Why Does Internet Explorer Fail?

I use three browsers. Chrome and Internet Explorer, and sometimes Firefox when I have to.

Chrome is my main, I use IE for certain websites that is only compatible with it, and Firefox when Chrome doesn't work.

The reason that I don't like IE is because of all the errors I get. But nothing more.

So I'm asking, what went wrong?
What marketting strategy did Chrome and Firefox take that made people prefer the two over IE?
Why couldn't and doesn't Microsoft improve it?

 

Basically, it all started years ago when Firefox was pretty much the dominant browser since it was way ahead of IE. All I remember is Firefox had better page loading times, add-ons and better security than IE back then, these helped it to develop a good reputation.

But then Chrome came along with it's low resource usage and even faster page loading times than Firefox. So a lot of people who used Firefox switched over to Chrome.

Microsoft doesn't care much about internet explorer these days, since it has such a low market share, so they prefer to concentrate on other elements of Windows. The security problems that IE has encountered over the years has not helped it's reputation either, and it still is a bit behind Firefox and Chrome in terms of features. Although, IE probably still has better webpage compatibility than Firefox or Chrome since many websites, especially archaic sites, were designed to be viewed with IE.

 

It's slower than browsers like Firefox and Chrome, it has had several security issues etc. I don't think Microsoft get a huge amount of gain from IE so it's not really worth their time improving and developing it significantly, there's better money in other places.

 

Honestly I don't think you should start the timeline before Netscape had it's rise and fall. Basically Internet Explorer was ahead of it's time back then and was free, but now is behind it's time.

 

IE used to be the best browser out there about a decade ago. Firefox came along then overtook by miles. At the moment Chrome is the next best browser. Firefox however is still ranked the #1 web browser and I still use it. In my opinion Chrome is just over hyped.

 

Internet Explorer lost masses of market share recently - from over 80% to about 20% in 7 years, while FF and chrome are about equal. This is because Microsoft stopped caring about IE, because windows Vista was too important. A bad move in all directions.

Chrome and FF are about tied as #1, and I use FF on any PC with more than 2GB RAM, while Chrome is the best for crap PCs

 

It is pretty slow. Google chrome is light weight and quick, firefox is just quick, IE on the other hand....send that to the Recycle bin.....

 

The new IE is very fast.

 

Agreed the layout isn't too bad, and it's reasonably faster than previous versions. Mainly IE8, I didn't like it much.

 

Netscape was always better than IE - IE has never been on top of the browser pile.

 

^
wh can't we have more people like this guy? lol
thanks all for the answers, that really cleared things up.

 

well actually chrome's the only one i've ever had that caused problems with my PC
Forced my shit to lock up no joke/: had to uninstall it and all of it's components

 

Well between Firefox, Chrome, and Opera, there is no need for IE.

 

IE fails, IEvery page you go on it has some dumb message popup like "This site is insecure are you sure you want to continue?" or when there is an ad somewhere every few minutes I get "ww.advertbannedthingsscam.com/advert has stopped working, would you like to continue?" also there is a dumb glitch where if a page is too large the browser crashes, and somehow all these annoying toolbars always gets put on IE, I don't even know how...

 

To me IE7 or 8 (Not sure exactly which is the on installed on my comp) Is immediately unappealing due to the large toolbars filling up about a quarter of the screen making the browsing part significantly less.