WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The Story of Internet Explorer, Part 1 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:14.680 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.760 Javan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.680 and how the tech are you? It's time for a 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.799 classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode originally published on 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:28.320 May four, two thousand fifteen, So Hey, star wars day. 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:32.640 It is titled The Story of Internet Explorer, Part One, 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:37.760 which I guess means you can probably have a pretty 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.360 good idea of what next week's classic episode is going 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:45.160 to be. This episode featured special guest Nate Langson. Nate 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.960 is awesome, great tech journalist. I should have him on 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:51.160 the show again. It's been too long since I last 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:55.560 spoke with him. Hope you enjoy. Nate is joining me 0:00:55.720 --> 0:01:00.640 to talk about Internet Explorer, and the reason we're talking 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.360 about it is that it's a web browser has a 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:07.440 very long history, and that history now seems to have 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:10.720 an end cap to it because Microsoft appears to be 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:15.840 leaving Internet Explorer behind and embracing a new product that 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:20.360 currently is codenamed Projects Spartan, but we'll probably have some 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:24.160 different name once it actually goes live. So we're going 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:31.000 to cover the dramatic history that's filled with uh tons 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:35.360 of interesting stories, as it turns out, and to really 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:38.160 get started, we have to turn the clock back before 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:42.200 there was ever any web browsers at all, at the 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:44.920 birth of the first web browser, which we can trace 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:53.440 back to Christmas Day, December nineteen wo m C m 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:59.200 x C, as the Romans would call it. Right, I'm 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.400 glad you took that. Whenever I start thinking about Roman numerals, 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:05.200 I have to start dialing I X I I uh, 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:08.440 which only takes sense for the listeners here in America. 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:14.320 Um So, Tim berners Lee was working at at cern 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:18.320 saying people who are responsible for the large Hadron Collider, 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:24.480 and had developed a program that would allow for the 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:28.920 retrieval and display of information UH in a way that 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.600 would make sense, make it easy to navigate. This would 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:34.239 become the first web browser, which is kind of funny 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:36.800 because without the web browser, you really don't have a 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:40.520 worldwide Web. You definitely had an Internet because the Internet 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.200 is a network of networks and a lot of people 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:46.440 I realize maybe this isn't as bad as it used 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.240 to be, but a lot of people often will say 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.600 web and mean Internet or vice versa. They'll use the 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.959 terms changeably. I've described it in the past. Touch the 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.560 two people who get this wrong as the web is 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.839 the call on the highway that is the internet, right. 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:07.680 They they are the websites on top of the net, right, 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:10.519 And there are other vehicles on that same highway, right. 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.640 Because the email does not have to be web based 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:18.200 uh FTP, you know, file transfer protocol, other protocols. Um. 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.160 In fact, the way I originally really made use of 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.720 the Internet back in the day was through the tel 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.320 net chat client. I used that a lot when I 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:29.240 was in college as a way of distracting myself and 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:32.960 making friends with people who were more into the same 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.720 things I was into. I went to for the first 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:39.160 two years of my schooling a small community college in 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:41.880 rural Georgia, and a lot of the people I was 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:45.080 around didn't share the same interests I did, so telling 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:47.960 that was one of those things that allowed me to 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.720 go beyond that. But that was before I had ever 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:57.240 heard of the Worldwide Web and web browsers um. So 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:00.320 we have to remember that this time before were there 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.480 were browsers there, there were there were not really any 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:07.800 user friendly ways of accessing information. You kind of had 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:13.240 to really dive into the tech and understand commands in 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:15.360 order to get anything out of it. Even if those 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:18.520 commands were fairly simple, it was an high enough barrier 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.320 of entry that there were only a few of us 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.440 playing in that in that world at that time, right, 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:26.880 I mean, there were like people in colleges and research 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:31.000 facilities and governments that had access to it for various 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:37.080 official purposes. There were very few like fun applications outside 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:41.320 of some wacky people saying, hey, this computer that's crunching 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:45.360 numbers for your your astronomy class, we can also make 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:49.279 it play tic tech toe. I mean around about this time, 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.719 there were also other similar sort of projects they think 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.480 that we're going on at certain like people built sort 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:59.839 of not competing necessarily, but there were other programs that 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.240 created to sort of browse in a in a more 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:07.320 visual way, right, And and it turns out that this 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:11.120 was a brilliant idea. And another little thing to fall 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.960 back on is just a quick explanation of what's going 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:16.400 on with a web browser. For those of you who 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:21.479 are you know, more casual fans of technology, this might 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:23.640 be helpful for those of you who you know, are 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:26.080 really deep in the field. This is going to sound 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.479 incredibly simplistic, but we have to talk about what a 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.279 client is and what a server is. So your client 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:36.280 is essentially your machine, the device you're using to end 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:41.160 up retrieving information from some other computer a server which 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.480 actually holds the information that you are interested in. So 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:46.760 if you are using a web browser to visit a 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.920 web page, there is somewhere in the world a computer 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:53.360 that has all that information on it and it gets 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:57.520 the request from your browser the client, and says, all right, well, 0:05:57.560 --> 0:05:59.880 here's what you ask for, and send it across the internet. 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.680 Your browser is in charge of displaying that information in 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:09.320 some way that hopefully is useful and informative. And that's 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:13.320 the basic relationship that the web browser is built around. 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:15.920 It's not the only client server relationship, but it's a 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:19.440 great example of one, I mean, and it's it's interesting because, 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:21.919 as I'm sure we will be coming too later, the 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:25.240 relationship between the idea of a client server model really 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.440 has not changed. And in fact, when you get into 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:32.560 the likes of the Chrome OS, the browser is just 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.839 a dumb client. It's a client terminal model for the 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:39.880 entire OS and essentially, but we're moving forward twenty five 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.480 years before we get at that point. The nice thing 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.200 is that this model works so well that it ended 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.360 up being the foundation for a lot of different applications, 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.520 including the Chrome operating system and uh and of course 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:57.000 we're seeing more and more services and applications migrating to 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:01.200 the Internet side of things where we see this this uh, 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.240 I mean, it's kind of a seesaw act. Right on 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:08.360 one side, we see hardware manufacturers that are still saying no, no, no, 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:12.760 you really want the strongest, fastest machine possible. And meanwhile 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:15.520 all the service providers are saying, we're handling all the 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:18.000 heavy lifting. You just need a device that can connect 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:22.000 to us. That way we get to control all the stuff. Uh. 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:25.080 So it's it's but it's because of this relationship that 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:29.120 that kind of infrastructure is even possible. I mean that, 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:31.200 I mean, that's the interesting thing. Also, just as a 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:35.400 slight related tangent, I suppose about Moore's law, which is 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:39.520 celebrating an anniversary at the moment, is that it's always 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:41.800 been assumed that we need the most and biggest and 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.400 fastest power in our computers because we want to do 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:47.240 more and more things locally. Which, in a way, if 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:49.000 that was always going to be true, you would need 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.320 less and less on the on the service side outside 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:55.320 of the well the realms of um the web. But 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.560 of course now it's becoming much more about efficiency and 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:02.840 and low cost and and um thinness in our devices, 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.040 and so we don't need that sort of huge lifting 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:08.560 power within the machines we're currently using ourselves, which makes 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:13.000 a browser the perfect interface for a modern machine because 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.800 it just needs to be the go between, the conduit 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:20.560 between the very powerful server and the very small, powerful, 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:25.160 less powerful desktop machine or laptop or tablet or notebook 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:27.880 or what have you. And it means More's law has 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:32.720 may actually become irrelevant before it actually becomes wrong. You know, 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:35.640 we may not need that power, that sort of doubling 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:39.520 of power every eighteen months, because we have actually no 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:42.400 need for that power anymore. And in fact, Moore's law 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:46.880 originally was all about the financial side of you know, 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:50.160 the fact that there were these financial drivers that were 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:56.320 incentives to create these increasingly more powerful and smaller components 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.080 on square inch of silicon. Now we're getting to a 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.480 point where if if we don't need that, then there's 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.960 less incentive. So there may be a point of pride 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.920 among some you know, engineers and computer scientists who want 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.920 to keep pushing that envelope and try and make it um, 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:14.400 you know, try and beat their record in a way. 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:20.160 But if the the demand isn't there, then, like you said, 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:24.400 Moore's law could become obsolete before we hit that fundamental 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:29.280 limit from the laws of physics that had gone through 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:33.720 the same exponential growth that More's law predicted for um 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:36.640 silicon um, you would be able to do a hundred 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:42.120 miles on one tenth of a millilita of fuel and 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:45.120 that would cost you twenty five cents in a car 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:49.280 that costs five cents. And uh, in order to get 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.040 back to the world that where this is, this is 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.520 being you know, this is a relevant thing. UH, going 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:57.680 back to the early nineties. This is these are the 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.800 days where early nineties I was in high school about 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:04.560 to go into college. UM and early to mid nineties 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:09.240 that's my high school college years. Uh. In the those 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:12.520 early nineties, you started seeing lots of different programmers build 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:16.040 their own web browsers. A lot of them were within cerns, 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:20.800 some of them were in colleges and universities, and we 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.280 started to see more people get access to it because 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:25.080 it was very clear that this was going to be 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:28.960 a useful tool to navigate information. We move on to 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:33.600 February and that's when Mark and Reason and Eric Bana 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:37.080 of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:41.520 of Illinois at Urbana champaign A eight and C. S A, 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:44.360 our mutual friend Tom Merritt I believe, went to the 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.360 University of Illinois UH and C. S A. They decided 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.600 to introduce a browser themselves. That was the Mosaic Browser. 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.720 It was on Unix. It was also for the the 0:10:55.880 --> 0:11:00.880 X Windows platform UM and UH there there colleague Alex 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.440 Todec created a version that could run on Macintosh computer. 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.120 So this was a browser that could run on cross platforms. 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:10.880 Although uh, the appearance of web information vary depending upon 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.760 what platform you were using, So it wasn't a m 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:16.880 a smooth experience across all platforms. It wasn't something that 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:18.319 was It wasn't like you were going to get the 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.160 exact same experience on one machine as on another, but 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:25.480 you could get to the information. UH and I had 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:27.720 a lot of features that said, apart from the earlier 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:30.280 web browsers, like things that we take for granted now, 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:34.040 like bookmarks, you know that would being able to to 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:36.760 mark a specific web page is something of interest so 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.240 that you can easily navigate to it in the future. 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.760 It was really important also things like icons and pictures 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.040 as opposed to just text, which made it more attractive 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:47.480 to look at um and it was free to use. 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.880 And it's important to mention this beforehand because it turns 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:53.960 out a lot of the the stuff they worked on 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:58.079 would later find its way into other future web browsers. 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:02.680 By ninety nine, market Drissa would partner with Jeff clark 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.720 and who was the founder of Silicon Graphics. They created 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:11.880 Mosaic Communications. It was later renamed to Netscape Communications, and 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:14.600 they started to develop a web browser for the consumer market. 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.000 So that's gonna sound really familiar to anyone who was, 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.360 you know, using computers around the time of the first 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:24.839 browser Wars. Netscape should definitely ring a bell. Uh. This 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:28.720 is around the time that that Windows is basically about 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.880 to go gold and and go on sales, So we're 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:34.240 still in Windows three point one era at the moment, 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:39.040 I think, and uh, and I mean the Netscape navigator, 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:41.960 I think was the very I might have used Mosaic 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:43.840 when I was in college, come to think of it, 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:49.319 But I'm pretty sure. I quickly transition to Netscape Navigator 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:54.280 and that became my browser of choice in those days. Um, 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:56.200 you know, I didn't ask you, Nate, what browser do 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:01.240 you typically use when you almost everything? So you are 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.560 you are clearly a Mac owner. I am a Mac owner. 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.040 I I love Safari because I use almost no add 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.360 ons at all, because I just want speed and fast 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.360 and I needed to think everything, and so far he's 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:16.839 always work really well for me. That makes sense. I 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.600 I detest Safari with a passion that burns brighter than 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.720 the thousand explaining funds. But it's mostly because I don't 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.200 use a Mac. If I did use a Mac, then, like, 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:29.920 if you're in the Apple infrastructure, it's amazing. If you're 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:33.600 all in, it's phenomenal. If you're only kind of sort 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:37.000 of in, it gets really irritating really quickly. But then 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:41.360 I'm all in on the Google infrastructure, so I use Chrome. Yes, 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.520 that's the difference, you see, because the browser is the 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:47.000 thing you use the most, I would imagine, and so 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:50.040 if your phone is the thing that you carry and 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:51.880 use the most in the day, then it stands to 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:53.640 reason that you're going to want to use a browser 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:57.280 that worked best on a phone, right, and that's kind 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:00.000 of peeking ahead to some of the issues with Internet explore. 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.960 Uh So, so we get the n c s A 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:07.000 licensing the commercial rights to Mosaic to a company that 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.920 was called at the time, spy Glass. The company no 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:12.520 longer exists, so that should tell you how things turn 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:15.480 out in the future. Spy Glass ended up licensing that 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:19.840 same technology to other companies, including Microsoft, So the Mosaic 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.560 code ends up making its way to Microsoft um and 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:26.160 that was really important to Microsoft because, as Nate was saying, 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:30.120 they were preparing Windows for launch and they really wanted 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:32.200 to have a component in there that would be a 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.720 web browser, and they had decided that it made more 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:38.920 sense to license that technology from someone else rather than 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:42.360 trying to develop it in house. So that's what led 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:47.360 them to spy Glass and licensing the Mosaic code. We'll 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:49.720 be back with more of this classic episode of tech 0:14:49.760 --> 0:15:00.880 stuff after this quick break October, before and Escape would 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:03.200 release a beta version of their project, which was codenamed 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:07.479 Mozilla that will become important later to It was designated 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:12.560 zero point nine six b uh. I decided early on 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:15.400 that when I we started looking at the actual builds 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.360 of Internet Explorer. We're gonna look at whole numbers only, 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:23.600 because otherwise the path leads to madness. You mean you 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.920 how going to consider Chrome Version twenty six point nine 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:32.280 point six point three six four was a seminal release. 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:34.280 I mean it was beautiful, really, I mean that the 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:37.960 fact that it improves so much upon the press accessor 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.560 that came out earlier that same day is phenomenal. But no, 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:45.480 I'm going to skip it. Um. Yeah, So we move 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:49.760 on to to August. That is the day Microsoft released 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:55.960 the Windows operating system. Uh man, I still remember the 0:15:56.000 --> 0:16:00.840 commercials for Windows they had. They had this little band, 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:05.000 the Rolling Stones, that had a song called start Me 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.080 Up that was played during the Windows nine commercials. Because 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.640 that was also the introduction of the start button on Windows. 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.040 Uh the little button that wouldn't quit or people wouldn't 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.560 let the little button quit. And they introduced a web 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:22.280 browser which they named Internet Explorer. Made a lot of sense, 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.720 it was it was, in fact, a way to navigate 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.840 through the Internet, specifically the World Wide Web. But this 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:30.760 is this is the point I just interject here because 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:32.800 this is the thing that I've always hated about Internet 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:36.600 Explorer is that it's a web browser, right, why is 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:40.760 it not cold Web Explorer. I think uh, I think 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.680 they were afraid they might have, you know, some sort 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:47.080 of confusion with spiders or something. I don't know, Nate, 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.760 It's it confuses me to but yeah, Internet Explorer one 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:54.800 point oh came out with Windows. They had an agreement 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:58.800 with spy Glass, which was incredibly clever. Some might call 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:03.760 it sneaky and underhanded. Their agreement with spy Glass. So 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:08.680 Spyglass makes the the code, the technology that Internet Explorer 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:13.639 runs on Internet Explorer. The agreement with Spyglass was that 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:17.119 Microsoft would pay a quarterly fee to spy Glass. All right, 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:21.280 that's cool, and they also agreed to share royalties for 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:27.120 Internet Explorer. But Microsoft also decided to bundle Internet Explorer 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:32.399 with Windows, so Internet Explore itself wasn't on sale and 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:35.480 so if you're not selling it, you can't make royalties, 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:37.800 which means they didn't have to share any money from 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:45.840 the Windows sales to spy Glass. Yeah. Pretty sneaky. Um. 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.359 That would end up biting them a little bit later, 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:50.720 but at any rate, at the time they were just like, hey, 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.720 we really scored on this. Now when they started only 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:59.399 six Microsoft employees. According to every source, I saw only 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:03.040 six people in Microsoft. We're actually working on Internet Explorer, 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:05.920 which is kind of hard to believe today. Um And 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:08.959 at the time, the web was not what you and 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.200 I are used to. It had about twenty basic tags 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:17.000 and HTML that allowed you to construct pages and change 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:20.199 the style things like tables and and the font size, 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.280 that kind of stuff. So it's really really basic. And 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:27.720 if you ever look at screenshots of old browsers at 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:31.919 old web pages, I mean it mostly looks like the 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.400 blandest Wikipedia page you have ever seen, with no pictures 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:37.560 or anything like that. A lot of the early ones 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.600 don't have any pictures on them because if you did 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:43.919 put a picture on it, then you were shooting yourself 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:46.520 in the foot. Most of us did not have any 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:50.800 fast connection to any kind of networks, so accessing a 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:54.720 website with pictures meant that you would start, you know, 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.359 you navigate to the page, walk away from your computer 0:18:57.400 --> 0:18:59.399 for ten minutes, and then come back to see if 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.080 the pictures at all loaded. I remember it well. I 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:04.119 particularly remember it when I was trying to view pictures 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:07.640 on the now defunct page cats scan, where people would 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.640 use flatbed scanners to scan the undersides of their cats, 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:14.080 and yeah, you I could actually walk away and be 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:16.560 very British and make a cup of tea while waiting 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:19.000 for the photo of the cat to arrive on my computer. 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:22.399 I guess this is the point where I I I 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:26.639 mentioned that Nate has too particular great passions in life, 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:32.000 which include metal and cats. Yes, and the other ones, 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:33.560 but they are the ones I am known for. It 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:35.679 seems those are the those are the two I whenever 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.879 I hear if you think from you on social media, 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:41.879 there's a there's a probably at chance it's going to 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:44.480 fall into one of those two categories. Yeah. So there's 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.000 still quite a few other things, but they don't they don't. 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:51.200 They don't hit as high as slice on the pie chart. Yes, 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:55.400 that's very true, very true. So one of the things 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:59.520 about the limitations of HTML that were that was a 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:03.920 particular are thorn in the sides of early web browsers 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:08.440 and web users was that the limitations meant people had 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:12.760 to find creative ways around those limitations to create rich 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:16.040 user experiences. I don't think did they ever use that 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:21.000 term in the UK, the rich user experience experience? Yes, 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:23.000 I mean we we probably heard it quite a bit. 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:25.800 I don't remember it particularly, but I imagine it was 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.800 there amongst all the other ones like zip drives and right, 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:34.080 all right, Uh, the rich user experience. That was something 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:36.879 where the idea was that you wanted to create a 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:40.640 a an experience for the user that went beyond just 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:44.800 simple text lines and pictures. So one of the earliest 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:49.080 ones would be middies that would loop and there'd be 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:53.920 no way to stop them. Uh do you remember those? Yes, 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:58.200 I do remember those, Yes, middies, My goodness, middies. Yes, yes, 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:01.080 So just the days of my sp ace where you 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:03.760 would go to someone's MySpace page. I mean this, this 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.400 that goes beyond what we're talking about here. But even then, 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:10.080 oh the not not. I'm not sad to see those 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.320 days go. However, what it meant was that people had 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.760 to create software that would be a plug in, an 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:20.760 enhancement to a web browser to allow users to access 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:23.720 certain types of content, largely streaming content, whether it was 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:26.439 audio or video. So if you had a web browser 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:29.840 in those days, you had to often enhance it with 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:33.240 these plug ins, which made the browsers clung here slower. 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:36.240 They they required more memory in those days. Also, memory 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:40.959 was not as um plentiful as it is today computer memory, 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:44.240 So your whole computer would start to run more slowly 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:47.360 if you tried to access anything that had any kind 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:50.920 of you know, video or flash animation. Flash is another example. 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:52.560 Some plug ins that you had to have in order 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:55.400 to get more out of the web pages. We would 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:59.480 not see advances to HTML for a while. That would 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:03.399 address is the whole point of HTML five is to 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:06.560 take away the need for all these different plug ins 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:11.000 that often can become security vulnerabilities. UM. The idea being 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:14.800 that this way we can support those those different functions 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:19.159 natively within HTML and not have to have a Swiss 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:22.080 Army knife style web browser where you've added all these 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:29.080 extra features. UM. Anyway, the first version of Internet Explorer 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:32.040 was a thousand bare bones as you can get, and 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:36.920 the second one came out November twenty second nine. So 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:41.440 if you remember I said the first one came out August, 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:46.959 I E two comes out November twenty that that's an 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:52.560 incredibly narrow window for an entire version upgrade. You know, 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:58.560 it's uh fast does not really go into it. This 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:02.040 one was for when ninety five and Windows NT three 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:04.800 point five and Windows INT four point oh. So that 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:08.920 means within three months you get a full version upgrade. 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:11.480 But that was actually kind of typical in the early 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:15.439 days because the browsers were being We're getting more and 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:18.199 more advanced very quickly. Everyone was really interested in this. 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:21.919 This was the days when the media was starting to 0:23:22.080 --> 0:23:24.200 take notice of the World Wide Web and it was 0:23:24.240 --> 0:23:28.399 going beyond just uh, the the governments and colleges and 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:32.720 research facilities. So with that focus, you wanted to really 0:23:32.720 --> 0:23:36.280 get your browser too, to be uh, you know, a 0:23:36.280 --> 0:23:40.080 destination people wanted to go to. The people needed this technology. 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:42.880 There was another feature that they thought people needed an 0:23:42.880 --> 0:23:48.240 Internet to explore it too. I remember what's delicious cookies? 0:23:48.840 --> 0:23:52.679 Oh you know what? Those are important? Um, they have 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:58.000 been misused and that is unfortunate. They can cause huge problems. 0:23:58.480 --> 0:24:01.280 They are definitely lee one of those things you've got 0:24:01.280 --> 0:24:05.280 to worry about if you are concerned about Internet privacy. However, 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:09.200 that being said, it's also nice to be able to 0:24:09.320 --> 0:24:13.200