If you try to ask a person who has a minimum of experience in the use of the computer and in web development what he thinks of Internet Explorer you will receive as a response, in most cases, a sign of disgust if not worse. Asking why so much hatred, probably, the answer will concern the fact that it has always been a poor browser, slow, without extensions, with few options, insecure etc.
In the end we all got used to considering Internet Explorer as the slow and full of bugs, but it was not always the case, on the contrary, Internet Explorer paved the way for many innovations without which the web would not have been the one of today.
In fact, to understand where this hatred and contempt of the most expert people in computer science for the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser comes from, one must look at its history and where it all began.
Internet Explorer is one of the first programs in history to surf the internet.
In 1996/1997 there was Internet Explorer 3, the first browser to implement CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and many new features such as Java applets and, unfortunately, ActiveX controls which then became one of the most feared transmission vehicles of virus.
In 1997 Internet Explorer 4 was a very fast browser for those times that added other functions such as Dynamic HTML, to modify web pages dynamically using JavaScript, with the integration of Active Desktop.
Incredible but true, IE4 could also be installed on Mac OS, Solaris and HP-UX, and reached a 60 percent market share.
In 1999 Internet Explorer 5.x was released for which Microsoft invented Ajax web technology, which is the basis of all today's web applications such as, for example, Gmail.
The term "Ajax" was coined a few years later and not by Microsoft which, however, with IE5 had made available everything necessary to make it work.
In those years Microsoft worked well and, under the guidance of Bill Gates, it was a truly innovative company.
From IE3 to IE6, Microsoft has used all its resources to innovate and take out the competition (of Netscape), releasing new features and making its browser faster.
At the time, the only alternative browser to IE was Netscape which was much slower and could barely display the tables, crashing on CSS sites.
The problems for Internet Explorer came at the time when Microsoft decided to integrate it into Windows as a necessary component, difficult if not impossible to uninstall to use an alternative browser.
In addition, Microsoft also made himself unpleasant by trying to sink Netscape and create a monopoly for Internet Explorer.
Internet Explorer 6, released in 2001, had many new features for web developers but, since there was no competition and with a 95% market share, Microsoft stopped innovating and remained with this version for five years, even after the birth of Firefox on which all the experts and web developers migrated.
Microsoft's problem was to think that Internet Explorer would remain the only browser for its Windows PCs, sinning with great presumption.
Due to this stop to search Internet Explorer, in addition to losing ground against the competition of Firefox and other emerging browsers such as Opera, it was full of Marchian bugs and sensational security holes
Over time, IE6 has become an icon of Microsoft's immobility.
Just think that Internet Explorer 6 was a tabless browser, which to view different sites together required to open different windows.
It was also targeted by toolbars, dangerous activex controls, malicious codes, advertising pop-ups and whoever has more.
When they came out, after 5 years, first IE7 and then IE8 was already too late.
With IE7, the cards were finally added, but it still created discontent because for the site developers it had become a heavy and complicated job to make the web pages compatible with the new and the old version.
It took another 2 and a half years for Microsoft to finally release Internet Explorer 8 which had greatly improved CSS support and added new features such as private browsing, tab isolation to prevent a poorly designed page from crashing browser and anti-phishing check.
At this point, however, most geeks, more experienced users and even those with a minimum of experience on the basic use of the computer had already switched to Firefox and Google Chrome.
The contempt for Internet Explorer all over the world is mainly motivated by the fact that for years people have been forced to use it at home and especially at work and in the office, to make business applications work (in some companies this is still the case today).
The hatred for Internet Explorer by those who work on the web derives from its history with the version IE6 and IE7.
A webmaster or webdesigner could spend hours of work to make his site look good on Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera, discovering that it does not work on Internet Explorer.
Today, fortunately, the situation has clearly changed.
Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are still used by few users in the world, but most of the largest and most popular websites have completely stopped supporting them.
The use of Internet Explorer 8 has also dropped to a low percentage and will soon be abandoned.
Microsoft has finally learned from its many mistakes of the past, subsequently releasing absolutely fast and safe Internet Explorer 10 and 11 browsers, characterized by a modern interface and many integrated tools.
The security and privacy options of Internet Explorer are also superior to those of Chrome and Firefox, so much so as to become less vulnerable and less palatable for those who design viruses and malware (much easier to make virus and adware extensions for Firefox and Chrome).
Today the most "obnoxious" and hated browser is definitely not Internet Explorer, but Google Chrome because of privacy concerns.
