{"slug": "internet-explorer", "name": "Internet Explorer", "category": "browsers", "category_name": "Browsers and extensions", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 30, "warners": 20, "score": -13.482, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-11-19", "latest": "2026-10-14", "why": "I remember when IE implemented XMLHTTPRequest, and it did a lot of good for the web.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 7, "compare": 1, "warn": 21}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I remember when IE implemented XMLHTTPRequest, and it did a lot of good for the web.", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Internet Explorer", "Internet Explorer 11", "Internet Explorer 5"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 782276928, "item_id": 48892308, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48892308", "by": "dwoldrich", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "That browser was the first really modern one", "excerpt": "Element.scrollHeight first appeared in the DOM API with IE6 in 2001 as far as I can tell. That browser was the first really modern one, with javascript and CSS that could drive a dynamic layout and they innovated with things like AJAX and vector graphics. The web browser had matured from a document model with live elements to a programmable operating environment. The API implementation was klunky though, where DOM El", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Are you telling me a readonly property is wrecking my performance?"}, {"id": 759673424, "item_id": 47479589, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47479589", "by": "leptons", "date": "2026-03-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I remember when IE implemented XMLHTTPRequest, and it did a lot of good for the web.", "excerpt": ">The very important part about this is whether or not these features are actually considered a web standard or is it Google pushing their own agenda. Apple is on the W3C board that gets to decide what APIs become standards, so Apple is definitely pushing their own agenda on the W3C. So you can't really complain that Google is pushing their own agenda with these APIs when Apple is the one refusing to make them a stand", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari continues"}, {"id": 755228611, "item_id": 47201788, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47201788", "by": "linguae", "date": "2026-02-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I even liked Internet Explorer 5.", "excerpt": "Steve Jobs is famous for his 1996 quote about Microsoft not having taste (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiOzGI4MqSU). I disagree; as much as I love the classic Mac OS and Jobs-era Mac OS X, and despite my feelings about Microsoft's monopolistic behavior, 1995-2000 Microsoft's user interfaces were quite tasteful, in my opinion, and this was Microsoft's most tasteful period. I have fond memories of Windows 95/NT 4/98", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Windows 95 user interface: A case study in usability engineering (1996)"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 801366689, "item_id": 50085418, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50085418", "by": "nchmy", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "It's the nre Internet Explorer", "excerpt": "Beyond their anti-PWA bullshit, safari is just a worse browser across the board. It's the nre Internet Explorer. Much more on that here https://infrequently.org/series/browser-choice-must-matter/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple: Switch to Safari (From Chrome)"}, {"id": 801330016, "item_id": 50083126, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50083126", "by": "csnover", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "nobody got to quit dealing with the misery of IE6", "excerpt": "Phoenix launched right at the peak of IE\u2019s market dominance and that name lasted about a year, so if you are remembering it that way, it was very early. By 2005, Firefox had ~10% global market share; by the time of the first Chrome release in 2008, Firefox had ~25% global market share[0]. So the OP had plenty of time to switch away from IE before Chrome showed up. In any case, nobody got to quit dealing with the mise", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's new 'Switch to Safari' campaign details why you should ditch Chrome"}, {"id": 799279584, "item_id": 49954974, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49954974", "by": "littlecranky67", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Internet Explorer never had position: sticky", "excerpt": "Maybe I'm too old, but remember position sticky is relatively \"new\" and I was around when browsers didn't support it, yet everybody demanded for \"affix\" solution [0] (the buzzword you would search to find a jquery plugin). Internet Explorer never had position: sticky, and FF only introduced it in 2014. And I dealt with projects until around at least 2017/2018 where enterprise clients would make any webdev required to", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why don't more developers \u201cuse the platform\u201d?"}, {"id": 794854448, "item_id": 49678403, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49678403", "by": "adolph", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I recall IE5 had quirks.", "excerpt": "Oh yeah, I forgot what the table layout stuff used to be like. Since the back has a shine gradient across the back, each position would need all the possible characters. iirc, in that period an article on A List Apart [0] proposed something like that. I think they were doing curved box corners and sending all corners in the same file and using background positioning to only show the portion of the image depicting tha", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple iPod Engraver (2019)"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["web development"], "compared": [{"slug": "firefox", "name": "Firefox", "co": 11, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "google-chrome", "name": "Google Chrome", "co": 6, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "safari", "name": "Safari", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "opera", "name": "Opera", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "microsoft-windows", "name": "Microsoft Windows", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "windows-xp", "name": "Windows XP", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50072286", "title": "Apple's new 'Switch to Safari' campaign details why you should ditch Chrome", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49619848", "title": "Apple iPod Engraver (2019)", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49654962", "title": "CSS Curiosities of the Past", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47788473", "title": "RedSun: System user access on Win 11/10 and Server with the April 2026 Update", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50085112", "title": "Apple: Switch to Safari (From Chrome)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50032064", "title": "There's little that's \"inevitable\" about AI", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"warn": 1}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 3, "compare": 1}, "2026-01": {"warn": 4, "neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"warn": 1, "neutral": 2}, "2026-05": {"warn": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-08": {"warn": 1}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 3}, "2026-10": {"warn": 4, "neutral": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 801366689, "item_id": 50085418, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50085418", "by": "nchmy", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "It's the nre Internet Explorer", "excerpt": "Beyond their anti-PWA bullshit, safari is just a worse browser across the board. It's the nre Internet Explorer. Much more on that here https://infrequently.org/series/browser-choice-must-matter/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple: Switch to Safari (From Chrome)"}, {"id": 801330016, "item_id": 50083126, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50083126", "by": "csnover", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "nobody got to quit dealing with the misery of IE6", "excerpt": "Phoenix launched right at the peak of IE\u2019s market dominance and that name lasted about a year, so if you are remembering it that way, it was very early. By 2005, Firefox had ~10% global market share; by the time of the first Chrome release in 2008, Firefox had ~25% global market share[0]. So the OP had plenty of time to switch away from IE before Chrome showed up. In any case, nobody got to quit dealing with the mise", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's new 'Switch to Safari' campaign details why you should ditch Chrome"}, {"id": 801316433, "item_id": 50082277, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50082277", "by": "dannyfritz07", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Google Chrome launch comic for nostalgia: https://scottmccloud.com/googlechrome/ Also good context for why the launch of Chrome was such a big deal.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's new 'Switch to Safari' campaign details why you should ditch Chrome"}, {"id": 800527680, "item_id": 50032980, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50032980", "by": "RunSet", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Microsoft explained that the latest versions of Windows 95 would not work under such a scenario", "excerpt": "> In papers filed with the court on November 20, the DOJ told the court that Windows 95 would function without Internet Explorer 3.0, and that Microsoft should be required to offer computer manufacturers (OEMs) the option of installing Windows, free of Internet Explorer 3.0 in \u201call\u201d respects. In response, Microsoft explained that the latest versions of Windows 95 would not work under such a scenario https://news.micr", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "There's little that's \"inevitable\" about AI"}, {"id": 799279584, "item_id": 49954974, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49954974", "by": "littlecranky67", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Internet Explorer never had position: sticky", "excerpt": "Maybe I'm too old, but remember position sticky is relatively \"new\" and I was around when browsers didn't support it, yet everybody demanded for \"affix\" solution [0] (the buzzword you would search to find a jquery plugin). Internet Explorer never had position: sticky, and FF only introduced it in 2014. And I dealt with projects until around at least 2017/2018 where enterprise clients would make any webdev required to", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why don't more developers \u201cuse the platform\u201d?"}, {"id": 794854448, "item_id": 49678403, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49678403", "by": "adolph", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I recall IE5 had quirks.", "excerpt": "Oh yeah, I forgot what the table layout stuff used to be like. Since the back has a shine gradient across the back, each position would need all the possible characters. iirc, in that period an article on A List Apart [0] proposed something like that. I think they were doing curved box corners and sending all corners in the same file and using background positioning to only show the portion of the image depicting tha", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple iPod Engraver (2019)"}, {"id": 794844880, "item_id": 49677805, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49677805", "by": "ssharp", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "IE was an albatross around every web developers neck", "excerpt": "Lots of things were different on the front end back then: - IE was an albatross around every web developers neck - Even better browsers like Firefox and Safari had tons of inconsistencies - jQuery and Prototype weren't around yet - CSS is not remotely close to what it is today Honestly, placing text over an image was a lofty task back then. We used to use lots of images with text as part of the image. Text images and", "context": "", "use_case": "web development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple iPod Engraver (2019)"}, {"id": 794582048, "item_id": 49661378, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49661378", "by": "stephenhuey", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "due to them building a monopoly in the browser space and then abandoning it", "excerpt": "I wonder how many trillions in GDP we missed out on due to them building a monopoly in the browser space and then abandoning it. You can't imagine how happy I was in 2005 when Microsoft announced they were resuming development on IE. I was already a fan of Firefox by that point, but a lot of web dev was such a drag because you couldn't just use modern browser features--you had to accommodate all the users still brows", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "CSS Curiosities of the Past"}, {"id": 794509216, "item_id": 49656826, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49656826", "by": "robin_reala", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I\u2019d already moved IE7 to \u201cfunctional\u201d support in late 2016", "excerpt": "Sounds about right. Looking back I\u2019d already moved IE7 to \u201cfunctional\u201d support in late 2016[1] and was planning to do the same to 8 and 9 in the not too distant future. [1] https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2016/10/21/gaining-understanding-of-the-browsers-people-use/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "CSS Curiosities of the Past"}, {"id": 788285248, "item_id": 49267828, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49267828", "by": "alwillis", "date": "2026-08-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "", "excerpt": "An excellent list of modern CSS: https://nerdy.dev/cascading-secret-sauce. There's also https://modern-css.com/.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "CSS Properties You Should Know for Better Text Designs"}, {"id": 784548336, "item_id": 49034271, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49034271", "by": "WillAdams", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "bundling Internet Explorer rather than having two separate produces", "excerpt": "Microsoft also had more instances of being petty, (see the bit about join press releases in Jerry Kaplan's _StartUp_ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1171250.Startup ), vindictive (bundling Internet Explorer rather than having two separate produces, an HTML display component coded to the standard and usable by all apps and a browser application which also used it and optionally extended it), and even destructive (", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The day Steve Jobs dissed me in a keynote (2010)"}, {"id": 782276928, "item_id": 48892308, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48892308", "by": "dwoldrich", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "That browser was the first really modern one", "excerpt": "Element.scrollHeight first appeared in the DOM API with IE6 in 2001 as far as I can tell. That browser was the first really modern one, with javascript and CSS that could drive a dynamic layout and they innovated with things like AJAX and vector graphics. The web browser had matured from a document model with live elements to a programmable operating environment. The API implementation was klunky though, where DOM El", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Are you telling me a readonly property is wrecking my performance?"}, {"id": 769060016, "item_id": 48066251, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48066251", "by": "traderj0e", "date": "2026-05-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "they broke so many standards and implemented them in closed source", "excerpt": "Chrome has gone off doing their own standards to some extent, but you're forgetting what it was like when Internet Explorer dominated. You basically couldn't use the web without IE because they broke so many standards and implemented them in closed source. Then there was ActiveX on top, straight up Windows binaries in web. And besides there being a dominant engine, only one browser could use that engine. Trading that", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Cloud Fraud Defence is just WEI repackaged"}, {"id": 764686241, "item_id": 47792890, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47792890", "by": "IFC_LLC", "date": "2026-04-16", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I remember the times when IE passed ACID test?", "excerpt": "Boy oh boy, have we forgotten the Maxthon? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxthon I remember the times when IE passed ACID test? Do we remember the ACID? http://acid2.acidtests.org/#top Ah, what the times were those. Firefox was just gaining traction. And I agree. Slack is sitting there, consuming over gig of memory on my computer, and Miranda NG was able to do the same functionality with cool skins and just 30 megs o", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "RedSun: System user access on Win 11/10 and Server with the April 2026 Update"}, {"id": 764684753, "item_id": 47792797, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47792797", "by": "uep", "date": "2026-04-16", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I know I was still using IE for some ActiveX web apps for a while.", "excerpt": "I agree with you on everything except the browser. I'm pretty sure I was using Firefox (or maybe Opera?) on Windows before the release of Vista. I know I was still using IE for some ActiveX web apps for a while. This was the era that I switched over to Linux full-time, but both Windows 2000 and XP were great OSes at this time. Linux was painful to adopt, but I really loved the promise of \"full-control\" over my comput", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "RedSun: System user access on Win 11/10 and Server with the April 2026 Update"}, {"id": 762653969, "item_id": 47665873, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47665873", "by": "AnthonyMouse", "date": "2026-04-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "your only option is to pay $200 for Windows + Internet Explorer.", "excerpt": "The argument for Windows is that you pay for Windows, and used to pay for Netscape Navigator, but now you have to get Internet Explorer if you want Windows. You can't say that you want to pay e.g. $160 for Windows without Internet Explorer and then $40 for Netscape, your only option is to pay $200 for Windows + Internet Explorer. It's tying. It's not really about whether you can remove it, it's about whether you can ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple approves driver that lets Nvidia eGPUs work with Arm Macs"}, {"id": 759673424, "item_id": 47479589, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47479589", "by": "leptons", "date": "2026-03-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I remember when IE implemented XMLHTTPRequest, and it did a lot of good for the web.", "excerpt": ">The very important part about this is whether or not these features are actually considered a web standard or is it Google pushing their own agenda. Apple is on the W3C board that gets to decide what APIs become standards, so Apple is definitely pushing their own agenda on the W3C. So you can't really complain that Google is pushing their own agenda with these APIs when Apple is the one refusing to make them a stand", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari continues"}, {"id": 759361809, "item_id": 47460113, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47460113", "by": "lemoncucumber", "date": "2026-03-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the dumpster fire that was IE6", "excerpt": "Reminds me of when they finally apologized for the dumpster fire that was IE6 [1] and resumed Internet Explorer development in the 2000s after Firefox came along and started eating IE's market share. In this case it's the MacBook Neo that's causing them to get off their asses and reinvest in the quality of their software after letting it stagnate for years, but the pattern is the same: rest on their monopolistic laur", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Our Commitment to Windows Quality"}, {"id": 755228611, "item_id": 47201788, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47201788", "by": "linguae", "date": "2026-02-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I even liked Internet Explorer 5.", "excerpt": "Steve Jobs is famous for his 1996 quote about Microsoft not having taste (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiOzGI4MqSU). I disagree; as much as I love the classic Mac OS and Jobs-era Mac OS X, and despite my feelings about Microsoft's monopolistic behavior, 1995-2000 Microsoft's user interfaces were quite tasteful, in my opinion, and this was Microsoft's most tasteful period. I have fond memories of Windows 95/NT 4/98", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Windows 95 user interface: A case study in usability engineering (1996)"}, {"id": 754521168, "item_id": 47157573, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47157573", "by": "tracker1", "date": "2026-02-25", "stance": "warn", "quote": "IE6-8 in particular were really bad", "excerpt": "TBF, a lot of people used to keep portable apps like this... then IT started locking down even being able to mount a USB storage device. I used to do this for my email and mail profile with a portable Thunderbird. I even worked on an app in a relatively secure environment where the work around for an early SPA and IE6-8 company wide, was for the systems analysts using our app to use a portable firefox browser on the ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown"}, {"id": 752480992, "item_id": 47030062, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47030062", "by": "ranger_danger", "date": "2026-02-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "0.02% as of January 2026", "excerpt": "0.02% as of January 2026: https://www.stetic.com/market-share/browser/ Results may also be skewed because IE mode in Edge will masquerade as IE. > Internet Explorer mode in Microsoft Edge enables backward compatibility and will be supported through at least 2029. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/announcements/internet-explorer-11-end-of-support", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Modern CSS Code Snippets: Stop writing CSS like it's 2015"}, {"id": 748227584, "item_id": 46764224, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46764224", "by": "graemep", "date": "2026-01-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "bundling an incompatible version of Java with IE", "excerpt": "> Java applets were removed from the browsers due to issues being found regularly Java applets were killed off my MS's attempt at \"embrace, extent, extinguish\" by bundling an incompatible version of Java with IE, and Sun's legal response to this.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Browser Is the Sandbox"}, {"id": 746734304, "item_id": 46670894, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46670894", "by": "layer8", "date": "2026-01-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The IE 11 desktop application remains supported on a number of Windows LTSC versions", "excerpt": "The IE 11 desktop application remains supported on a number of Windows LTSC versions: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windows-itpro-blog/internet-explorer-11-desktop-app-retirement-faq/2366549 At least one of them, Windows 10 IoT LTSC, will receive support until 2032.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "jQuery 4.0.0 Released"}, {"id": 745694980, "item_id": 46605936, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46605936", "by": "WorldMaker", "date": "2026-01-13", "stance": "warn", "quote": "IE-level adware/spyware shenanigans that led to him fleeing to Firefox", "excerpt": "My father, who is very non-technical has never left Firefox and stuck with it for decades, even against Microsoft and Chrome's tactics to try to claim default browser and constantly install them into his face. My father particularly hates Chrome because he never understands how it keeps reinstalling itself despite his best efforts. His taskbar is often a mess of all three browsers because he can't figure out how to k", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Owners, not renters: Mozilla's open source AI strategy"}, {"id": 745298112, "item_id": 46581132, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46581132", "by": "alwillis", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "You had to do this to make :hover work correctly for IE6\u2014IE8", "excerpt": "> It\u2019s not a hack Yeah, this isn't a hack; this is what media queries were made for. Now, this is a hack! You had to do this to make :hover work correctly for IE6\u2014IE8 [1]: body { behavior: url(\"csshover3.htc\"); } [1]: https://pawelgrzybek.com/internet-explorer-just-hit-the-end-of-life-lets-remind-ourselves-of-our-favourite-ie-hacks/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "HTML-only conditional lazy loading (via preload and media)"}, {"id": 745244512, "item_id": 46577782, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46577782", "by": "ndiddy", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Internet Explorer, the most popular browser, was essentially frozen apart from security fixes", "excerpt": "> I learned HTML quite late, when HTML 5 was already all the rage, and I never understood why the more strict rules of XML for HTML never took off. They seem so much saner than whatever soup of special rules and exceptions we currently have. XHTML came out at a time when Internet Explorer, the most popular browser, was essentially frozen apart from security fixes because Microsoft knew that if the web took off as a v", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "You are not required to close your <p>, <li>, <img>, or <br> tags in HTML"}, {"id": 742682000, "item_id": 46417625, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46417625", "by": "cheeaun", "date": "2025-12-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Many years ago, IE requires `document.createElement`.", "excerpt": "Many years ago, IE requires `document.createElement`. HTML5 Shiv was needed, with added history https://www.paulirish.com/2011/the-history-of-the-html5-shiv/ (2011)", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "You can make up HTML tags"}, {"id": 742030850, "item_id": 46376928, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46376928", "by": "leptons", "date": "2025-12-24", "stance": "compare", "quote": "at least Microsoft didn't forbid installation of any other browser engine", "excerpt": "No it isn't. People should be free to use software they like, and not get subterfuge like they get from Apple. What Apple has now is a total monopoly on iOS browsers. It's far worse than what Microsoft did to get sued for antitrust violations when they simply bundled IE with Windows - at least Microsoft didn't forbid installation of any other browser engine like Apple is doing on iOS. If Apple didn't purposely hobble", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fifty problems with standard web APIs in 2025"}, {"id": 740840210, "item_id": 46302513, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46302513", "by": "observationist", "date": "2025-12-17", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the atrocity that was internet explorer", "excerpt": ">>> Also, a small minor detail here: We're not paying for firefox! why are so many people feeling entitled? Mozilla has to do something other than beg Google to survive. Because some of us have supported, donated to, advocated for, and participated in the firefox and mozilla communities over the years, and feel betrayed by the abandonment of principles, kowtowing to adtech surveillance \"features\", and overall enshitt", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?"}, {"id": 740699891, "item_id": 46293743, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46293743", "by": "Zak", "date": "2025-12-16", "stance": "warn", "quote": "IE was terrible", "excerpt": "It's interesting that most people on Windows PCs switch to Chrome when Edge is the default. It was obvious why people switched from IE6 to Firefox and later from IE7 to Chrome; IE was terrible; Firefox was better; Chrome was better still. Edge is not obsolete, unstable, or a security nightmare the way IE was. Chrome even has significant user share on Mac OS; the numbers I'm finding are around 40%. It's hard to guess ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo"}, {"id": 739199250, "item_id": 46199953, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46199953", "by": "mook", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "they later switched to IE-style icons with distinct shapes, which was better", "excerpt": "Yeah, I learned that using Netscape 6 with a row of blue balls for icons; going from the older Mozilla builds with the Netscape 4-style icons it was a definite downgrade. Pheonix had a row of orange balls; they later switched to IE-style icons with distinct shapes, which was better. The recent Android releases where everything is a squircle really sucks too.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Icons in Menus Everywhere \u2013 Send Help"}, {"id": 735734208, "item_id": 45983388, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45983388", "by": "JumpCrisscross", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "remember when South Korean banks forced the country to use ActiveX and Internet Explorer?", "excerpt": "> OS feature is also a terrible option - remember when South Korean banks forced the country to use ActiveX and Internet Explorer? Just let Estonia run the programme [1]. [1] https://e-estonia.com/solutions/estonian-e-identity/id-card/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws"}]}