Following http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2221831 and the countless other complaints about Internet Explorer, I was curious what the general feeling here was about whether it was possible / desirable actually to work towards dramatically reducing its usage.<p>Just to be clear, I don't mean IE6. I mean the entire IE brand, including IE9.<p>Possible arguments for: Even though they are working towards greater compliance with standards, IE9 is still far behind the other browsers. Moreover, there's no reason to think that remedying this situation is a high priority for the IE team. Bringing IE usage down to a small fraction of users would save countless hours of web design time.<p>Possible arguments against: Losing IE would give too much control of the market to a small number of actors, particularly Google. Even though IE has many flaws, this is preferable to a single actor having that much control, particularly given their high market share for search. Moreover, IE9 is good enough now, so it's not as much as a problem.<p>Please do leave comments outlining reasons (either way) and, if you think it's something that can and should be done, possible ways to do it. Let's not just keep bitching about it - let's make it happen!
So far the most votes are for "IE can and should be killed". Should is debatable, sure. But I'm interested in <i>how</i>. Because I'd argue it can't be done by anyone not named Steve Balmer at the moment.
I look at it as a waste of talent. Microsoft has plenty of software that needs improvement; if the entire IE team went to work on Windows, I think it would do more good than implementing another browser (when at least 2 <i>superior</i> browsers exist for Windows).
Microsoft has had plenty of time and more than enough resources to get their browser right. But for whatever reason, they can't seem to get it up to par.<p>IE struck out a long time ago and I think it would truly benefit mankind if they were benched permanently while letting one of the big boys take its place at bat as the default Windows browser. Sadly the chances of that happening are slim to none... <i>without consumer action</i>. ;) And that's why I'm upvoting this. I've wanted a browser revolution for a long time now!