Today we mourn the loss of a once excellent technology, and secretly celebrate it like a grandparent that turned bitter in old age.

RIP Internet Explorer.

Maybe for most it is not much of a secret

Oh, did the day finally finally come?

no. today, we finally celebrate FREEDOM!

freedom from the second-worst thing that ever happened to the internet.

maybe the worst, too, will some day disappear.

(looking at you, javascript)

@tosensei Internet Explorer coming free with your copy of Windows made web browsing a standard feature of personal and enterprise computing.

It is likely that hundreds of millions of people have jobs, one way or another, because of Internet Explorer.

For all it's faults, for all it's terrible quirks and the amount of work it has forced upon unhappy developers, it was still a great product with legitimate effect on human history

@AlgoRythm oh, how wonderful the internet would be if browsing WASN'T a standard feature of personal computers, but something reserved for those people who actually understand how the internet works.

if all those offline-people would stay offline instead.

@tosensei you sound like a pretentious cunt rn lmao

@AlgoRythm if IE hadn’t existed, there would be another browser in its place that would give jobs to those millions of people. It’s not like the number of jobs is that high specifically because of IE.

@Lensflare maybe. Without Internet Explorer, who knows if anyone else was going to create a browser for free. Maybe Apple.

But IE was the one who dunnit so today we put aside our differences and pay respects!

@AlgoRythm you’re asking a ton of egomaniacs to admit that something they dislike is actually important.

Good luck with that

Mandela effect, I was pretty sure this day already happened like in 2016 or 2017.

@JS96 same. I can't find any history on it but I think as soon as Edge was released (around that time?) IE was officially marked as "legacy" software.

And then, today, it died. (Announced at least a year ago)

"once excellent technology"

What drugs you on?

@kiki lol someone not only disliked your comment but also chose one of the categories which actually modified the public count (which I think only includes the more severe options)

It sounds like some people here never read the "Halloween Documents".

Decommoditizing protocols through proprietarizing access to the internet was a primary goal of IE. MS kept it incompatible with other browsers and avoided full standards compatibility for as long as they could. MS wanted to be the only gateway to the net. Embrace, extend, extinguish.

@Demolishun when compared to something like Netscape, it was excellent. Not only was it free but it also integrated with the Microsoft ecosystem, which allowed for more interesting applications especially for intranet and internal usage.

Today, we have largely moved away from this, so even looking back at it, it seems bad. But no doubt, at the time, IE at least had a decent stretch when it was excellent

@Demolishun even if they **wanted to** monopolize the internet, they ultimately failed and created a product that ironically brought in the age of free browsers for everyone, accomplishing the exact opposite of what they wanted.

Internet Explorer was one of a few good things that happened to me in my childhood. It's tied to some good memories I have of that time.

As a tribute, I designed and coded Game of Life that runs perfectly in IE5.5. Yes, that's before DOM.

@kiki if internet explorer is one of the _good_ things in your childhood, then i am truly very, very, very sorry for you.

here, have an infinite amount of hugs to cheer you up, you obviously need them.

@tosensei https://devrant.com/rants/4924040/...

thank you. sincerely.

@Nanos because notepad isn't terrible. it's just pretty basic.

to be fair, it was a leader and industry standard in its time.

As time passed, kids found plenty to improve in it and released better versions. But the foundation is all there -- IE.

The problem is that IE was enforced on most computers and was holding back the progress, not to mention that some apps were written to work specifically for IE6.

I wish I could say "good riddance". But all I can do is press F and be glad we had it. And that kids now can take over w/o looking back.

IMO I'd be nice to have browsers modular: CSS, JS and other base features installable as 3rd-party packages, while the browser implements the UI, renderer, plugins, OS interactions, other stuff. This way CSS and JS would be able to define and enforce a unified API and initial (extendable) implementation (not just a spec) - that'd make it easier for everyone I think

@AlgoRythm Netscape would have never open sourced their code if not to raise a middle finger to MS for IE. It would have never evolved into Firefox. No Firefox, then no Chrome. No chromebooks. MS sure could have woke up and updated ie a bit toward the end there though.

And now to some degree, the chrome eco system is becoming too bloated and run by a monopoly. Perhaps something truly new will arise.

With MS practices there is just nothing else to say except “Thank you but fuck you”

When somehow my Windows proxy settings change without explanation: hello Internet Explorer advanced settings, my old friend