War of Browsers

War of Browsers

Starring: Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0, Mozilla Firefox 2.0

The Story
Long long ago, there was a browser called Netscape Navigator. This browser ruled the world of computers. Suddenly the company that made Windows, the largest used operating system in the world, Microsoft Inc got up from sleep and made a browser of its own... called the Internet Explorer. The best thing about this browser was that it came pre-installed with the operating system. And for lazy people who did not know the "i" of installation, this was a dream come true.

The Rise of IE's Empire
Years passed by and the users of Internet Explorer were just increasing. The empire of IE was at the peak in 1999 with more than 96% of the users across the world used this magical browser. People enjoyed every bit of it. With the introduction of IE 5.0, the web-programming community was delighted. The reason - IE5 had support for so many new visual enhancements that can be brought in to the website, that it was just unbelievable. But as they say... every empire, irrespective of how powerful it is, has to eventually fall one day. And then from nowhere came in a dark horse that
was all set to capture the empire that IE had maintained for almost half of a decade.

The Fall of the Empire
The name of the dark horse was Firefox. The browser that was "simple, fast and secure". Although in the initial stages, the browser did not seem to be a real competition for the giant IE, but later it took on speed and today it has taken away almost 15-20% of IE's market.

The primary reason for the fall of IE's user base is its lack of innovation. What Microsoft forgot was that the only thing that is constant in the world is "change". Unless you offer new things to your users, they will move on to some other product. That's exactly what happened to IE. To add to their woes there were many great hackers/crackers who continuously found loopholes and flaws in the security system in IE.

The only thing that has kept IE still in the race is the laziness or ignorance of users. A large user base still does not know that there is a browser in the market that is better than IE. Or the other way round; they may know that there is something called as Firefox that has created a buzz... but maybe its not worth an installation!

The Current Scenario:
In October 2006, Microsoft released version 7 of IE after five long years. What was there in this new browser is just what was there in Firefox and Safari since the past two years... So essentially, there is nothing really innovative that Microsoft has done with this new release other than making an attempt to catch up with the competing browsers.

On the other hand, Firefox released version 2.0 of its browser. Firefox continuously tries to make new advancements to its browser by adding features that would make surfing safe and secure. Although IE also is not behind in this race, it is still always a couple of steps behind Firefox in implementation of these new features.

The Climax:
No one knows what is going to happen in the future. Will Firefox be able to grab the bigger part of market share? Will IE be able to grab back its empire that Firefox has taken away? How long, how quick, no one knows. But one thing is sure... with this war the benefit will be for us -- the consumers!