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Comment by getsat | Hacker News Reader

To be completely honest, it doesn't matter what their response is (and the site isn't loading, anyways). If Microsoft refuses to implement WebGL, the technology will have been effectively hamstringed.

Edit: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sclient=psy&...

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Not precisely. Firefox and Chrome have enough marketshare that games with WebGL can just detect IE, then throw up a message "your browser does not support WebGL, click here to download a browser that does.".

Google Chrome Frame could also be helpful here. Macromedia somehow managed to get most people to install their terrible plugin.

Long before Chrome Frame even existed.

Possibly, but how many companies will actively target a platform that, say, roughly half of their visitors can actually use? It won't be a safe bet like Flash is with 97% of users having it available.

Installing an entirely new browser is a huge barrier to entry for the average end user.

webgl requires a graphics card that is known to work, this alone is a bigger problem than asking people to install something. Last time i tried, installing Firefox was easier than installing Flash.

Unfortunately, a large number of those people will still see "your browser does not support webgl" after changing browsers, thanks to old/broken/blacklisted gpus and no browser shipping a software renderer for webgl.

I would have thought the time that IE could effectively hold back the web had passed.

Even if they were on board with WebGL then I assume we're talking support in IE10 released alongside and quite possibly restricted to Windows 8. It wouldn't be crazy to think that IE, across all versions, would be down to 25% marketshare at that point and their mobile marketshare is basically non-existant.

IE's outmoded release schedule means that they can't really help or hinder the web much with decisions they make today. Certainly not compared with the damage they do by having old versions hanging around.

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