Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. ❤️
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
Reader comments
Andy BaioJun 13, 2003 at 2:17PM
This is in line with the announcement that Microsoft would no longer be ship a standalone browser for Windows. But unlike with Windows's built-in browser, this means that there will never be another version of IE available for the Mac.
Matt HaugheyJun 13, 2003 at 2:27PM
wow, they're just handing the market over to safari and mozilla? I guess it was never a cash cow for them and they probably wanted to just cut their losses, but I'm surprised.
I've heard "IE 5/Mac is the new NN4" due to CSS problems, but it looks like it'll become a truth for developers.
R.Jun 13, 2003 at 3:13PM
IE on the Mac, particularly under OS X, had fallen into disrepute in any case. One of Dave Hyatt's stated goals for the development of Safari's rendering engine has been to accommodate IE's various quirks and conventions where absolutely necessary, so things should be seamless.
The seldom-discussed UNIX flavor of IE is also dead.
pbJun 13, 2003 at 3:46PM
I suspect Microsoft will create modules (or whatever) that plug-in to Safari to implement any specific technologies they want to provide on a cross-platform basis (or at least on Mac and Wondows).
When I hear that there will not be another standalone WinIE, it makes no sense to me. How is that any different than the current situation?
Ryan SchroederJun 13, 2003 at 3:54PM
pb-
I think it's referring to the fact that you can download IE seperately now. In the future updates will only be available with new versions of windows.
GeneJun 13, 2003 at 4:12PM
I don't understand the rationale for discontinuing IE: why does the browser have to be closely tied to the OS (except to protect MSFT from further anti-trust action)?
pbJun 13, 2003 at 5:01PM
Who downloads IE separately now?
The browser may not *need* to be closely tied to the OS but it makes infinite sense to do so.
dowingbaJun 13, 2003 at 5:30PM
I'm sure you could download upgrades if you own windows. That is incredibly stupid if you have to buy a new OS every time you want a new IE version. We need an IE Jihad.
Ry RivardJun 13, 2003 at 6:09PM
Zeldman is all over the story.
As a then moderatly-ignorant Mac user, I vividly (sadly) remember how much of an improvement the IE 5 betas were for OS 9 over IE 4.5 and especially Netscape and from then on no one--Mozilla, iCab, et al--could unseat it.
When I my 12" PB I used it once, to download Safari.
elaineJun 13, 2003 at 6:50PM
who downloads IE now?
people who use windows but don't care to upgrade their OS, at least not as fast as MS would like them to....
MeJun 13, 2003 at 7:46PM
Why browse the Web when you can curl and download it!
Lynx rawks better anyway.
GeneJun 13, 2003 at 8:51PM
The browser may not *need* to be closely tied to the OS but it makes infinite sense to do so.
But why does it make infinite sense? The success of standalone browsers surely indicates that one can create a good browser without deep hooks into the OS. Maybe MSFT is betting on a shift away from generic browsing to consuming .NET services through specialized applications. Or it could be betting on OS-MSN integration, which is a scary thought.
Jordon CooperJun 13, 2003 at 11:56PM
What? Microsoft has discontinued development on IE? Jeez, the program has been stagnant since IE 4 (okay 5 was an improvement) with nothing that revolutionary in it. I think the problem is that Microsoft doesn't know how to improve it anymore and without Netscape pushing them anymore and Safari not being an immediate threat, there seems to be no reason to keep pushing hard.
This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.