

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 at the height of cynicism - angelod101
http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2009/06/17/microsoft-internet-explorer-8-at-the-height-of-cynicism/

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timdorr
Also, turns out one of Microsoft's updates to IE8 actually breaks this contest
from working: [http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090617/internet-
explorer-...](http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090617/internet-
explorer-8-treasure-hunt-microsoft-australia-hides-10000/) I can't reiterate
enough how absolutely hilarious that is.

~~~
johnnybgoode
Plus, after the update broke IE8, they tried to fix it and failed: "It appears
the Compatibility View list cannot be overridden."

If the press does its job, this whole thing will be a net loss for Microsoft.

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Elepsis
So the author is complaining that Microsoft is restricting a contest designed
to get users to download IE8 to, uh, users of IE8?

If they _didn't_ do that, why would they run a contest at all? Would having a
Firefox user win the contest justify the marketing expense?

I agree that the promo is pretty thoughtless, but I'm not sure there was any
thought put into this criticism either.

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invisible
We need someone to win the contest using Firefox (changing their user agent)
and just viewing source when appropriate (to avoid IE "compatibility" bugs
that hide things).

~~~
nebula
Or better, can someone quickly release an FF extension which can beat this?
That would be an interesting counter strike :)

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peyton
"It's not as stupid as it sounds." - Lol.

IE8 isn't _that_ bad. Sure it's slow, but most everything you'd need is
implemented. I don't like the haughty tone of the contest, but meh. Firefox
fans have run similar campaigns, e.g. <http://wedontsupportie.com/>

~~~
nkassis
That was in reference to IE6 which was a pain in the ass to support and
required a site to be written with tons of exceptions.

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trezor
To be fair they encourage people to upgrade from MSIE 6 and 7 too, and if they
can achieve that, I'm willing to consider that a _good_ thing.

~~~
timdorr
And to be be fairer, they're not encouraging others to go out and built IE-
only sites. They've just designed this site (presumable through a simple JS
browser check or UA check on the server side) to only allow entry via IE8.

But still, kind of a dick move. The whole "get lost" message isn't really a
good marketing move either.

~~~
jackmoore
How can they call FireFox 'old'? IE8 may be the best IE, but it's still a year
or more behind the other browsers, and FF is very actively being developed.
3.5RC1 just came out in the past 24 hours.

~~~
paulgb
I wonder if they are checking the firefox version number. For me on Firefox
3.0, it just says "you'll never find it with that browser".

~~~
nebula
_I wonder if they are checking the firefox version number_

I guess not. I use FF 3.0.x and they said "old Fire Fox". It looks like many
people are actually downloading IE8 to participate in this. Hopefully, this
actually may not change the market share of IE vis-a-vis its competitors. If
you are an FF user, even if you download IE8 and participate in this contest,
you are most likely to stick to FF. IOW I'm hoping that the downloads won't
actually translate to conversions from other browsers. One good thing that
might come out of this is some IE6 upgrades to IE8.

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mattmaroon
"First, my memory isn’t so short as to have forgotten that it was Microsoft
and their browser (Internet Explorer 6) that held back the web for so many
years."

That's bullshit. IE6 may have sucked, but it didn't hold anything back. As
Firefox proved, anyone could have come along and built a better browser and
started sucking up enough market share to make it an industry again.

~~~
axod
And so comes the totally unbiased voice of an ms fanboy ;)

Seriously. They employed anti competitive practices to grab market share from
Netscape. Once they had completely obliterated Netscape, they decided to not
update IE6 and leave users suffering.

It's like their aim with IE6 was to kill off the web. Or at least make it suck
so much that webapps would be delayed for 10 years - which they pretty much
achieved. Obviously that was in ms's favor - their business is desktop apps,
not webapps.

~~~
mattmaroon
I haven't used any version of IE (other than for testing, or where sites
require it) since the first time I tried out Firefox, which I think was called
Phoenix back when I started. But the issue I have with that logic is that
nothing ever changed with their so-called "anti-competitive practices", and
yet the browser market did drastically when Firefox started picking up steam.
IE kept on being bundled with every Windows install. The market worked itself
out.

If IE6 were holding it back for so long, why did it miraculously stop, even
though nothing changed? The answer, of course, is that it wasn't IE6. It was
the lack of a business model, which was inadvertently solved by Google.

Saying IE6 held the browser market back is like saying Yahoo held the search
market back by giving it away for free. Just like Yahoo, Microsoft is now
feeling the pain of failure to innovate.

Of course, everyone here hates IE6 (understandably) and Microsoft so I'll get
downmodded a lot.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_The answer, of course, is that it wasn't IE6. It was the lack of a business
model..._

As I recall, Netscape had a business model back before Microsoft set out to
use monopoly power to deliberately destroy it.

Your argument reminds me of the old joke about the guy who kills his parents
and then runs around asking for sympathy because he's an orphan.

Of course, it's quite possible that Netscape's original business model was
nonviable. There were plenty of silly business models around in the old days.
We'll never really know. But this doesn't let Microsoft off the hook: Shooting
someone who has a terminal illness is still murder.

~~~
mattmaroon
From the latest Joel on Software post: "Dave Winer (in 2007): 'Sometimes
developers choose a niche that’s either directly in the path of the vendor, or
even worse, on the roadmap of the vendor. In those cases, they don’t really
deserve our sympathy.'"

That's Netscape. They had a nonviable business model in charging for something
that ended up on the roadmap of every platform they were on. You can hate
Microsoft all you want, but Apple bundles a browser with their OS for free
too, and would have done the same if they owned the market. And then everyone
would be complaining that Safari held us all back.

Firefox found a viable business model and the browser wars began again. That's
all there is to it.

