epilogue

Since the heydays, my friends and I called Internet Explorer as Internet Exploder – it literally broke our carefully made layouts and pages; while every other browser worth it’s salt worked. The IE problems haven’t left Microsoft. In a developer conference in Australia, a student put Microsoft CEO – Steve Ballmer on the hot seat by asking him:

“Why is IE still relevant and why is it worth spending money on rendering engines when there are open source ones available that can respond to changes in Web standards faster?”

My heart goes out to that student, the question was well-homed. Apple uses the Open Source rendering engine called: WebKit for Safari on the Mac as well as the iPhone. Hell, Nokia uses WebKit too. Google has also joined the game with Google Chrome and Android. Besides, there are a plethora of rendering engines in the public domain. But yes, coming back to the student’s question, Ballmer seems to have replied:

“That’s cheeky, but a good question, but cheeky.”

He then went on to add, “Open source is interesting. Apple has embraced WebKit and we may look at that, but we will continue to build extensions for IE 8.” I’m sure that question caused Mr Ballmer some heart-burn. It was the IE6 to IE7 transition that delayed Vista and caused endless pain and misery for Microsoft Developers. The trouble is, despite all the effort and money that Microsoft spends on Internet Explorer, it doesn’t even adhere to basic standards.

But now, Web developers have taken things into their own hands. Several large websites in Norway have launched an advocacy campaign urging Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 users to upgrade their outdated web browsers. The phenomenon seems to be spreading with sites in Sweden, Indonesia and Australia joining in. Surprisingly, Microsoft is supporting the ban too. They want users to upgrade to IE7 and get in to a bigger can of worms.

I’ve stopped using Internet Explorer and most Microsoft software a long time ago. My Internet browsing experience has become less frustrating; the alternatives are much better than what Microsoft will ever be able to create.

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