Pew Pew Laser Blog

Tales of Shame.

I have heard a few tales of the shame of Internet Explorer 6, the web browser famously despised by web developers (even its own creator). Submitted for your approval, here are a couple of those tales:

• Six years passed between the release of Internet Explorer 6 (2001) and the next version, IE7 (2007). Why so long? I was told that after IE6 was released, Microsoft decided that browser wars were won. The development team disbanded. I recently mentioned this story to an actual longtime Microsoft employee, who said "that sounds about right".
• An large technical organization has some critical business applications which only work in IE6. They will be upgrading all their workstations to Windows 7, which includes Internet Explorer 8, but not IE6. The solution? Instead of upgrading the legacy web application, this organization will provide virtual WinXp machines with IE6.

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