How the World s Top Web Browser Died

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The year 1995 wasn’t just  a turning point in the 90s,   but also in the entire Information Age.  It was the perfect storm of circumstances,   in terms of technological achievement,  attitude, and cultural expectations that   led to the mass spread and adaptation of  a whole new concept known as the Internet, “You’ve got mail!” the World Wide Web, the Cyberspace. Whatever  you wanted to call it, it was no longer just   a pipe dream in its experimental phases  reserved only for those in educational   or government domains. It was cheap, easy to  use, and yours to explore anytime you wanted,   from any place. “Where Do You Want to Go  Today?” This ease of access to the internet  

was made possible by many factors, with the most  prominent being, of course, the release of Windows   95. It was revolutionary in its new design,  practically built for navigating the web, but   a premium program that came with this operating  system, compounded this convenience even further:   a new web browser known as Internet Explorer. With  it’s incredibly unique design and business model,   all you had to do was dial-up, log on, and you  were now connected to the whole entire world.   It worked its way into becoming the most popular  web browser ever, becoming the standard for the   next couple decades. But Internet Explorer’s  debut and outreach to the public was not easy.  

Although Microsoft was able to figure out a  way to get their new product to the very top,   even in the presence of competing  programs like Netscape Navigator,   it was a journey full of controversy, betrayal,  and even legal battles. Things would get ugly,   and eventually everything would come tumbling  down. But the question is, how did that happen? [TUTORIAL MUSIC] Hi. I am Peter John, and this is a video guide on   how you can make the most out of  Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.   At just your fingertips, you can travel all over  the entire world, through a WHOLE new medium,   the CYBERWORLD. It is constantly changing and  getting more innovative everyday, and here to  

take us to the new millennium is, Hostinger,  your friendly neighborhood website-builder.   Let’s take a look at nationsquid.com, home to  the latest in cutting-edge entertainment and   the VERY first cyber-sitcom! Quite the feat. But  it’s looking a little passe! Ross Perot called,  

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are the future! Hostinger: There is so  much online real estate. Make it yours. While not instantaneous, there were three  main things that Microsoft Internet Explorer   significantly had in its favor: convenience, ease  of use, and compatibility. Yes, believe it or not,   there was a time where Internet Explorer was  the better option, and it all has to do with   the historical context and digital market of  the time. Just to put things in perspective,  

in 1994, about 2% of all households had access to  the internet. By 1996, that number had jumped to   26%. A staggering difference that 2 years can  make, and you could argue that the main force   behind this was, of course, Windows 95. But  at this time, people weren’t using Internet  

Explorer on this new operating system. They were  using another program called Netscape Navigator.   The capabilities that Netscape had really goes to  show just what kind of competition Microsoft’s new   program was facing. In order to truly appreciate  these capabilities, we first need to understand   the differences between the Internet and the  World Wide Web. Yes, there is a difference,  

despite us using the terms interchangeably in  everyday conversation. The internet is a huge   network of computers “interconnected” that are  able to talk to each other. The World Wide Web,   is the software we use to make that communication  easy to do, by using things like HTML, hyperlinks,   and URLs, etc. And in the early 90s,  a bunch of web browsers, like Nexus,   Mosaic, started popping up left and right that  made accessing the World Wide Web very easy for   the average person. But because computers were  still quite primitive, these browsers didn’t  

always do a great job at loading things on a page.  Often, you had to wait for everything to finish   loading on a page before it would even show up  on your screen. Netscape Navigator did something   quite innovative. Improving on Mosaic’s code, it  loaded some graphics and text before others! This   created the illusion that your internet connection  was faster. And for just $50, Netscape Navigator  

would be yours and you could surf away on  the net! Because they got a hold of this   innovation quite early on, this allowed for their  popularity to skyrocket, and by the time the other   browsers caught up, Netscape was the industry  standard for web-browsing, and when people got   their Windows 95, they immediately installed  Netscape on them so they could get online. Obviously, Microsoft was stoked about their  Windows 95 computer program being popular, but   they knew things could be better. They now had a  big hold on the OS market. Perhaps now they could   get a hold of the web browser market as well. This  would be the start of what has become known as the   “first Browser War.” In case you needed something  nerdy to hear today, there it is. The browser wars  

would essentially be the first true public scandal  Microsoft would find themselves in and is arguably   still the source of the controversies they deal  with today. With Netscape being so popular and   having this new innovation to their advantage,  it was going to be tough for Microsoft to compete   with them. They knew this and weren’t exactly  enthusiastic about it. It appeared that Microsoft   wasn’t just looking to outperform Netscape, but  obliterate its existence entirely. In fact the   CEO of Netscape, James Barksdale, claimed that  his company had some uncomfortable meetings   with Microsoft, saying “I have never been in a  meeting in my 33-year business career in which a   competitor had so blatantly implied that we should  either stop competing with it or the competitor   would kill us.” Yikes. Despite these high tensions  from the company, Internet Explorer did have some   humble beginnings. After Microsoft, licensed a  company called Spyglass to create it based on   Mosaic code, the program was officially released  just a month after Windows 95’s launch as part of   a bundle called Windows 95 Plus!, which, like  Netscape, also cost $50. But unlike Netscape,  

this $50 also gave you extra stuff like better  disk compression technology, special themes,   Space Cadet Pinball, improved dial-up  services, just to name a few things! But despite these extra features, it unfortunately  just wasn’t enough for Microsoft to get people   excited. Also, Internet Explorer was just  generally slower to making big updates than   Netscape was. Netscape’s larger market share gave  it better support across multiple platforms, and   it took much longer for Internet Explorer to start  competing with technologies such as Javascript.   Because of this, Microsoft’s web browser just  wasn’t as good as Netscape. They would slowly   start to make things better with incremental  updates, but in 1996, things would truly start to   change. It was at this time where Microsoft really  evaluated its strengths and weaknesses relative   to Netscape. If they couldn’t compete with the  innovation just yet, they could just strike the  

company’s Achilles’ heel. There was one thing  that Microsoft had much more of than Netscape:   capital. This means they could better afford  to take risks that could significantly benefit   them long-term. Microsoft started to  operate hugely on economies of scale,   the idea that spending more money now will  create a lot more money later on. Netscape got   nearly all its money from people buying their web  browser for $50. So, what did Microsoft do? Well,  

they released Internet Explorer 3 and  made the browser completely free! Heck,   they even bundled it with their next update of  Windows 95! This is what made Internet Explorer   incredibly popular. Microsoft essentially treated  the product as a loss leader, because they knew   the product’s exposure to so many machines would  increase Microsoft’s exposure and strengthen their   influence and presence on the internet! Was the  browser 100% as good as Netscape? Not at all,   but “free” is better than paying $50! Ultimately,  this plan worked, and this version of Internet   Explorer alone brought its market share from  around 5% in 1996 to as high as 30% a year later. But there was another thing going on  in the tech space that, oddly enough,   indirectly skyrocketed Internet Explorer’s  newfound success: the failure of Apple. The   1990s were not a good time for Apple at all.  With Steve Jobs no longer in the picture,   the company was bleeding money and was even  projected to disappear entirely by the year   2000. But when Steve Jobs was hired back in 1997  after the company used most of the money it had   left to buy his company NeXT, the two companies  put together a deal. A very controversial deal,  

considering the whole “Mac vs. PC” feud was  still very much alive, even at this time.   Apple was paid $150 million, to support a ton of  Microsoft Office products as well as make Internet   Explorer the default web browser for Mac OS. This  announcement was met with quite the reaction. [SHOCKED AUDIENCE] Although this news generated a lot of mixed  opinions in the tech space, it only strengthened   the market share of Internet Explorer, because  now it wasn’t just on Windows! It was even on   the Mac! It would also be the default browser on  Windows 98, and all these factors contributed to   Internet Explorer’s convenience, compatibility,  and eventually, the quality of the product itself.   Now that Microsoft was developing a strong hold on  the Internet, this gave them more time to innovate   their product and further solidify its influence.  This included creating their own competitor to  

JavaScript, simply known as Jscript, similar  extension-supporting technology, even adding   their own communication services and media  player support to the browser. In other words,   it didn’t take long for Internet Explorer to  become just as good, if not better than Netscape,   and it was free. By 1999, Internet Explorer had  66% of the browser market share. As you could see,   this was not looking for Netscape, because  people now didn’t really have a reason to   buy it anymore. As terrible as this appears on  Microsoft’s end from just an optics perspective,   they weren’t exactly doing anything wrong. The  company was just privileged enough to be able   to provide an equally capable product for free.  But Microsoft then started to take things too  

far and got kind of sour with everything. They  started requiring PC manufacturers to include   Internet Explorer as the default browser on  their machines, otherwise they wouldn’t be   allowed to install Windows at all. Because there  weren’t really any good competitors to the Windows   OS that could be licensed out at that time,  these manufacturers basically had no choice.

Many people felt that this wasn’t technological  innovation. This was just a straight up abuse   of power. This created a controversy that got  so big it ended up becoming a court case that   was national news. There were now, for lack  of a better word, internet memes making fun   of Bill Gates and Microsoft as a whole. There  was even a freaking pie thrown at Bill Gates’   face. And the Microsoft depositions became  quite the spectacle, with Bill just behaving  

very strange, uncooperative, and giving  non-answers to the questions he was asked. “Who was at this executive staff meeting?” “Probably members of the executive staff.” “I don’t know what it means to be like that.”

“What do you mean by internet software?” “Who’s doing the criticism in your hypothetical?” “The full breath of your question?” “It certainly relates to Java. Java run-time  relates to Java! I mean, give me a break!” “What does it mean when you keep  going in and out of quotes like that?” “Do you want me to define proprietary API or not—” “No! I don’t want you to define proprietary API!  I didn’t ask you to define proprietary API!” Microsoft was found to be in violation of  sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act,   and basically creating a monopoly in the web  browsing space. In the year 2000, the company   was ordered to split into two sections, one  focusing on the development of Windows, and   the other focusing on their additional software  products. Microsoft then appealed this decision,  

and won! Well, sort of. Instead of splitting the  company, Microsoft agreed on a settlement where   from now on, they would basically stop being as  hostile towards competing third-party software.   But by this time, the damage was done. By the end  of the case, Internet Explorer had around 93% of  

the web browsing market share, and Netscape  Navigator was just old news. They finally   started making their browser free (a luxury they  initially only reserved for schools and non-profit   organizations), but this drastically decreased  their revenue, and Internet Explorer’s popularity   was just too great for it to make a difference.  Not to mention that Netscape was also one of the   companies most significantly affected by the  dot-com bubble just earlier that year, which   drastically impacted the company’s monetary value.  Netscape would continue to do some incremental  

updates, but they would ultimately disappear in  2003. AOL had already owned the Netscape company   at this point and they would release a sort  of novelty update of the program in 2007, but   it garnered pretty much no buzz, and so support  for it was discontinued just the following year.  So, by the early 2000s, let’s just say that  Microsoft could…get comfortable. And that   was actually part of the problem and would  be the beginning of the end for Internet   Explorer. You could say that Microsoft got a  little too comfortable. Because there wasn’t   really any stiff competition at this time, they  no longer felt as much need to innovate. They   weren’t updating Internet Explorer as frequently  or introducing that many exciting features to it,   and this would soon catch up with them. And at  this time, the internet was rapidly advancing,  

undergoing big changes, sites like YouTube were  becoming a thing! In other words, the internet   now required a lot more power and bandwidth than  it did back in the 90s, and Internet Explorer   simply wasn’t catching up with the times, and that  was slowly, over time, affecting its performance.   People were tired of settling for mediocrity,  and started looking to new innovative approaches   for web-browsing. By 2003, Apple was no longer  obligated to make Internet Explorer the default   browser for the Mac. So they create their own  browser called Safari, which is reportedly much   faster than Internet Explorer. That’s because it  kept up with the times and used new innovative  

techniques that allowed the program to run on  less RAM and block unnecessary cookies and scripts   from slowing down the loading of a page. It also  used did something called “hardware acceleration”   which basically let it make the most out of the  machine’s parts in order to maximize performance.   Naturally, Safari was a hit among mac users. So,  other browsers decided to build something similar.   And this is when Netscape essentially returns with  a fiery vengeance. The source-code of Netscape   Navigator became open-source, which basically  allowed for people to legally take the code and   do whatever they want with it. One company, pretty  much just took Netscape Navigator and massively   improved it. They made it up to date and run a  lot like Safari. But the name Netscape was already  

associated with the past, so they decided to  rebrand it to Mozilla Firefox. Because Firefox is   an open-source project, they make a lot of their  money from voluntary donations and through deals   with Google and Yahoo to implement their search  engines built into the browser. For this reason,   they can provide Firefox for free. Around  this same time, Google all uses their capital,   much like Microsoft did in the late 90s, to  create their own browser called Google Chrome,   which followed very similar design to Safari,  and this browser was also free to download.  And so, the second browser war begins!  There was now intimidating competition   for Internet Explorer, and worst of all, it was  free. Microsoft was now facing their comeuppance   and getting a taste of their own medicine. This  is why people joke about Internet Explorer being  

slow, because it quite literally runs on very  outdated technology. The program would finally   lose its majority market share to Google  Chrome in 2012. But again, the damage was   done. Internet Explorer continued to be slow to  innovative updates and their reputation of being   “the slow browser” stayed. They would never gain  back their majority hold of the internet. It seems   that Microsoft finally came to terms with this,  and in 2016, they effectively rebranded Internet   Explorer as Microsoft Edge. They built this  browser off a system called Chromium, which is,   sure enough, what Google Chrome uses. It took them  a lot later, but Microsoft finally built a browser  

that was with the times. However, since “e” stood  for edge, they still kept the Internet Explorer   logo, so people just associated it with that  and continued to not use it. So Microsoft would   eventually change the logo, and at around this  time, their market share would actually improve.  

Now, I couldn’t find any data to prove what I’m  about to say; this is just a pet theory of mine,   but I do believe that this logo change did help  influence that growth. Much like how the “e” had a   negative connotation with internet explorer, this  new circular logo has a positive connotation with   all the fast web-browsers, particularly chrome,  that have a circular logo. I think that this   psychological association allowed people to truly  take advantage of this new chromium-based software   and experience just how much faster it really is. And with all the backlash that browsers like   Chrome are currently facing, maybe this is  the chance for Microsoft to once again get   back to the very top. Who knows, maybe we’ll  have a third browser war. But until then,   if one lesson could be learned from the tale  of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, it’s that you   shouldn’t demand too much of what you want, all  at once, as you might not know what to do with it.

But you know what has proven to improve  your internet speed? Supporting me on   Patreon of course: patreon.com/NationSquid.  Buying me a coffee also does that too…yeah.   A special thanks to my patrons and channel  members for making this video possible.   Thank you so much for watching. If you  enjoyed this video, please subscribe,   and click the notification bell, so  that you never miss a future video!

2024-08-02

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