Microsoft to kill Internet Explorer brand

[daneel]

Will Spartan run on my Windows ME machine, though?

[anon73629133]

True to the namesake, I expect Spartan to have a rough time fitting into the new Millenium.

[WearySky]

@anon73430903

But did it really work? for example, did MS ever fix IE’s inability to cope with transparency on PNGs? That’s what I mean when I talk about stagnation, the lack of desire to fix anything other than the seriously bad security bugs.

Well, according to CanIUse (a neat site, btw, that I just discovered), PNG transparency has apparently been supported since IE8. Which is funny, since I feel like I remember IE having issues much later on than that.

[tachin1]

Logic? You hold me in too high a regard!

Now, let me propose the idea that we don’t really need a new browser.

…by Microsoft.

I mean, we’ve needed it for a long time now and what we got was IE 11
I have about 5 applications I rely on to do my job. One of those is Outlook and another is Notepad++
The fourth one is a browser.
Firefox is supported by just about everything I use it for, and other than being a memory hog, all the plugins that make my life easier are there. The only things for which I need IE is for interacting with legacy systems, and that means IE 11 (In compatibility mode. Fingers crossed).

IE is clearly filling a need, a new browser by Microsoft must either, continue filling that need (In which case the new browser is effectively IE 12), or abandon it like everyone else. In which case, unless it does something that the others don’t Then why bother? They don’t need to re brand it to make it better.

Edited for clarity

[enso]

@tachin1

Firefox is supported by just about everything I use it for, and other than being a memory hog, all the plugins that make my life easier are there.

I challenge you to back that up with current data. Firefox uses less than Chrome these days.

[enso]

@tachin1

IE is clearly filling a need, a new browser by Microsoft must either, continue filling that need (In which case the new browser is effectively IE 12), or abandon it like everyone else. In which case, unless it does something that the others don’t Then why bother? They don’t need to re brand it to make it better.

From Microsoft’s point of view? Because other browsers aren’t made by Microsoft, Microsoft ships Microsoft software in Windows, and all versions of Windows need a browser.

As a former Microsoft employee who worked on IE (and who has worked on Firefox for almost eight years now), Microsoft will always ship their own software. That’s just a given.

[tachin1]

@albill

I challenge you to back that up with current data. Firefox uses less than Chrome these days.

Well, to be fair, calling FF a memory hog is too strong, It almost sounds like I don’t love it:

• I always have way too many tabs open
• I couldn’t compare because Chrome doesn’t work well with all my work related sites. So no contest.
• My comment is based on having Firefox open all day and memory usage suddenly spiking, From a very reasonable 350 Mb to 1GB. I’ll just restart the browser and I’m good for a few hours of work more. (No, I don’t think my usage is typical. I deal.)

@tachin1

IE is clearly filling a need,

@albill

From Microsoft’s point of view?

From my point of view.
I hope I don’t come off as being overly critical of IE, it does what it says on the tin, but I can get more work done with FF.
And I understand why Microsoft needs its own browser. I don’t understand why, aside from helping it push Bing, and possibly corporate vanity, it cares that its browser is perceived as bad if it does what they set out to do. With this in mind, Isn’t this re branding a tacit admission that IE is not fit for purpose? And haven’t they admitted this/promised a better browser before?

The Browser You Loved To Hate | Internet Explorer

Anyway, I don’t mind if they do re brand it, and hope they do make a better browser. I’m not too hopeful though.

[waetherman]

@micah

It was a very astute business plan and was probably key to extending the dominance of Windows for another decade or so, but was just as reactive as proactive.

Actually forcing IE on to everyone and using their leverage to try to keep other browsers off Windows is kinda what sunk the brand in the long run, in my opinion. Not only did they have all kinds of antitrust issues as a result, but the negative reaction from consumers made it possible for Firefox to grab a lot of users who were just waiting for a good alternative. And then of course Chome came along and took Firefox customers, making it a three horse race with IE struggling for relevance. Microsoft was sorta hoisted by their own petard in the browser wars.

[OtherMichael]

And the memory leaks are usually from plugins. That’s why we like Firefox: plugins.

But what I do like about Chrome is the ability to task-kill a single mis-behaving tab.

In FF, I have to nuke the entire app. Thank g-d all my tabs persist.

 

IE I use when I have to. Like for the time-tracking app at work. :::sigh:::

[WearySky]

@tachin1

I hope I don’t come off as being overly critical of IE, it does what it says on the tin, but I can get more work done with FF.And I understand why Microsoft needs its own browser. I don’t understand why, aside from helping it push Bing, and possibly corporate vanity, it cares that its browser is perceived as bad if it does what they set out to do. With this in mind, Isn’t this re branding a tacit admission that IE is not fit for purpose? And haven’t they admitted this/promised a better browser before?

Well, they obviously care because they want more people using Microsoft stuff. More people using more Microsoft stuff (and seeing that it works well) = more brand loyalty.

And I don’t think the rebranding is a tacit admission that IE is not fit for purpose. I think it’s a tacit admission that IE, as a brand, has a stigma attached to it due to years of crappy browsers. But IE11, for the VAST number of users who don’t need plugins, is a perfectly good browser now. So one less step (downloading, installing, and setting up a new browser) in setting up a new computer for tech-illiterate relatives and friends is a good enough reason for MS to keep pushing a browser out with Windows, as far as I’m concerned.

[enso]

@OtherMichael

But what I do like about Chrome is the ability to task-kill a single mis-behaving tab.

I hear you there.

[enso]

@tachin1

From my point of view.

I was explaining Microsoft’s point of view as a former Microsoftie who spent my career there working on browsers.

[tachin1]

@WearySky

Well, they obviously care because they want more people using Microsoft stuff. More people using more Microsoft stuff (and seeing that it works well) = more brand loyalty.

But will Mac users switch because of the browser?

@WearySky

But IE11, for the VAST number of users who don’t need plugins, is a perfectly good browser now.

I’m fine with this. Like I said, I don’t mean to say that IE is a piece of crap. I use it for some sites.

The larger point I tried to make here is the idea that a re branding is neither necessary and or useful. People who use the stock browser don’t care, and people who use other browsers are not using windows because of the browser.

[enso]

@tachin1

The larger point I tried to make here is the idea that a re branding is neither necessary and or useful. People who use the stock browser don’t care, and people who use other browsers are not using windows because of the browser.

They aren’t simply rebranding. This is a new browser. Trident, the rendering engine, has been worked on, adapted, fixed, and updated since…1996? AFAIK, this is a chance for them to have a clean start knowing the things learned over almost 20 years. This isn’t simply a new logo and name on IE.

[enso]

@tachin1

The larger point I tried to make here is the idea that a re branding is neither necessary and or useful. People who use the stock browser don’t care, and people who use other browsers are not using windows because of the browser.

They don’t really care about people who aren’t using Windows. This is “Windows needs a browser. That browser needs to be perceived (or be) up to date and available as part of Windows. Go.”

[micah]

@waetherman

Actually forcing IE on to everyone and using their leverage to try to keep other browsers off Windows is kinda what sunk the brand in the long run, in my opinion.

That’s how we contrarian geek pro-sumers saw it. But Microsoft wasn’t after us. They wanted to keep corporate IT departments buying Windows licenses (and Windows servers) by the truckload, so they integrated IE into Windows (saving IT departments from having to deploy and support a third-party browser) and built ActiveX and other proprietary stuff into their enterprise server products so that the corporate world would continue locking itself into IE/IIS/Windows ecosystem. MS never really cared if IE was actually better than the competition (who cares if somebody uses your free product instead of someone else’s free alternative?). They just needed to make it easier for corporate IT departments to use MS products than the competition. And they succeeded for about a decade. Heck, only in the last year or two did my office start installing an alternative browser on our desktops, and our intranet still doesn’t work with anything but IE.

[anon73629133]

We still have IE6 dependencies at work.

[waetherman]

That’s a good point about the corporate business, and that may very well have been the focus of their strategy, but I think you’re naive in dismissing the value of a “free product” - Microsoft realized that the company that controlled the browser controlled the very way that consumers would use their computers 20% of the time in 1995 and 95% of the time in 2020. There is a lot of value there, from controlling the consumer’s search behavior (and advertising that comes withy that) to tracking web surfing and monetizing that data. That’s why Google, Microsoft, and Firefox have worked so hard to win.

[enso]

@waetherman

There is a lot of value there, from controlling the consumer’s search behavior (and advertising that comes withy that) to tracking web surfing and monetizing that data. That’s why Google, Microsoft, and Firefox have worked so hard to win.

Only if Firefox is the counterexample. Mozilla (which is the company, not “Firefox”) isn’t interested in controlling anyone’s behavior.

[waetherman]

You’re even more naive if you think Mozilla isn’t trying to control and monetize your behavior. Mozilla gets $300 million a year from Google to provide your search traffic and potentially other information. Mozilla is not the do-gooder nonprofit you think it is, it is a for profit corporation making a lot of money on the back of open source software.