[LekkoscPiwa]

I think that you are confusing backwards/forwards compatibility with the point the OP seemed to be making: Microsoft never bothered to follow the web standards.

[magic_haze]

Agreed, but... the standards themselves have changed since 1999.

[LekkoscPiwa]

Yeah, it seems Microsoft always has had good excuses. I wonder if other browsers from that period would have as poor results as IE5 does. I seriously doubt it.

[yuhong]

Well the main competitor was Netscape 4, which was even worse.

[LekkoscPiwa]

What exactly was worse in Netscape? Because I just loved using it.

[yuhong]

It's extremely bad and buggy CSS support, which was even worse than even IE4, let along IE5.