The brilliance and loneliness of IE browser

January 12, 2016 for IE, is a sad day. Microsoft announced that the day to stop the three versions of IE 8/9/10 technical support, users will not receive any from Microsoft's official IE security update; As an alternative, Microsoft advises users to upgrade to IE 11 or switch to Microsoft Edge browser. Although Microsoft also specifically to the relevant users to push the upgrade notification patch to remind users to upgrade IE 11, but perhaps it would prefer people to directly use the Windows 10 and the edge of the browser. In short, whether it is the subjective desire of Microsoft, or user use of the objective situation, has been around for nearly 20 years of IE browser has become largely a historical outcast.

IE 11 is completely a transitional product.

From nothing to eminence

We have no intention to discuss from the technical point of view ie since the birth of how much has affected the human browser use experience, although this effect is objective. For comparison, IE's position is more important and special: it and the owner of Microsoft's Windows operating system to participate in depth and witness the computer and the Internet to the world of ordinary users of the whole process, and for a long time, ie is almost synonymous with the Internet.

When the first version of IE browser was born in August 1995, there was already a popular browser in the world-Netscape (English name is Netscape Navigator). And just a week before IE was born, Netscape, the company that launched Netscape's browser, has been listed with a unique place in the browser market and has been a huge success, and the head of the company has been on the cover of Time magazine.

But as Netscape dominates the browser market and even Web standards, Microsoft, the operating-system giant, sits still. In response, Microsoft hastily purchased the Spyglass browser-related technology to develop the first generation of IE, and then encapsulated it into Windows Plus! Tying in the operating system. Yes, Microsoft's approach to packaging the browser and operating system for sale begins with IE's first generation.

However, IE's success is not only because of the outside of Windows operating system, but also because of Microsoft's emphasis on IE development and IE's own excellence. After the first generation of IE three months, Microsoft has launched IE 2; another 9 months later, Microsoft again updated the version number of IE, ie 3 was born, so rapid iterative speed, for the pioneering period of the browser market, is undoubtedly very effective. But these are not enough, in order to lead the technology trend and the development of technical standards, IE 3 also pioneered the support of CSS and other technologies, by this cover the main competitor Netscape browser's thunder.

Of course, in order to upgrade IE's market share as quickly as possible, Microsoft has been suppressing Netscape's browser through some seemingly unethical business practices, including packaged distribution, free delivery, forcing partners by default, and Web-standard monopolies, through commercial terms. In short, ie by virtue of a variety of forces to gradually gain a foothold, and began to contend with Netscape browser.

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Microsoft and Netscape launched their 4th edition of their browsers in 1997, but this time, ie did better than Netscape. Coupled with Netscape's own business-strategy mistakes, IE finally defeated Netscape at the end of 1998, and Netscape was later acquired by AOL.

From then on, IE began to dominate the entire browser market within a few years. Because of the dominance of windows and the scarcity of rivals, IE's market share has climbed steadily. According to onestat.com data, by April 2002, IE's market share of up to 96.6%; Of course, it was IE 6 in the world.

Eroded market share

August 2001, IE 6 was published, in July 2005, Microsoft launched the first preview version of IE 7. There are four years in the middle, although Microsoft has launched an upgrade for IE 6, but in the era of rapid development of the Internet, a network of such an important product unexpectedly 4 years did not update the iteration, it seems doomed to IE in these four years to achieve a high and decline in the state. One simple piece of evidence: ie, which peaked in 2002, began to show a marked decline in market share in 2004, or even November 2004, which has fallen below 90%.

The reason is that, in addition to the dominance of IE has become the main target of many malicious attacks, ie itself security is also facing many problems, and therefore by people's doubts. Meanwhile, Firefox, which is based on open-source programs and improved in many ways, is starting to emerge and eroding IE's market share. Ironically, Firefox has some kind of "kinship" with the history of Netscape, which is based on open-source programs that were developed from the Open-source code that was opened by Netscape prior to the acquisition of--firefox. Of course, in addition to Firefox, there are potential threats to browsers such as Safari and opera.

On the February 15, 2005, Bill Gates finally announced the launch of a new version of the browser, and explained that the reason is that IE's market share is gradually eroded by Firefox. Only when the January 2006 IE 7 first beta release, IE's market share has fallen by 85.62%, and Firefox's market share has grown to 11.23%. In this, the development of the trend behind, in fact, ie as a backward monopolist in the public opinion of the fall and the entire industry for the backward Firefox encouraged. Forbes called Firefox "the best browser of the 2004", and the magazine PC World also added Firefox to "the best hundred Products of the 2005".

Firefox on IE market share of the erosion has been ongoing, but because of IE's strong user volume and its web standards on the strength of such factors, Firefox's erosion has not achieved subversive effect. By the year 2008, IE's market share fell below 80%,firefox and stayed between 15% and 20%.

However, both IE and Firefox did not anticipate that they would face another formidable rival--google Chrome in the browser market.

"Three kills" in the browser field

Initially within Google, browser development was objected to by Google CEO Schmidt, but he finally listened to the advice of two founders. So in September 2008, the Chrome browser began to test, opening downloads in more than 100 countries.

At that time, IE 8 Beta 2 release just a few days, Firefox 3.0 has been released for nearly 3 months, and the latter release also in the download volume of the World Guinness record. In short, Chrome is just a baby compared to the volume of the two, and it's certainly likely to grow, but it can also die.

But from today's point of view, Chrome is almost a reinventing of the browser, and many of the most humane features of the Web browser are now almost all from Chrome. For example, the tag bar, the search bar and the address bar, a highly minimalist interface design, developer-oriented extender store, bookmarks can be in the cloud by Google account in sync ... The emergence of this series of features has been an epoch-making enhancement of the Web browsing experience.

And more importantly, while maintaining a few months of updated iterations, Google has also devised an extremely effective development model that divides chrome into stable and development versions, which are designed to meet the needs of ordinary users, which facilitate functional updates and testing by developers to meet the requirements of different types of users.

So, with Google's deep Internet genetics and strong technical background, chrome is popular, especially for developers who like to pursue new technologies. By the end of 2010, Chrome had captured 10% of its market share after more than two years of its launch. Meanwhile, IE's market share continues to fall, below 60%, while Firefox remains at around 20%. The entire browser market initially formed by IE, Firefox and Chrome "three points world" situation.

Of course, IE is not without effort, in the IE 8 official version and IE 9 Update, Microsoft is indeed very hard to improve the use of the browser experience, in many ways, but also to competitors, especially Google's Chrome learning, but IE abuses makes it difficult to move forward in the pace of slow and powerless, And Chrome is like a young runner, with no baggage, just a quick move.

As for the outcome, the user is the real referee.

IE under the moving tide

From the end of 2010 to the early 2016 of the 5-year period, ie and the development curve of the chrome continues to the previous situation, IE's market share continued to decline steadily, and chrome is on the original basis of the steady upgrade; As for Firefox, it's hovering between 10% and 20%, Recently, it has shown a downward trend. According to NET applications data, in the December 2015 Global Browser market, the dominant IE share fell to 48.57%;chrome share continued to rise, has reached 32.33%, and Firefox has dropped to 12.13%.

It is difficult to specify the extent to which the mobile Internet tide has affected the development of the Web browser market in the past five years. But Microsoft in this tide of serious vacancy, but actually caused by IE only in the desktop browser market is helpless passive state. In stark contrast, Google Chrome continues to attract more users with a unified experience across multiple terminals such as desktops, tablets and smartphones.

IE 11, released in 2013, was also excellent, but helpless; it could only curl up in the corner of the desktop and watch people open the Web page with chrome on a smartphone.

Another point worth rethinking is the relationship between IE and Windows. By virtue of this relationship, IE was able to quickly achieve "from 0 to 1" subversive situation, even though the middle of the many people questioned and from the government agencies antitrust measures, but not without prejudice to IE in the early dominance of the position. But in the last 5 years, IE has been given a cold shoulder as Windows has failed to transform itself under the stimulus of the mobile Internet, and when Microsoft tries to reinvent itself through Windows 10来, it has decided to replace IE with Microsoft's edge.

In other words, the original and windows of "a proud, a loss of the" relationship between the state has gone; it failed to be reborn with Windows, orphaned into Microsoft's abandonment.

Perhaps at Microsoft, the Windows operating system is the most important thing, because there is no alternative in the world. and subversion itself can only be replaced by those things, such as IE, for example, once a mobile phone synonymous with Nokia.

But even if it fails, even if it is abandoned, even if it eventually dies, we can still say that IE is great.

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