How the World's Top Web Browser Died

Create your own website today with Hostinger! Get 10% off your order at

In the 1990s, Microsoft shocked the entire world with its revolutionary, easy to use web-browser called Internet Explorer. It was proving to be well on its way to developing just as much support and capability as other competing browsers of the time, like Netscape Navigator. The release of Internet Explorer also coincided with the release of Windows 95.

However, the story behind this browser got ugly quite fast, and eventually everything would come tumbling down.

Support me on Patreon!

Buy Me a Coffee:

Join this channel to get access to perks:

Google +: just kidding.

Beauty Flow by Kevin MacLeod

ENJOY THE PROGRAM.

[nationsquid]

Create your own website today with Hostinger! Get 10% off your order at

[MSThalamus-gjoi]

It wasn't just the logo that changed. The first release of Edge wasn't based on Chromium. It was another internal effort at Microsoft. It couldn't compete with the extension ecosystem of Chrome, though, and at about that time the CEO was going from Ballmer's hands to Nadella's. They reasoned, quite right, that they could put out a more compatible product at a much lower cost by rebasing on Chromium rather than continuing all development efforts in-house, and so they did.

[stevenjlovelace]

Fun fact about the name "Mozilla". It goes back to the earliest browser war (Zeroth Browser War?). where Netscape was competing against Mosaic. The codename for the beta Netscape Navigator was "Mozilla", as in "Mosaic Killer, " combined with "Godzilla." If you type "about:mozilla" into Firefox even now, you'll get a red page with a faux-Bible verse about the mythical Mozilla.

[Terminal]

"Who was at this executive staff meeting?""Probably members of the executive staff."
For some reason, this cracked me up

[adamsfusion]

Corrections:
1. Spyglass did not create IE1 as stated in the video. Microsoft merely licensed it with a per-sale royalty paid. When Microsoft gave it away for free, Spyglass sued and won over lost royalties.
2. Apple was not forced to support Microsoft Office. Apple NEEDED Microsoft Office to be on Macs. Microsoft had threatened to stop making the Mac OS port due to the next point.
3. There's an implication that the $150 million was needed to fund Apple. It was not. The $150 million was payment for Microsoft _stealing_ Apple's Quicktime code for "Video for Windows".
4. Firefox (then Phoenix) predates Safari by a year. The implication made in the video that Safari somehow influenced Firefox to come into existence is simply false.
5. Edge originally used EdgeHTML and Chakra, not Chromium and V8.

Extra note: For historical reference, it's better to refer to Nexus as WorldWideWeb as it's the most common way to refer to Tim Berners-Lee's original creation.

[saugusandsausages]

Seeing the old Cartoon Network site brought back so many memories. Anyway, back then I used Netscape and later Firefox.

[eldoblixtlo]

Does everyone else remember how noisy internet used to be? Many websites used play background music or custom noises at times, often when hovering or clicking on things. The audio was often so unexpectedly loud that it could easily startle you or blow out the speakers, especially when it easily overlapped each other which disrupts the experience and performance that it was almost unusable.
Nowadays there are much stricter policies of how to use sound on the internet which is why videos often starts out without sounds and letting the user to choose when the audio will play rather than being automatically forced upon the user.

[TUYonYouTube]

Microsoft edge didn’t use chromium back in 2015/2016 when the re brand happened that’s when they used chromium

[bad.sector]

Some fun fact that could have made the point of the video clearer: Microsoft CLOSED the development team after finishing IE6. They just did not innovate, they did NOTHING FOR YEARS, they just decided that the development of the browser was done.
It took them almost 5 years to start with IE7, and fun fact from Wikipedia: "Within a year after IE7's release (end of 2006 to end of 2007) support calls to Microsoft had decreased 10-20%"

Firefox was initally called "Phoenix", then "Firebird", and then finally "Firefox". It had the major market share of 3rd party browsers until Chrome came up, and Google used its search engine advantage to "convince" users to install it by showing users ads about a newer/better browser (despite that not being entirely true), basically doing the same thing as Microsoft did once. But that's another story...

[mitchc]

I remember the day Internet Explorer shutdown. It was such a sad day. I remember being holed up in my room for hours wondering how I was meant to install Chrome on my laptop from now on.

[Adam-jwuz]

The third browser war will just be us as a society breaking away from Google's world dominance and seeking alternatives.

[Theshadiestofslims]

The strange thing is, I was searching for a video on Internet Explorer and I saw this video in my notifications.

[chaichaitee]

The third browser war will probably be about privacy

[BrianandKarina]

I must say that lately I've been using Edge and I'm liking it, but I want to look for a Windows key to see if it improves a little more.

[ebridgewater]

12:44 "Who was at this executive staff meeting?" "Probably members of the executive staff." - You legend, Bill 😆

[midwestweirdo]

That new edge logo looks like it's trying to copy the shape of Firefox with the color pattern of chrome

[MSThalamus-gjoi]

Something most people don't know, and I do because I was there, after IE 6's release, IE went into a "Sustained Engineering" mode, where only bug fixes were intended to ever be released again. The team name even changed from IE to IESE. Almost the entire team had left, half to MSN Explorer, and the other half to Avalon, which eventually morphed into the DWM in Vista (think Aero Glass). I was dumb enough to stay with IE....

[leroy]

The other point missing from this video is that IE didn't follow the published standards, so as a web developer, we had to write different code to handle IE. Clients that we worked with never understood why IE looked different than the other browsers. It was a constant pain and every web developer had a party when IE was finally retired. haha

[locki_dos]

Microsoft Edge wasn't chromium based until 2019.
And the reason why it has a higher market share after the new version of edge was introduced is because microsoft has been using tactics within later windows 10 updates and now windows 11 that forcibly use Edge even if your default web browser is chrome, etc.
Using the search bar and accidently use the 'see web results'; microsoft edge. Using settings and clicking on the 'related support' links; microsoft edge. etc.
Even if it's a minor and small inconvenient usage; It still heavily skews the market share of the browser, making it seem bigger than it actually really is.

[BOWIEE_]

The sponsor part of the video is so smart!!!! The way you do it doesn't make you want to skip it it's fun and quite creative