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Well, I'm only 22 and we didn't even have a computer until I was around 12, so my experience with web standards is relatively naive. I <3 the internet as it is today, and I at least, do have to imagine how atrocious it must have been with Microsoft setting the standard.

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This is a good reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_explorer#OS_compatibil...

IE 4.0 was a revelation and IE 5.0 was fantastic as well - effectively it was death knell for Netscape and all competition (earned MS a monopoly suit, but in truth it was a vastly superior browser to anything out there).

They won the browser war. Then, check out the time difference between IE6 and IE7. 5 years. That's where innovation goes absent credible competition.

dangoor is absolutely right. Microsoft probably put us behind 5-6 real years of progress on the web.

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