But seeing that even Microsoft abandoned making their own browser engine, it goes to show how complex it is to make one nowadays and with new web APIs/features coming out every few weeks it feels like, it's almost impossible to keep up.

No, Microsoft is just historically bad at making browsers. It was not until Internet Explorer 7 that they finally implemented HTML 4 and CSS 2 without major glaring bugs.

[–] Aux@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Microsoft was never bad at making browsers, their issue is that they tied browser release to Windows release cycle. IE6 was the best and the most compatible browser on the market in its release date. But it didn't get a single update during its long life. 5 years old Chrome is completely useless today even if it was a pinnacle back then.

[–] TAG@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sure, but Windows Update was already part of the OS and web users were a customer segment that had an Internet connection. They could have pushed patches and bug fixes.

[–] Aux@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

That's not Microsoft philosophy. Microsoft has strong backwards compatibility. If they would change how border box is rendered on the screen, that would break a lot of apps which use IE engine as a web view. Thus they only push security updates, but ensure that rendering stays the same within one Windows version.

[–] Bene7rddso@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Most compatible to what, itself?

[–] Aux@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

To existing web standards at the time.