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by SiVal 2067 days ago
"Until...all major modern OSes come with a built in scriptable headless browser engine, which would be a game-changer."

Ah, yes. Internet Explorer, they called it. Built right into the OS. A game changer. Funny how the meaning of something (goodness/badness/motives/...) can change as circumstances change.
1 comments
tomashubelbauer 2067 days ago
I think for "all major modern OSS" to apply we need at least Windows and macOS support. Internet Explorer never fit this description.

Edit: This comment is wrong - looks like IE did fit this description before my time. :-)

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deergomoo 2067 days ago
People forget that when OS X launched IE was the default browser :)
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watersb 2067 days ago
IE on Mac was a different code base, different layout engine, and did not run ActiveX plugins.

It was a good browser at the time, and helped move the OS X platform forward. Perhaps even a vital part of the software support available at release.

But it wasn't IE6.

All that corporate ActiveX, DCOM software could not be deployed on it.

Microsoft grew multiple platforms to address this, for 20 years, but that's another story (that may also be relevant to the article).

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dagw 2067 days ago
Plus there was an X Windows version that ran on Solaris. I'm sure making it work on Linux would have been quite possible had they wanted to.
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Fnoord 2067 days ago
Internet Explorer ran on macOS back when it was relevant. It got discontinued after Safari was released. Also, Internet Explorer was ported to various Unices. It just never got ported to a Linux-kernel based OS.

If software like this is FOSS, relies on open standards, and is designed architect independent it can be run on virtually anything. Including something which is rising in popularity.

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eropple 2067 days ago
Not only was there IE for Mac -- at the time, it was actually a pretty decent browser. Bit rotted over time, but there was a stretch when your choices were a really janky Netscape and IE for Mac, and the choice as I recall it was pretty easy.
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pseudosavant 2067 days ago
Not only was it pretty decent, it was far more standards compliant than the Windows IE. I don't think they actually shared much code wise. At least developing for IE on Mac felt like adding another browser to test.
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jmnicolas 2067 days ago
The first computer I bought with my own money was an iMac running at 266 Mhz (not the first gen running 33Mhz slower!), Mac OS 8 something and Internet Explorer 5 I think.

Google didn't exist or wasn't evil yet and finding things was quite difficult specially at dial-up "speed".

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