The Story of Internet Explorer, Part 2

Nate Lanxon from Bloomberg joins the show to talk about the history of Internet Explorer and the future of Project Spartan.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from dot
com Either guys, it's Jonathan Strickland with tech Stuff, and
we're about to jump right into part two of our
history of Internet Explorer, the full Internet Explorer's story, and
we even have something to add to that story since

(00:26):
we recorded this episode. When Nate and I were talking
about Internet Explorer, neither of us knew the name of
the successor to Internet Explorer. We just knew the code
name was Project Spartan. But now we know that the
name is Microsoft Edge that's going to be the successor.
And I just wanted to throw that into the intro

(00:49):
before we got right back into the discussion. And now
let's rejoin that talk with Nate Langson from gloom Verb.
In August two one, Microsoft would launch Internet Explorer six,
which became a huge debacle. Um it was included in

(01:16):
copies of Windows XP, one of the most popular operating
systems of all time. I know people who still would
prefer to use Windows XP to any of the other
operating systems that have come out since then. There are
a lot of legacy systems that depend upon Windows XP,
and you cannot migrate to a new operating system without
reinventing all these legacy systems that interact with it. Uh there.

(01:40):
There used to be a joke about how people would
stay on Windows XP, and now it's kind of a
sad one. So I E six comes out bundled with
Windows XP. That also means that I E six has
continued to be used long after you would expect people
to have changed, you know, upgrade to some other version
of Internet Explorer. UM. PC World this is where we

(02:04):
get the sad part. Called it the least secure software
on the planet because I had so many vulnerabilities. It
made the list of twenty five worst tech products of
all time from PC World. It was number eight and
number seven was a different Microsoft product, one that I
did a full episode of tech Stuff about Microsoft Bob

(02:25):
Bob so it's named by Bill Gates wife. I believe
we had a whole the episode. If you haven't listened
to the episode of tech Stuff, I highly recommend you
go and check that out. Lauren Vogelbaumb was by co
host on that one, and we had a grand old
time dissecting Bob uh and and it was her first

(02:48):
time ever encountering Bob and boy. I mean the fact
that I E six ranked higher on the list, then
Bob tells you how bad I E six was, because
Bob was atrocious. So this was another one of those problem.
It was ripe with vulnerabilities that allowed hackers to get

(03:10):
that same kind of level of access to a computer,
whatever level the user was logged in at. So if
you were a giant business and you only allowed your
employees to log in under a lower access level, then
that was bad but probably manageable. If you were one
of those businesses that allow employees to log in at

(03:32):
the admin level, it was catastrophic. And because I E
six was lumped in with Windows XP, and because Windows
XP was so popular, it meant that it was a
target rich environment. Now, Nate, you you being a Mac user,
Are you one of the Mac users who who very
smugly trumpets the fact that Max are largely UM free

(03:57):
from issues of viruses and malware. No, I'm one of
the people that says that they are. Well, yes I
am in a way, I am actually completely But what
I what I don't say is that MAX can't get
viruses or that they are more secure. Um. They are

(04:18):
in as much as everyone targets Windows and therefore far
far fewer people are targeting MAX. But on the other hand,
MAX can also be conduits for viruses, so you are
able to pass on a virus even if you are
immune to it. You can you can be a carrier
but not be be affected by it directly. That said,

(04:40):
I don't run antivirus because I don't care about Windows users.
Well why get vaccinated, right, I mean, uh yeah, yeah,
this this, this is a great but this is a
great point to make, and that again, PCs had so
much of the market share. I mean, we're still at
the point where MAX had not really made a big debt.

(05:01):
It would be it wouldn't be until the mid to
late two thousand's that we really started seeing the Mac
take off on a on a true market share level,
which meant that if you're a hacker and you're designing
malware and you're trying to hit as many people as
possible that's your goal, then you go to where the
people are, and the people were at PCs on Windows
based machines, specifically Windows XP and Internet Explorer six had

(05:25):
all these vulnerabilities. It was open season for hackers, which
that's why it made this this list of the words
tech products, I mean, if if it's a gateway, if
Microsoft had not patch goal of vulnerabilities, it's a huge issue. Now,
Microsoft did start to issue patches very quickly, but it

(05:47):
was still one of those things that became a black
eye for the company. Uh. In fact, the problem was
so serious that the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team
told people, Hey, if you don't have to use as
Internet Explorer, don't use something else. And then the only
times you should use Internet Explorer is when you have

(06:08):
no other option, like it's it's something that's only compatible
with Internet Explorer. Um. I've had I've worked at companies
where the intranet would only be accessible through Internet Explorer.
Other browsers just could not render those pages. Um, which
could be a very frustrating experience for someone who doesn't
prefer to use Internet Explorer unless I can't I don't

(06:31):
have any other option. Nate, have you ever had that
issue too, where you've had to worked someplace where the
way a system was designed, you had to use a
specific type of browser to access it. Um. I'm I
work at one now, so I probably shouldn't say very much.
But it's a very secure internal culprit environment. Sure, And

(06:53):
and I mean that that's one of the reasons why,
I mean, I still have a version of Internet Explorer
that runs on my machine because, uh, there there are
certain internal technologies we use that it really only works
with Internet Exploring. Now once once it's up on the web,
any browser can see the stuff, but for the internal

(07:14):
purposes we use things that will only work with Internet Explorer.
And of course we're also very concerned about security. So
it's but it's one of those things that you know,
if if you had built it on Internet Explorer six,
this would be a huge concern obviously because of those vulnerabilities. Um, Fortunately,

(07:35):
I think most companies don't rely on that, or they
are relying on one that has been patched thoroughly so
that those vulnerabilities are no longer an issue. But it was,
you know, for someone who doesn't like Grandma, who doesn't
necessarily know how this stuff works, it's a problem, right.
It's it's not easy to explain to someone who hasn't

(07:57):
grown up around the world of software and software patches
that this is an issue at all. It's I mean,
it's hard enough just to explain that this is not
the Internet, it's a browser. So yeah, so definitely. It
was a black mark against Microsoft UM And it's funny
because I looked on Granted, it depends upon what source

(08:20):
you use, but I looked at one uh resource that
looks at the market share various browsers, and three point
one of users in China, according to this source, are
still using Internet Explorers six three. It seems like a
small number, but that means hundreds of thousands of people

(08:43):
are still using Internet Explorers six and that's yeah, I
means incredible. China is an interesting one, and because of
the rempants piracy that has taken place the over the
last couple of day cades, in particular when it comes
to computer software, and there are so many old computers

(09:06):
out there, computers that physically can't run more recent operating
systems that for some machines that may be the limit
of what they can even install because of how old
the hardware is. The same in in in in parts
of India, so that's probably a factor. The other The
other thing is that there are a lot of banks,

(09:28):
believe it or not, that have this really old software installed.
I'm not saying that's the case in China particularly, but
just generally, there are a lot of a lot of
places and schools too. I mean, and that's the other thing,
is that when you spend a lot of money and
energy and resources on building an infrastructure and it's using
a particular particular suite of software or a particular operating system,

(09:55):
it's you know, you've created this system that now we
call legacy system at the time. Of course, it's not
a legacy. It's just what you built, and you built
it because you needed something, and this, you know, the
suite did the stuff you needed. The problem is that,
you know, you don't necessarily have those resources to dedicate
to reinventing that every time there's a new operating system
that comes out, especially if you're talking about really big

(10:17):
systems where it would require a massive effort across multiple
locations in order for everyone to stay in communication with
each other. And that's where you run into these problems.
I mean, if there are no easy solutions, it's very
easy for us to say, hey, upgrade your operating system
or upgrade your browser, because on a user to user level,

(10:38):
it's not as big a deal. I mean, it might
require some financial investment. If you're talking about having to
get a new machine that's capable of running a newer
version of that software. But ultimately, ultimately it's not as
big a deal as is telling a an industry or
even just a particular oller company within that industry, hey

(11:02):
you need to do this. It's a much larger effort
on that their part. So as flippant as I'm being,
I do realize that, you know, it's not so simple
as oh, we need to we need to install this
new program. It's you know, sometimes it's not the new browser.
Like you said, Nate could require uh, more advanced hardware

(11:24):
or a more advanced operating system. Yeah, all right, So
that was two thousand one. Now we're going to skip
ahead to two thousand four because there were no updates
in that time. But on November nine, two four, a
big competitor to Internet Explorer would launch the Mozilla foundations

(11:44):
Firefox one point Oh goes live now. Firefox was the
first real challenger to the dominance of Internet Explorer, uh,
to to really you know, capture a lot of people's attention.
Before there had and devotees of other browsers, but they
were pretty small audiences. Firefox was one that actually threatened

(12:07):
to take some real uh chunks out of Microsoft and
part of that was because there was still this ongoing
issue with Internet Explorer six and the security vulnerabilities that
had had such a you know, I had a pretty
bad reputation. Meanwhile, you might say, well, why why didn't
Microsoft come out with a new version, Well, until Firefox

(12:29):
came out, there wasn't really a need for it, right,
I mean, there were no If you don't have a competitor,
then you don't have a lot of incentive to improve
your product. That's one of the problems, one of the reasons,
one of the big reasons you don't want any monopolies
out there, because you would rather have competition that drives
the various entities to continue to innovate and invest in

(12:49):
their technology so that you ultimately get better stuff out
of it. If there are no competitors, then you got
to just hope that the entities are motivated enough to
continue that innovation and investment, which is not always the case,
and it wasn't in this one. So October two thousand
six we see Microsoft launched Internet Explorer seven because Firefox

(13:12):
was starting to eat at Microsoft's heels. It was starting
to take up some of that market share, and Microsoft
suddenly realized, hey, we might have a problem here. We
might need to to start really looking at innovating in
this space again, because we're not the only player in
town anymore. So this was a five year you know,

(13:34):
absence of updates, and then we finally get one in
two thousand six. Um. So Internet Explore seven was also
the first time they changed the name, because the previous
editions of Internet Explorer were all called Microsoft Internet Explorer whatever.
This time they were called Windows Internet Explorer whatever. So

(13:56):
Windows Internet Explorer seven u interesting because of the settlement
with the United States Department of Justice earlier about how
they didn't really want to give the indication that Windows
and Internet Explorer were so tightly integrated. But after the
settlement of that case, I guess they were. Microsoft was
looking at it saying, look, if you if you use

(14:18):
the Windows environment, this is the browser you want. I
guess that was their marketing push, I suppose, And it
became the bundled browser for a much maligned piece of software,
Windows Vista. I think Windows Vista did more for Macintosh
sales than Apple ever did. Was it wasn't It wasn't

(14:43):
great to begin with. It was basically all right by
the end, but yeah, it was. It was one of
those that did require patches to make it to the
point where people gave it that kind of damning praise. Right, well,
it was all right by the end, it was okay,
but when it came out, it was not okay. Uh.
There were a lot of issues. I mean, I remember
all the different permissions windows that would pop up whenever

(15:04):
you wanted to do anything, and windows and staff and
it was almost like Microsoft had overreacted to the problems
it had experienced previously with products like Internet Explorer six,
where I said, well, we want to make sure that
we are being really uh concerned with security and safety.

(15:26):
So now you're going to have to go through five
permissions pages whenever you want to run anything on your machine,
every time you want to run it. So this was maligned,
probably justifiably when it first came out, but then, like
like we said, it got better with patches, although it
was too little, too late at that point, I think.

(15:47):
And essentially you had all these different people and companies,
school systems, everything saying you know what, we're gonna stick
with Windows XP because even though this operating system is
the new one, it breaks everything. So I'm going to
use this older operating system. Uh. And I can say
like in my career, we went from Windows XP to

(16:10):
Windows seven. We did not. We did not transition to Vista.
I went Windows XP to Mac. Um not particularly because
of Vista, to be honest, Um, but I but but
I think that was the turning point for a lot
of people. It was either ignore Vista and then moved
to seven, or ignore Vista and moved to the Mac. Yeah.

(16:31):
I think, you know, and I think even you know,
looking at at some of the other operating systems out there,
things like Lenox, I mean, you know, I don't think well,
Lennox has its own like devotees who are all the
developers who who love to work with that operating system
and help make it better. And it's almost like a

(16:52):
crowdsourced OS. Uh. But they you know, I think things
like Vista definitely help fuel that kind of passion because
you look at what is the product of a corporation
saying here's what we think at operating system should be
versus uh, something like uh Mac, which you know, Apple

(17:13):
has done a great job at positioning themselves as we
know that you think you know what you want, but
we're telling you what you want and you're gonna love it,
and it works because it's designed so well. Uh. And
then you have the Linux approach, whereas we know what
we want because we're the ones making it. Yes, well
there is that as well. And and and Linux is
so infinitely flexible from the you know, if you want

(17:35):
to build your own operating system, you know version of
Linux once that was designed in the style of an
anime series called Serial Experiments Lane, which is a very
weird techie anime if you want to check that out.
But I wanted to point something out that we actually
didn't discuss and put in show notes here, but it
just occurred to me as we've been talking that there

(17:55):
was a there was a it's parallel chain in computer
usage at this point in the Internet Explorer lifestyle, which
was the introducing and introduction and success of the netbook
that did the opposite of what Microsoft would have wanted
with Vista, which required, you know, more of a high powered,

(18:19):
high spect machine. It was much visually it was much
more visually rich. Vista was that is versus XP and
then the netbook came out and became this giant pre
iPad pre tablet craze of hundred dollar little portable notebooks
that needed to run really low power old stuff. So
they ran XP and they ran I six or they

(18:40):
ran Linux of course, um, you know, and I think
that that that was such a popular choice of machine
for admittedly only maybe a couple of years, but I
think it may have made a difference at the whole
XP thing. And definitely once two seven rolls around, you
had Apple introduced the iPhone, and that really changed the
game because suddenly you had well, at least here in

(19:04):
the United States, I mean here in the US. This
is where Nate can can kind of chuckle, because in
the US the smartphone was adopted very late on the
consumer side, Whereas you know, in Europe you had some
some smartphones that had traction before the iPhone came out.
Here in the US, the iPhone might as well have
been the first smartphone ever. The only people who had

(19:24):
any other type of smartphone were executives who had blackberries
here in the US. That was very kind of you.
It was very kind of you to to suggest that
we were far ahead of the game. I think really
that the sort of we're in the realms of the
sort of Nokia Communicate a sort of thing, and they
weren't they weren't particularly smart, but they were more feature

(19:44):
rich definitely than in some of the U S phones
because because no kid didn't do anything really in North
America at the time, right, yeah, here, if you had
a phone that could browse the web via text like
it was just a text based browser, then you were
ahead of the game. And then but then the iPhone
comes out, and uh, suddenly you have a new way
of viewing the web, which would get improved considerably with

(20:10):
future generations of the iPhone, and then with competitors like
the Android phone, and ultimately with Windows Mobile, Windows Phone
and then just Windows for mobile devices. Um. But you know,
that really change the game big time, to the point
where now if you look at market share of what's
being used to browse the web, the mobile devices are

(20:32):
killing it. And so you see things like iOS is
a huge player in market share for web browsers if
you're if you include mobile devices, if you look at
just desktops, then Internet Explorer is still a large a
large player, especially once you factor in all the different
versions of Internet Explorer. They're still in use. But two

(20:52):
thousand seven ends up being a big year because we
start seeing mobile become a true competitor, or at least
a a potential competitor in the web browsing space. March
two thousand nine would be when Microsoft launched Internet Explorer eight,
which was the first browser to pass the Acid too test.

(21:13):
Did not pass the acid three tests, but it passed
the acid to test, which was that's a test designed
to check a browser's ability to render a web page
based upon the intended design of that page. This goes
back to what I was saying before, where you just
painstakingly create a web page and you can't wait for
someone to see it. I mean by by can't wait,
I mean if you if you could go back and

(21:35):
visit the web pages of the mid nineties, I guarantee
you that more than eighty percent of them would have
a counter somewhere on that web page that would tell
you what number you were to visit that web page. Uh.
Those were ubiquitous back in the day. Do you remember
those where you'll be like, oh, look, I I was

(21:57):
the hundred and third thousand person to visit this website.
I remember installing one of mine and just thinking like,
why do I do this? I can like, it's been
three months and I can still count the number of
people who have visited my website on two hands. But
you know, that was one of those things where again,
you know, you put this care into it, and you

(22:19):
really wanted to make sure that all the browsers were
going to render it properly. Uh. And it was very
important for Microsoft at the time because they were no
longer like no one version of Internet Explorer was now
the dominant one because Firefox had done so well. So
if you're the dominant player, then sure you could essentially

(22:41):
define how web pages should look. Your browser is the
one that people should be designing for because you're the
one that most people are using, and anyone who's using
a different web browser is going to have a potentially,
at any rate, a less than ideal experience. But who
cares because you're the one who's the biggest player in town.
When you're no longer the biggest player in town or

(23:02):
there are viable competitors out there, you have to start
rethinking that strategy. So Microsoft did a good thing here
and building a web browser that was going to be
more true to the designs of the web page administrators
than what they had previously been doing and also benefited
those of us who actually used Firefox or some other

(23:22):
browser at that time, So that was that was good
go ahead. It's an interesting period because all this time,
all this discussion, Opera was chugging along in the background
doing its thing. And just as we've been talking, I
just download and installed Uper on my map because I
just wanted to see what it looks like these days.
Is based on Chromium UM, like like Google Chrome is.

(23:45):
And you know, Opera has always been this underdog. It's
just never done very well at market share wise, but
it's always had this incredibly loyal fan base and does
really innovative things on the mobile side, and always has.
And I remember and about two thousand and seven, I
wrote an article of the c net saying Opera should
stop making desktop browsers and just focus on mobile as

(24:06):
its future. And I had one person who said that
I should throw myself off the top of the c
NET building for saying something so heinous against the beloved
Opera browser. Right, And I still, you know, nearly ten
years on, I stand by that they should focus on
mobile um and I hope that person revisits my article
from seven and says, oh, yes, you were right. Well,

(24:29):
you know, it's very forward thinking because, as it turns out,
you know, mobile browsing has become so important now that
that's where everybody is looking. I mean, you know, not
that desktop browsing has gone away, or that there aren't
other platforms. I mean, heck, I sometimes I browse the
web very rarely, but sometimes I browse the web on

(24:49):
my xbox so that I can watch certain content that
I couldn't otherwise, or that I, um you know, might
want to have a podcast on in the background, and
that's the easy, the best way for me to play it.
Um so. But the mobile certainly is is at least
as important, if not more important, than desktop browsing is

(25:11):
these days. So everyone really needed to be looking at mobile.
I think you were really just giving some valuable advice, honestly,
I mean I really I was trolling for page views mostly,
but but it was based on it was based on
real opinion and a fact. I believe, you know, we
we've all engaged in some clickbait at some point or another.

(25:32):
I mean, you know, uh so. Internet Explorer eight is
currently the second most popular version of Internet Explorer as
far as market share goes. Keep in mind, we're up
to eleven now, and in fact, in an Internet Explorer
eleven is the current most popular version of i E
on the market. I E eight is second, So that

(25:53):
means nine and ten didn't do quite so well. Uh.
And perhaps I'm not saying this is nest necesarily the case,
but perhaps one of the reasons that it has done
so well for so long is that is the last
version of Internet Explorer that's capable of running on a
Windows XP machine. So it maybe that we have still

(26:15):
a significant number of folks out there who are running
the Windows XP operating system. They never upgraded to Vista
or seven or eight or ten now, Uh, and they're
they're staying with Windows XP for one reason or another,
and they might be running Internet Explorer eight. That's a guess,
but I think it's a fair one. Yeah. I mean,

(26:36):
in the mobile world, it's I'm sure a lot of
people listening have had the experience of downloading an app
and then downloading an update a week later, right firing
up the app and being told that your OS is
out of date and you need to update, and that's
because Apple or or Android or something has been up

(26:56):
has A has released an update in the time between
you unloading the app and firing up the app, and
you've updated the app in that time without firing it
up or updating your OS, and it's already out of date.
Like it's crazy. Personally, I haven't had that issue, but
that's because I use the Next of six, so I
get those updates like immediately. But then although iPhone users

(27:20):
out there like, yeah, that's regular uperating procedure for me, Yeah,
I have an Next to six as well, to be fair,
I do. Yeah, that's so sort of my Android sort
of test phone thing, of course, because I I used
that for your main phone has to be an iPhone night,
I imagine. Yeah, alright, how do you like the Next
of six? I know this is a tangient, but I

(27:41):
have to ask. Um. I love it. I really like it. Um.
I use the iPhone six plus is my main phone.
To the next is six just feels like an evolution
of that. UM feel wise and the screens, the screens nice,
the battery life for me has been pretty good, and
the I don't know. I just like it, but I
don't use it that much, to be honest. It was
it's just like a like a uh, sort of a

(28:02):
dunny review unit type thing that's just been hanging around, right.
I just wish it were a little bit larger, so
that way, if I held it over my head on
a sunny day, I could shade my entire body. It
is a big phone. It isn't become but like I said,
I don't use it that much. It's it's mostly there
for me to test Android and if I need, if
I want to review right about new apps, it's just there. Um, yeah,

(28:25):
it's fine, Yeah, I understand. Well, getting back to Internet Explorer,
this is where we're starting to talk about some of
the boring ones for me. So I guess that's why
I'm so eager to go off on tangents. But March
Internet Explore nine debuts, and I had the tagline the
Beauty of the Web, so finally we could experience that.

(28:45):
I was it was good that by two thousand eleven
we could finally see the beauty of the web after
all that text and the red x is for images
that wouldn't load. Um, this one wasn't tied to the
premiere of any new operating system, which might be one
of the reasons why it's not as popular as I
E eight or I E eleven because it was not

(29:07):
it wasn't bundled with an operating system UM, so it
could run on Windows Vista Service Pack two or later
versions of the Windows operating system. There was no support
for Windows XP. Like we said, I E eight was
the last Internet Explorer to run on that platform. And
you could do things like you could pen websites to
the application bar, which would allow you to navigate straight

(29:30):
to those right away. So if there were sites that
you always go to, you know, you just you know there,
there's always there's three that I always opened up first
thing in the day, as soon as I load up
my browser, then it would make sense to pen those
first three just to be able to click on whichever
ones or even pin them together. You could do that
as well, where you could open up multiple tabs and

(29:51):
just associate the ones that you always go to first thing.
That way, you don't have to spend those precious that
calories typing in the first few letters of whatever you
are l you go to each time. UM but a
very innovative approach at the time. And UH. It also
had a download manager that would allow users to pause
downloads and alert users to potentially malicious files, very important

(30:15):
as far security is concerned. Something that is pretty much
standardized throughout all browsers now, but with brand new back
in at least for Internet Explorer anyway, and its includes
support for HTML five for audio and video tags. So
we started to see that that migration, which is still
happening from four to five UM, so you know, it

(30:39):
was important. It just didn't make a huge impact. In fact,
I can't even I don't think I've ever used I
E nine. I don't think I ever got to a
point where I used that. I yeah, I don't know.
I think I I think I will have done because
I was I was all Mac at that point. My
machine I was at Wired at the time. My all

(31:00):
my my machines at Wired were all Max as well.
But I did always have UM either a Parallels installation
of Windows so I could do my browser test because
I always did the browser reviews UM for seen it
in the UK, and then Wired as well after that,
so I always sort of kept I kept them installed,

(31:20):
so I must have used it at some point, but
certainly I seven was the last one that I could
honestly say I really remember using possibly I E eighty.
That so no, no, no lasting impression here. Um yeah,
I imagine that people with MAX would yeah, I run
boot camp, so I could run I E nine. That

(31:42):
would really shock me. I would not be I would
be a well why please tell me what? What's the
I can tell you why you might want to do that.
Max or some of the particularly quite a while was
some of the best Windows machines you could buy, Like
buy a MacBook Air and put Windows on. It is
a better experience for most Windows users who didn't want

(32:02):
to use a map, or rather who didn't want to
use O S. Turn right, Well did you uh? Do
you do? You find it amusing when PC users try
to go the other way and create hackintosh is It
seems like a bit of a waste of time. But
I suspect that there are people that are probably doing
it more for the joy of making it work than
the fact that it's productive for them to do so.
Once they've done it, you know what I mean. But

(32:24):
I also say I mean I am a Windows user.
I mean my gaming machine is a Windows PC. It's
a big fat gaming rig with a twenty one nine
ultra y curved monitor that's all Windows but but it
literally loads Steam and most realistically, it really loads Elder
Scrolls Online as soon as I turn it on like
nothing else. I was gonna say, like, with that huge screen,

(32:45):
it's got to be papers. Please, you're just playing papers please? Yeah, No,
it's my immersive Elder Scrolls experience. Well that's that's good now.
I know. I know what MMO. I could run into
you if I ever, if I ever dive into that world.
Oh please, do you all welcome? You would make a
fantastic nod. I'm still playing. Actually, I'm still playing Skyrim again.

(33:07):
I mean, I keep playing it through. I don't know
why I've played. I finally actually finished the game. For
the longest time, I was not finishing the game. I
was just doing all the side quests. So maybe I
need to Maybe I finally need to say goodbye to
Skyrim and jump on. We should take this conversation offline,
because I definitely want to persuade you to get into
Elder Scrolls Online. But we'll we'll save Elder Scrolls for

(33:31):
a future tech stuff, perhaps because that in itself has
a rich history as a franchise. We'll revisit. Yeah. I
actually I remember getting to play the early build of
that at a c E three several years ago. But okay,
we'll say that for the next one. Let's let's let's
power on through the end of Internet Explorer. April twelve, eleven,
that's when Microsoft announces Internet Explorer ten. It was less

(33:53):
than a month from releasing Internet Explorer nine, so they
released nine, and less than a month later they say, Hey,
Internet Explored ten is coming, which seems like a weird choice,
especially when Internet Explorer nine wasn't being bundled with an
operating system. So I don't know why they expected people
to migrate to nine if they announced, hey, something even

(34:16):
better is coming really soon. That that to me is
a very odd decision. Um. I honestly don't understand the
motivation behind that, unless they just probably for like accounting
purposes more than anything else to show in return on investment.
Maybe I mean that since Internet Explorer wasn't like a

(34:36):
product that you would go out and purchase, maybe they
just didn't care. It's kind of hard to say. Uh.
They showed a demo of an early build of I
E ten at the MIX eleven conference in Las Vegas,
d M i x UH conference in Vegas, I've never
been to that one. That's one of the few that

(34:58):
I have not attended. UH. It was September two thousand eleven.
They showed the developer preview of Windows eight UM that
ended up becoming available to the general public. So if
you wanted to get your hands on an early build
of Windows eight and then be one of the many
people who complained about the metro uh layout, you could
have done that. Then I was one of those people. Yeah.

(35:21):
We we actually just had a machine here at how
Stuff Works that was the Windows eight machine, and it
was a Windows eight machine that did not have a
well no one, no one was using it. Well, first
of all, there wasn't a whole lot of software we
could use with it, and secondly, we didn't have a
touch sensitive screen. So you were using this interface that

(35:42):
was clearly designed after the UI you would see in
a tablet, but transmitted transferred rather to a desktop experience.
But if you didn't have a touch screen monitor and
you were navigating it through your basic keyboard and mouse,
it was not a very satisfied experience, at least not

(36:03):
for me. I could easily see why it would be
very attractive if you were using a touch screen device,
although I'm not big on touch screen monitors because I
don't like having big, old, greasy fingerprints all over my
monitor all the time. UM. I prefer my desktop to
be still keyboard and mouse until something better comes along.
What about you, do you use touch screen monitors? No point?

(36:26):
Yeah here, I don't see. I don't see. I don't
see a benefit to that, at least not in the
current hardware iterations that are out there. Yeah, I don't.
I don't like the idea of having to reach across
and touch the screen anyway. I'm also lazy, so anything
that smacks of effort I would like to edge away
from unless it was absolutely necessary. I e. Ten would

(36:49):
end up being bundled with Windows eight and Window Windows
Server in the fall, and it had two modes. I
had the Metro mode, so if you launched it in
the Metro they they no longer call it Metro, but
at the time that's what we all referred to it as.
If you launched it when it was in the Metro layout,
which was that tiled layout of Windows eight, it had

(37:09):
a limited limited features and it also ended up eliminating
uh pretty much the entire user interface was eliminated from
casual glance. You would have to swipe from the bottom
or the top in order to pull things up, But
otherwise it was meant to give the website the entirety
of your screens landscape. I can appreciate that on one level.

(37:33):
I like the idea of slimming down your your frames
so that you're giving the website as much attention and
as much of the focus of the user as possible.
But at the same time, I want to be able
to easily navigate to other sites if I need to,
so I'm not crazy about completely hiding it away. Ah.

(37:54):
I think that might have been a bit much. If
you launched it in the desktop version of Internet Explorer,
it was a little more like the earlier versions, so
it had more of the capabilities built into it. Um
I think. I think Windows eight was really Microsoft's approach
to trying to make the operating system as accessible to

(38:14):
as broad range of people as possible, and I'm not
sure clearly they weren't entirely successful. They The rapid development
of Windows ten kind of points to that, and also
just the upgrade to Windows eight point one, which ended
up kind of reversing Microsoft decisions on a lot of
their original points. But Microsoft tends to do this. It

(38:35):
sort of take talks between between big success and at
least the perception of complete disaster, which is Windows uh,
you know, Windows XP great success for our style, Windows
Vista disappointment, Windows seven great success, Windows eight bits of disappointment.

(38:57):
So I sort of feel that they are due a
great success on the next on the next one, I
think so, uh, And I guess they'll go out on
a high point because it's the last one. Uh. You know.
It's also interesting because this to me parallels a similar
thing that happened with with Microsoft with the the announcement
of Xbox one. I remember you and I had a

(39:18):
conversation about which console we thought one E three that
year when when the PlayStation four and the Xbox one
we're both announced. Yes, I remember actually eating a very
messy hot dog with you while we had the conversation,
and then we we talked about how Microsoft made all
these uh at the time, they sounded very bold and

(39:40):
sometimes slightly dangerous, you know, as far as they're there
the the way people would view the Xbox One. They
made these these announcements that ultimately I think would have
benefited them had they stuck with them. But they listened
to the initial reaction that gamers had and they reversed

(40:01):
some of their initial their initial pronouncements which ended up
negatively impacting certain features down the road. And I think
it's very similar to the way Windows eight and Internet
Explorer ten the same sort of situations, they went through
the same kind of cycles. They went through this like
we're gonna we're really trying to push innovation. The problem

(40:24):
was they were pushing the innovation in a direction that
the the public just didn't get behind. And you know,
I think this is really it's it is a problem
born out of the business model. And it's not to
blame Microsoft at all. This is just the way business is.
But they needed to They need to give people a
reason to go through what is a particular in the

(40:47):
corporate world, a massive, dramatic and expensive and disruptive decision
to move operating systems through upgrade. So they have to
change something significantly, which is why it seems to go
from great too bad, too great, too bad to potentially
next great again, because basically what they then change is

(41:09):
they go back to what people wanted in the first place.
You know, it's a it's the problem with if it
ain't broke, don't fix it. But if it ain't broke,
but you need to make more money because that's what
your business relies on, then maybe you don't fix it,
just try and do something to it and then fix that, right, right, Yeah,
I mean that's that's a that's a great point. And
I think it has to be endlessly frustrating to Microsoft

(41:33):
executives to really push for big, big changes, big risks
and innovation and seeing it fall flat. And then watch
Apple where it seems like Apple is able to make
that kind of declaration and uh and do really well
with it. Now that being said, there are clearly examples

(41:56):
in Apple's past where updates to certain operating systems or
software packages have been met with lots of criticism. Uh,
there're certain OS updates that people absolutely despised in the
in the process of the evolution of mac os. There's

(42:17):
also I mean, anyone here at how stuff works who
works in video could go on and on about changes
to certain video editing suites. I love that change is brilliant.
I ditched Premier to move to final cut when they
change that. Really, everyone here with the other way. That's
because they were probably doing it for for a living,
whereas I do it semi professionally, So for me it

(42:38):
actually sped up a lot of stuff, particularly things like multicam.
I wasn't doing anything professionally professionally with it, like it
wasn't my sole job. But but but on the other hand,
the big differences that Microsoft now does these big, giant,
huge overhauls and pushes it as the next big thing
and like the latest innovation and leap in personal and

(42:59):
profess not computing. Apple makes a big deal about its
os is, but they're actually incremental them all like service
packs now and they are free and Apple will trump
you know, this new innovative feature and that new innovative feature,
and yeah they are convenient, but you know, would you
pay for it? Really? I mean people did, but it
never really felt like a big deal to Apple. It

(43:19):
more felt like just because they were making boxes and
putting them on shells and shipping them around the world,
they should probably charge something for them. But once it's
all software and download based, it's just like it. So
they're like completely different. It's they're not chicken and eggs,
not chicken egg Sorry, they're not chalking cheese. Now, they're
just we're not comparing apples to apples. By comparing os

(43:39):
tend to windows updates wise. Was that chalk and cheese
that I heard? Yeah, that's water past eleven at night.
I've been up there like eighteen hours at this point.
I'm fried. I'm just curious if that's if that's a
common saying, or if that's just a yeah, okay, all right,
Yeah that's really common. Yeah, they're like chalking cheese, they

(44:00):
go together. I'll take your word for it. I I've
never heard that phrase, but I'm I'm a closet, you know.
I've been very you know, sheltered my entire life. So
it's quite possible. It just hasn't made its way to
the Deep South yet. All right, so we're in the
home stretch. October seventeen two, Microsoft releases the final version
of Internet Explorer Internet Explorer eleven, which had a lot

(44:23):
of performance improvements it actually went when it came out,
there were a lot of reviewers who put it through
various speed tests and said this was competitive against all
the other browsers that were current at that time, faster
than a lot of them. That it had made some
incredible improvements and was a true contender in the browsers

(44:47):
space that if. In fact, I remember reading so many
reviews that said, hey, if you switched the Chrome because
you wanted it to load web pages faster, you don't
have that reason anymore because Internet Explorer eleven was doing
it as fast or faster than Chrome could. So it
suddenly became clear that Microsoft had really pushed too to

(45:08):
not just have new features, but to improve the performance
so that it wasn't going to be viewed as, oh, yeah,
it's this thing that everyone has because it's bundled with
your operating system. It was actually valuable browser that could
stand on its own against uh, all these other competitors.
So it was one of those things where you started

(45:29):
hearing some real positive thing, you know, reviews about Internet Explorer.
And yet it's also the last Internet Explorer. Uh. Microsoft
announced this year that it is no longer going to
be developing Internet Explorer. I sort of think that it's
a necessary it's a necessary change because I think that

(45:53):
the name I E. Is a lot worse than the
product itself. Internet Explorer is a perfect good, great, modern
fast browser now like it is, It's fine it's a
decent browser. And and if I feel that people said,
who you know, who say, oh, I use Internet Explorer,
most of us in the tech would kind of go

(46:15):
really really, But you know what if you if you're
using the latest I on Windows eight point one, it's
not a bad browser you might like. And I mean
there's objectively speaking, not subjectively like. Objectively it's not a
poor browser. Um. But the word I E. Just it
just brings with it this history that you know, people

(46:37):
just associate with either bad technology or horrible compatibility issues
like you had with I E eight where you had
to build basically a version of your website just for
one browser. Um, there was a lot of problems, and
obviously the security issues with I E six it's you know,
get rid of the name. It's it's a real problem.

(46:58):
It's why people don't really aimed that children after murderers
because there's a lot of baggage there. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
And and so the the next one, and who knows,
by the time this podcast goes live, maybe they'll have
officially announced the name. But it's code named Project Spartan,
which is built on different codes. It's code that if

(47:20):
you trace it back. You know, it has roots that
are common to Internet Explorer, but again it's a different
evolutionary path um and it's going to uh be the
new approach for browsers. There will be continued support for
Internet Explorer for a while, but we're going to see
that gradually taper off until we are left with whatever

(47:44):
project Spartan is named at the time. I am curious
where they came up with that name because they have
the personal assistant Cortana, and Cortana that's a character from
the Halo franchise, which Microsoft owns. Now it's good. Yeah,
so its Halo is cool. Xbox is the coolest thing
Microsoft's ever done, named after the most popular thing that

(48:07):
the most popular thing is named after. Yeah, I mean
they weren't going to call it master Chief, so master Chief.
The main character in Halo is a Spartan soldier. They
the type of armor he wears is designated as Spartan.
So it's possible that this is another Halo reference. It
could be that Spartan is totally is a Halo reference,
like it's Spartan either because it's a very bland, open

(48:30):
interface and then possibly but it's not, is it it's
it's it's halo. I still think they should call it
Windows Grunt. Well, I guess, I guess they could call
it elite. I mean that would be that would be
something I would have possibly a nicer connotation than grunt
would although honestly, depending upon what version of Windows you're running,

(48:54):
grunting might be your natural reaction to booting up your computer. Um,
because I remember running older visions of Windows on older
machines and thinking, all right, I've turned my computer on
in about half an hour, I'll be able to do something.
Ah at any rate. That's that's it. That is the
the full blown history of Internet Explorer, from the early

(49:14):
days before there were even web browsers to the current
situation where Internet Explorer is is surfing into the sunset.
I guess since we're talking about the web and we're
going to get this this new type of browser in
the future, Uh, it's an interesting story. I mean, you've

(49:34):
got so much drama there, from the the Anty trust lawsuits,
the whole dot com bubble, the intense focus on the web.
Microsoft getting a little maybe not lazy but complacent perhaps
with its place. I mean, it's it's a you can
also look at this and the development of the you know,

(49:54):
the company Microsoft as well, just what that company was
going through during that time. We could do a parallel
timeline and really see how there was a lot going on.
Oh there really was, and and and the popularity of
Windows of Internet Explorer six and by extension, Internet Explorer

(50:15):
six itself was both the best and the worst thing
that happened to i E. As a franchise of browsers.
You know, it's popularity. It accounted for over nine of
all browser installations at one point around two thousand three,
I think. And yet that was the one that effectively
caused the downfall you know, in terms of actual security issues,

(50:38):
public perception, um, you know, the the the need for
something to challenge the dominant, monopolistic looking i E. You know,
all of that stuff. It caused its own ultimate downfall,
and the complacency just made that worse. Yeah, without without
i E. Six, you don't have necessarily the the incentive

(51:01):
for a group like the Mozilla Foundation to really push
for an alternative like Firefox. And then Firefox ends up
becoming not just like first when it debuts it's it's
definitely the underdog, but then very quickly in the grand
scheme of things, became a true contender. Uh. Yeah, I

(51:22):
mean without without the problems of I six, there wouldn't
have been I don't think there would have been a
drive for the alternatives. Uh. And ultimately, when you look
at the way things have shaken out now, again, like
we we barely touched the mobile world. But it's also
what helped drive the development of things like Chromium. Uh.
And then therefore you could also say it helped drive

(51:44):
things like Android as well as chromos. Uh. You know,
the world is definitely affected by Internet Explorer. Like we
we would not have the same experiences that we have
available to us now were it not for I e.
Whether it's whether it's from Microsoft or from someone else
that was trying to compete against them. So I agree.

(52:07):
I mean, broadly speaking, what a successful product, you know,
and what a great product for you know, for the
last two decades. I mean, you know, I say this
is a Mac user, but as someone has a deep
amount of respect for Microsoft and and what it does
and what it has done, and Internet Explorer has to
go down as one of the most popular, if not

(52:28):
the most commendable piece of software ever made. You know,
and I know that's a controversial statement, but but I
think even the you know what I'm getting at that
it's it has itself done so much for what the
modern web is, even if it was by being too
popular or too bad at one point, it has been
a driver of change for the modern Internet. Heck, I mean,

(52:51):
I think I feel pretty safe in saying that if
Internet Explorer had not been If it hadn't been for
Internet Explorer, for one thing, more people would never have
been introduced to the Worldwide Web because since it was
bundled with the operating system, it took that barrier to
entry and and throw it out the door right. It
made it. It became something that your computer could do

(53:14):
as soon as you got it plugged up and connected
to the Internet. There's still a bit of a barrier
because you still had to get connected, but once you
got past that, it was already ready to go. And
so there was that it helped remove that barrier to entry.
And because of that, because it had this uh enabling
factor that drove more people to the Web, it allowed

(53:34):
for the creation of things like websites like how Stuff
Works dot com, which means that I ultimately was able
to land my dream job. So like, I don't know
that things would have unfolded the same way had Microsoft
not gotten into this. I'm sure. I mean, it's undoubted,
there's it's impossible to say, but I mean, I'm pretty

(53:57):
sure that there's no way the World Wide Web wouldn't
still be an incredibly influential part of our lives. But
whether it would be to the same extent that it
is now without Internet Explorer, I don't know. Um. I mean,
something that powerful and useful and uh and and ultimately

(54:18):
profitable uh could not remain obscure forever, but it certainly
could have taken longer without Internet Explorer for it to
to get the traction that it got. So well, here's
to the next years. Yeah, who knows, who knows what
you know? Maybe maybe we'll both be using a Microsoft

(54:38):
machine and at that time and Mac will be a
distant memory, and my my Chrome U my Chrome browser
will be seen as as antiquated and cute. Yes, I
doubt it, but we'll see. I'll be just I'll be
passing through a midlife crisis and planning a sixtieth birthday. Yeah,
I'll be uh, I'll be through my midlife crisis and

(55:00):
well into my decline. All right, So, Nate Lanks, and
thank you so much for joining me for these episodes.
It has been a pleasure having you on the show.
I greatly appreciate you taking the time and as as
people have heard and maybe you maybe you didn't notice,
but Nate has stayed up, passed his bedtime to be
on my show. So I appreciate that. Now it's much

(55:24):
if I if I can stay up for two podcast episodes,
time to talk about the history of a piece of software.
I mean, that is that is nerdtastic in my book,
and it's I'm just about to relaunch an entire publication
in Europe. And I am well past my bedtime definitely,
and but but it's been a lot of fun and

(55:44):
kept me kept me awake despite what I probably should
have been doing. Well. Well, Nate, I'm going to take
that as a positive and uh, I hope I can
have you on the show again in the future. I
would love to have you back on and chatting about
well some some other great tech topics. Nate is incredibly
well versed in tons of technology. Uh. He very graciously

(56:08):
agreed to be on this episode next time. I promise
I will give him the full list of choices and
just open up the option so he can pick whatever
he wants to Uh, because it was I was playing
unfairly this time. But guys, if you have any suggestions
for future topics or potential future co hosts or interviews,
you want me to do anything along those lines, or

(56:30):
you just have some feedback that you want to send
to me, you can send it via my email address
that would be tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
You can drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter
or Tumbler. The handle it all three is tech Stuff
hs W Nate Where can they find your stuff? Well,
the best thing I can say, apart from Twitter, which
is at Nate Lankson, is I do a weekly UK

(56:53):
focused technology podcast. We did a big feature on the
most recent episode, episode thirteen, still quite a new show
where we put the world's electrical plug sockets against each other.
Plug versus plug, Which nation has the best plug? Um
the answers the English plug But there was a very
good reason as to why and we know no. We

(57:17):
spent fifteen minutes exploring exploring that. And I've also got
a review coming up of the new super thin MacBook
and a big piece about the new Google mobile algorithm change.
And the show is called Text Message. I should probably
say that um T E C H S message that is,

(57:38):
And you can find that at Nate lengths and dot
com slash podcast. Definitely go check that out, guys. And
I love it Nate that I asked you for a
plug and you plug a podcast about plugs. Oh yeah,
I didn't think that's awesome. Yeah, that's that's really well done.
All right, well, thank you guys. We will talk to
you again really soon. For more on this and thousands

(58:03):
of other topics, is a how stuff Works dot com