I do still think though, that if MS had actually continued to patch and improve IE6 as the web moved forward then there would not be such a large and enthusiastic band of web developers who have undoubtedly made a difference. I think, when I moved to FF (on Windows XP back then), it was for features and stability more than security concerns and was because I was interested in making web sites that worked.

Thanks again, I really appreciate you taking the time to comment.

I.E.6 was actually seen as a fine browser for its time by pretty much everyone, users and developers alike. In 2001 when it was released, there was no standard but the Microsoft standard because Microsoft had captured about 85% of the browsing market and was a sure bet at seeing that grow to 95% with another year or two of XP sales. Users were happy with the feature set because IE (and for some an inferior Netscape) was all they knew and it wasn’t failing them in any obvious ways.

(Remember, this was the era of “Melissa” “I Love You” and “Anna Kournikova” all Outlook *email* viruses, before the browser was the target it became, before the Web-based worms and phishing attacks. Remember, this was an era before the Web had become an application platform where people actually did work. Remember, this was before self-publishing for the masses with “blogs” and Flickr and YouTube. Remember, this was before the Web had become central to the lives of a billion people.)

So, if you’re Microsoft in 2001 and you’ve essentially sewn up the market, what do you do? Well, what they did was to disband the Internet Explorer team, sending them off to various other projects like Web TV and Longhorn. They explained that there would be no more stand-alone browser releases and that the browser was nothing more than another OS feature that would get updates when new versions of the OS shipped.

From that point until Firefox scared the crap out of them in 2004, they basically gave up on changing anything but security fixes and security-related features and another update to IE wasn’t planned until the long-delayed Longhorn/Vista shipped.

Implementing new W3C standards or even fixing bugs in pre-existing standards was not on the table. There was just no one at Microsoft working on that and the Web settled in to Trident’s mediocre and buggy “feature set”. Sadly, most people were quite content with that state of affairs.

And that’s where everyone, I mean everyone! thought that things would stay. And 99% of the Internet population (everyone except some web developers and the people working on Mozilla) thought that was just fine. The Web was basically done. Maybe when Longhorn/Vista shipped, people though, we’ll get refresh of the IE icons. No one was thinking about Web standards.

So it is not the case, not in the slightest bit the case, that Microsoft’s lack of standards support opened up the door for Firefox.

What opened up the door for Firefox was the massive outbreak of web-based attacks like “drive-by” installs of malware, the rise of phishing, the scourge of pop-up and pop-under advertising, the triumph of “search” over “browse”, and the proliferation of Ajax and decent Web applications.

The Web was still growing and changing in huge ways while Microsoft stood still. (The number of people going online doubled between IE6 shipping and Firefox 1 shipping. Mapquest was replaced by Google maps. Yahoo’s directory was replaced by Google search. Etc. etc.)

And Firefox was there with the right set of features at the right time. Just as the security situation for IE6 became untenable, Firefox provided a much safer alternative by being immune to most IE attacks and offering phishing and spoofing protections. Just as pop-ups and pop-unders became unbearable, Firefox gave people an exceptional pop-up blocker. Just as people were transitioning to a Web of applications rather than pages, Firefox gave people tabbed browsing so they could easily manage several always open apps. And just as search was replacing browse as the primary mode of getting around online, Firefox offered simple and extensible built-in search.

That’s what made Firefox the strong contender that it was and allowed it to grow to 15% of the market before Microsoft could respond, not IE’s lack of support for standards.

Now, the good news is that Mozilla has always cared deeply about Web standards and particularly about moving the capabilities, the feature set of the web forward. And with sufficient market share and mindshare Mozilla was able to push Microsoft to start improving in that area as well.

So, standards, security, performance, and user feature innovations are happening across the browser landscape today and that’s great. But it might not have been so, and not because of IE6 being a horrible browser, but because Firefox was a better browser that fit better and was keeping up with an evolving Web.