuff H s W and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Y. Tech Stuff
Speaker 1: is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.