Internet Explorer finally goes below 50%

I said once that I was going to make a party when Internet Explorer market share dropped below 50%, but now given that its market share slowly dwindled instead of quickly dying, I find it all but surprising that we’re already at that point. Although Internet Explorer 9 is a decent effort to keep it alive, open source web browsers have already won the fight, for the better: thanks to them we have a more sophisticated and faster web.

But there’s still work to do, older Internet Explorer installations (versions 8 and lower) are still very much alive, and they need to die before the web can benefit from a wealth of good things that newer standards and browser implementations allow.

The fall of Internet Explorer is one of the biggest motivators for the new web technologies that we shall see in the near future. This is a victory of open source software and open standards, and a blow to Microsoft’s embrace-and-extend practices and disrespect for compatibility.

I also feel somewhat happy about the punishment that corporations that stuck with Microsoft no matter what received in the last few years. After Internet Explorer 6 was rightfully shot in the head and buried without honors, older sites and applications meant only for it could no longer work, prompting the businesses that depend on them to spend great amounts of resources to replace them. In a way, they got what they deserved. They should’ve known better than to help Microsoft dominate the web with incompatible proprietary standards.

Fortunately, it seems the web is meant to be free, and it rids itself from leeches sooner or later. I hope Flash becomes the next victim of standards, although it doesn’t need to be shot, only honorably discharged.

Now, when is it that an open source operating system will finally replace Windows?