While Microsoft's Internet Explorer is the most used Internet browser in the world, its many issues have made even its own development team want to move away from the program. Well, at least from its name.
In a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" feature, Internet Explorer development team members revealed that there were internal discussions to rename the Internet browser, in an effort to move away from the bad reputation that was gained by the earliest version of the Internet Explorer.
"It's been suggested internally; I remember a particularly long email thread where numerous people were passionately debating it," wrote Jonathan Sampson of the Internet Explorer development team.
"Plenty of ideas get kicked around about how we can separate ourselves from negative perceptions that no longer reflect our product today."
Microsoft has made it a priority to improve the modern versions of the Internet Explorer to differentiate them from the slow and unsafe predecessors of the product.
Data from Net Applications reveal that the Internet Explorer is the most used desktop Internet browser, holding on to 58.01 percent of the market, Internet Explorer 8 as the most popular version at 21.56 percent.
Internet Explorer 8 was the browser that came with the Windows 7 operating system. Microsoft, however, has since released Internet Explorer 11, which could prove to be a problem if users refuse to upgrade their Internet browser's version.
Microsoft has said that the latest versions of Internet browsers offer better stability, higher performance and wider support. With people continuing to use older versions of the Internet Explorer, it might take a while for the bad reputation of the browser to be cleared from the thoughts of users.
The members of the Internet Explorer development team also added during the Reddit feature that they are looking to improve the browser's extensions, as they have lagged behind compared to Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome in that regard.
"We're still looking into this and haven't completed our plans, so it's still too soon to project whether we'll invest here," Internet Explorer program manager Jacob Rossi "But definitely on our radar (and has been for previous releases)."
The Metro version of Internet Explorer for the Windows 8 operating system currently does not support extensions. The team is currently making sure that Internet Explorer extensions will not compromise the security of Windows 8 computers and their users.
A Mac version of the Internet Explorer, the team added, should not be expected any time soon.
