{"id":732,"date":"2015-03-30T09:07:05","date_gmt":"2015-03-30T13:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kelseypro.com\/blog\/?p=732"},"modified":"2015-03-30T09:07:05","modified_gmt":"2015-03-30T13:07:05","slug":"rip-internet-explorer-1995-2015-we-knew-ye-all-too-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kelseypro.com\/blog\/rip-internet-explorer-1995-2015-we-knew-ye-all-too-well\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP Internet Explorer (1995-2015). We Knew Ye All Too Well"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Microsoft Internet Explorer, a browser familiar to many and loved by few, passed away today after a long illness. It was 19 years old.<\/p>\n

Bowing to the inevitable,\u00a0Microsoft admitted today that it had decided to remove IE from life support<\/a>. (IE will, however, continue to receive\u00a0tech support through at least 2016<\/a>.) IE is survived by Windows, Office, and the Microsoft Mouse.<\/p>\n

\"RIP<\/figure>\n

Photo: YouTube<\/i><\/p>\n

At its height, Internet Explorer \u2014 known unaffectionately as IE \u2014 dominated the Internet like no other software, accounting for 95 percent of all website visits. In recent times, however, IE\u2019s popularity waned, thanks to the rise of powerful rivals and a long string of security mishaps. But even at the time of IE\u2019s death, one in four Web surfers were using it as their browser of choice.<\/p>\n

Microsoft marketing chief Chris Capossela says it was a heart-wrenching decision for all concerned.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of us here on the Redmond campus loved IE. Yes, he was a cad and a scoundrel and a bit of a loose cannon, and the end got mighty ugly, but he was one of me own kind,\u201d Capossela said, inexplicably breaking into a heavy Irish brogue.*<\/p>\n

*This didn\u2019t actually happen.<\/i><\/p>\n

The early years<\/b><\/h2>\n

Internet Explorer 1.0 started life as a rebranded version of Spyglass Mosaic, itself based loosely on a browser developed by Marc Andreessen when he worked at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. It emerged into the world on Aug. 16, 1995.<\/p>\n

By then, Andreessen already had his own commercial version of NCSA Mosaic, called Netscape. Like brothers separated at birth, the two browsers became intense rivals over the next four years. When Netscape introduced JavaScript, Microsoft countered with Cascading Style Sheets. Both companies continually upped the ante, creating the most intense head-to-head competition ever seen in the technology world.<\/p>\n

Then matters threatened to turn violent. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates\u2019s vow to \u201ccrush\u201d Netscape formed a key piece of evidence in\u00a0the Department of Justice\u2019s 1998 antitrust suit<\/a>\u00a0against Microsoft. Fearing for its life, Netscape chose to enter the witness protection program, becoming part of AOL in 1999. It has not been seen since.<\/p>\n

Rise and fall<\/b><\/h2>\n

For years, IE\u2019s domination of the browser market remained unchallenged, and the pace of browser innovation ground to a halt. But IE\u2019s meteoric rise was matched by an equally precipitous fall.<\/p>\n

In 2004, a new rival emerged: Firefox. Based on code created by the old Netscape team, it was the first browser to pose a credible threat to IE. Four years later, Google released Chrome, another nimble alternative for Web surfers. Both free browsers slowly began to eat away at IE\u2019s market share.<\/p>\n

Then the security scandals hit. In 2006, researchers identified\u00a0hundreds of vulnerabilities<\/a>\u00a0that could allow rogue websites to steal information or take control of users\u2019 computers.\u00a0PC World magazine named IE 6 the eighth-<\/a>worst product<\/a>\u00a0of all time and \u201cthe least secure software on the planet.\u201d In 2008, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) recommended turning off the ActiveX controls inside IE because of security concerns. In August 2014, CERT told users to ditch IE entirely until it was patched.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/figure>\n

Photo: ZDNet<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

There were regulatory battles as well. To comply with a European Union antitrust ruling, Microsoft was forced to release a version of Windows without IE in June 2009. Those loading Windows 7\u00a0were able to choose from among a dozen browser alternatives<\/a>. The browser ballot program concluded last December.<\/p>\n

The final days<\/b><\/h2>\n

By this time, IE had plummeted from a commanding lead to a distant second or third place in the browser market, lagging well behind Chrome in\u00a0nearly every survey<\/a>. Even reports showing that IE 10 was\u00a0actually more secure<\/a>\u00a0than its browser rivals could not forestall the inevitable.<\/p>\n

If not universally mourned, IE will be long remembered for its many contributions to browser technology as well as for bringing Web surfing to the masses.<\/p>\n

In lieu of flowers, Microsoft requests well-wishers to please support Project Spartan, the new and allegedly much-improved browser set to debut in Windows 10 later this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft Internet Explorer, a browser familiar to many and loved by few, passed away today after a long illness. It was 19 years old. Bowing to the inevitable,\u00a0Microsoft admitted today that it had decided to remove IE from life support. (IE will, however, continue to receive\u00a0tech support through at least 2016.) IE is survived by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,24,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online-marketing","category-social-media","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kelseypro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kelseypro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kelseypro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kelseypro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kelseypro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.kelseypro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":736,"href":"https:\/\/www.kelseypro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions\/736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kelseypro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kelseypro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kelseypro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}