Skip to content

Comment on Ask HN: How did Microsoft hold back the Internet for 6-7 years?parent

Comments

No, it's pretty accurate. When you gain a monopoly and people stop testing on other browsers, you create a big problem. I never stopped using Netscape/Mozilla. It doesn't matter if IE was better for a period of time. Once it became dominant and incompatible, all other browsers fought a huge uphill battle. IE is still the most widely used desktop browser.

This is unfortunately starting to happen once again with Chrome.

The irony is that many sites now have poor compatibility with IE due to using proprietary webkit-only CSS styles. On mobile it's even worse, with most "mobile optimized" sites being broken even on firefox and opera. Even big sites perform poorly. Engadget's mobile version is broken on anything that's not webkit. It is frustrating to see that people never learn. They're quite happy to change jailers, but quite unwilling to free themselves.

Yeah, it's gotten to the point that some alternative mobile browsers are starting to support -webkit- prefixes.

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.