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Comment by __float | Hacker News Reader

I find this comment to be rather out of line. IE has really gotten its act together in terms of implementation of new features. I take it you haven't really given IE10 a serious try.

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You're right, I haven't used version 10 so much as it isn't installed on my Windows partition. Barely one year ago I installed Windows 7 which for some reason still came with IE7, which I promptly upgraded to IE8. IE9 came out which I skipped on my laptop because Chrome and FF were more productive. What's hard to stomach is the fact that even while Microsoft is willing to push out version after version, the features that I care about (and really, should we still have to call standards compliance and consistency a feature?) seem to improve in only the smallest increments. What's worse is that all of those older versions stay out there, and each major release tends to leave behind its own black whole which I then have to support, for 2-4 more years.

Now all that being said, if IE really has gotten it's act together as you say then I'd be happy to call it a day. Unfortunately no matter how wonderful it is, it probably won't matter until IE8 and IE9 virtually dead (<7.5% of sessions for a site).

Edit: Release schedule of Internet Explorer... IE7: 2006, IE8: 2009, IE9: 2011, IE10: 2011 (announced "3 weeks in development")

Win7 ships with IE7?

It ships with IE8 AFAIK but my copy was a dusty old uni OEM (still got the regular box and code though) which is the only explanation other than a completely shot memory. Some programs not launching right after install lead to a 12hr upgrade session leaving me with whatever shiny new service pack and Explorer was the latest and "greatest".

the problem isn't whether ie10 is good or not. It's that microsoft's update schedule runs at a glacial pace compared to chrome and firefox, both of which are on a 6 week(!!) rolling release schedule. Compare that to IE where literally years can go by between releases.

I really don't get why MS don't fork their browser into corporate and consumer versions. Let the corporate users run on ie6/7 or whatever legacy crap they need and let the rest of the web move at a reasonable pace.

Anyway that's where I think the hostility to IE is coming from.

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