What would it take for you to give Internet Explorer another chance? What if it wasn’t Internet Explorer any more? During an Ask Me Anything on Reddit last week, engineers working on Internet Explorer discussed everything from reducing fragmentation by phasing out old versions of IE to the flavor of the cake Mozilla sent two years ago, but the most interesting reveal from the thread came when one Reddit user asked whether or not the team had ever considered rebranding the browser.
“It’s been suggested internally; I remember a particularly long email thread where numerous people were passionately debating it,” wrote Jonathan Sampson. “Plenty of ideas get kicked around about how we can separate ourselves from negative perceptions that no longer reflect our product today.”
Another user asked why the team had decided to stick with Internet Explorer after the discussion had taken place.
“The discussion I recall seeing was a very recent one (just a few weeks ago). Who knows what the future holds,” Sampson continued.
Many Internet savvy users have jumped ship to Firefox and Chrome, but Internet Explorer still maintains an enormous user base. Unfortunately, many of those users are stuck on earlier versions of IE, all the way back to IE8, which makes it even more difficult for the team to convince converts of their progress.
There’s no question that IE11 is more stable and more user-friendly than any previous version of the browser, and IE12 should continue that trend. Microsoft just has to find some way to convince users to give IE another look.
