Internet Explorer Tan
Still Loading Since 1995

Internet Explorer Tan

Still Loading Since 1995

Latest Articles

The Blue 'E' on the Big Screen: How the IE Loading Spinner Became America's Favorite Prop for Waiting
Nostalgia

The Blue 'E' on the Big Screen: How the IE Loading Spinner Became America's Favorite Prop for Waiting

From sitcom punchlines to reaction GIFs, the humble IE progress bar has spent three decades standing in for every kind of agony on Earth. We trace the little blue 'E' from dial-up trauma to permanent meme status.

Nov 06, 2026

Dial-Up for Submarines: A Definitive Ranking of the Strangest Machines Running Internet Explorer
Features

Dial-Up for Submarines: A Definitive Ranking of the Strangest Machines Running Internet Explorer

ATMs, MRI machines, and allegedly some very important boats have all been caught running Internet Explorer. We rank the strangest IE-powered machines on Earth and explain why nobody dares to update them.

Nov 06, 2026

In Praise of the 45-Second Load: Everything Urgent Can Wait, Actually
Opinion

In Praise of the 45-Second Load: Everything Urgent Can Wait, Actually

We used to wait a minute for a single JPEG and called it a good day on the internet. Now a three-second load sends us into a rage spiral. Maybe Internet Explorer was accidentally teaching us something we've since unlearned.

Nov 06, 2026

The Bugs That Built Us: How IE's Worst CSS Nightmares Accidentally Invented Modern Web Development
Nostalgia

The Bugs That Built Us: How IE's Worst CSS Nightmares Accidentally Invented Modern Web Development

Internet Explorer's most infamous CSS quirks — the box model disaster, hasLayout, float collapse, and the double margin bug — didn't just torment a generation of developers. They quietly rewired how the entire industry thinks about code, compatibility, and defensive design. This is the strange story of how a browser's failures became the foundation of a profession.

Oct 19, 2026

The Browser That Refuses to Die: What Your Company's Hidden IE Dependency Really Says About Who's in Charge
Opinion

The Browser That Refuses to Die: What Your Company's Hidden IE Dependency Really Says About Who's in Charge

In 2024, Internet Explorer is officially dead — retired, eulogized, and memorialized across the tech press. And yet, inside the firewall, something keeps the lights on. An investigation into why enterprise organizations quietly maintain IE compatibility layers reveals less about browser technology and more about who actually makes decisions in corporate America.

Oct 19, 2026

From Mildly Annoying to Criminally Negligent: Every IE Version Ranked by Developer Suffering
Features

From Mildly Annoying to Criminally Negligent: Every IE Version Ranked by Developer Suffering

Not all Internet Explorer versions were created equal — some merely inconvenienced you, while others actively dismantled your will to live. We've ranked every major release from IE 3.0 through IE 11 using a rigorous scientific formula of CSS compliance, JavaScript coherence, and documented instances of developers weeping at their keyboards.

Oct 19, 2026

Tombstone Technology: The Startup Graveyard Where IE Was the Last Browser Standing
Features

Tombstone Technology: The Startup Graveyard Where IE Was the Last Browser Standing

Before the ping-pong tables got repossessed and the kombucha taps ran dry, a surprising number of dead startups were still quietly running Internet Explorer. We dug through web archives, talked to survivors, and ranked the most spectacularly embarrassing final browser statistics so you don't have to.

Oct 09, 2026

Actually, IE Was Kind of Right: The Unpopular History of Internet Explorer's Genuinely Good Ideas
Opinion

Actually, IE Was Kind of Right: The Unpopular History of Internet Explorer's Genuinely Good Ideas

Before you close this tab in protest, hear us out. Internet Explorer made a lot of mistakes — spectacular, career-damaging, therapy-inducing mistakes. But buried in the rubble of the browser wars are a handful of ideas that were, in retrospect, not entirely wrong. Some of them were even ahead of their time. We know. We're as upset about it as you are.

Sep 02, 2026

Emulation Nation: The Obsessive Developer Subculture Keeping Internet Explorer Artificially Alive
Features

Emulation Nation: The Obsessive Developer Subculture Keeping Internet Explorer Artificially Alive

Somewhere in a basement office, a developer is lovingly configuring a Windows XP virtual machine just to confirm that a dropdown menu still breaks in IE8. This is not a cry for help. This is a profession. We went deep inside the thriving, slightly unhinged world of IE emulation to find out why.

Sep 02, 2026

Still Running, Still Billing: Inside the Fortune 500's Quiet, Comfortable Life on Internet Explorer
Nostalgia

Still Running, Still Billing: Inside the Fortune 500's Quiet, Comfortable Life on Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer is dead. Unless you work in banking. Or healthcare. Or manufacturing. Or government contracting. Or, honestly, a surprising number of other places where the calendar still reads sometime around 2009 and nobody is particularly bothered by this. We mapped the corporate afterlife of the world's most mocked browser — and found out the obituary was premature.

Sep 02, 2026

Welcome Home: Everything You Need to Know About Internet Explorer Tan (Yes, This Site Is Still Loading)
Features

Welcome Home: Everything You Need to Know About Internet Explorer Tan (Yes, This Site Is Still Loading)

You typed in the URL, waited an appropriate amount of time, and somehow landed here. Welcome to Internet Explorer Tan — the internet's most lovingly sarcastic shrine to the browser that defined an era, broke a million websites, and somehow still haunts your dreams. Pull up a plastic chair from 2003 and stay awhile.

Jul 19, 2026

Ghost Protocol: The Secret Corporate Cult Keeping IE Compatibility Mode on Life Support in 2024
Features

Ghost Protocol: The Secret Corporate Cult Keeping IE Compatibility Mode on Life Support in 2024

Internet Explorer may have received its official death certificate back in 2022, but somewhere deep in the fluorescent-lit bowels of corporate America, its ghost is still clocking in at 9 AM. We talked to the sysadmins, the vendors, and the haunted developers who are living this nightmare — and somehow, incredibly, laughing about it.

Jul 16, 2026

Same Haunted House, Fresh Coat of Paint: The Corporate 'Modernization' That Still Smells Like IE
Opinion

Same Haunted House, Fresh Coat of Paint: The Corporate 'Modernization' That Still Smells Like IE

Your company just announced a bold digital transformation initiative. The slide deck is gorgeous. The buzzwords are immaculate. And buried in slide 47, in a font size legally too small to read, it says 'IE11 compatibility required.' Congratulations — you've been modernized.

Jul 16, 2026

Meet Your New IE: How Microsoft Copilot Is Already Giving Developers Flashbacks
Opinion

Meet Your New IE: How Microsoft Copilot Is Already Giving Developers Flashbacks

Microsoft promised us a revolutionary AI coding assistant, and sure enough, it's revolutionary — in the same way Internet Explorer was revolutionary. It technically works, it's somehow mandatory at your job, and it requires a workaround for everything you actually need it to do.

Jul 15, 2026

So You Survived the Browser Wars: A Diagnostic Guide to Your IE-Inflicted Developer Quirks
Features

So You Survived the Browser Wars: A Diagnostic Guide to Your IE-Inflicted Developer Quirks

Think you've moved on from Internet Explorer? Your CSS habits say otherwise. This field guide helps you identify the telltale twitches, irrational workarounds, and deeply embedded coping mechanisms that mark a developer forever shaped by the blue 'e' of doom.

Jul 15, 2026

You Can't Kill What Won't Load: The Enterprise Developers Still Trapped in IE Purgatory
Features

You Can't Kill What Won't Load: The Enterprise Developers Still Trapped in IE Purgatory

Internet Explorer was officially retired in June 2022. Someone forgot to tell the Fortune 500. Meet the developers who celebrated IE's funeral, bought the cake, and then showed up to work Monday morning to find an ActiveX control that controls a $40 million manufacturing line.

Jul 15, 2026

Pain as a Feature: The Developers Who Boot Up IE Emulators on Purpose
Features

Pain as a Feature: The Developers Who Boot Up IE Emulators on Purpose

Somewhere out there, a perfectly healthy developer is deliberately breaking their own website in Internet Explorer — and smiling about it. Meet the masochistic subculture of legacy browser testers who believe that if your layout survives IE6, it can survive anything.

Jul 15, 2026

<!DOCTYPE Chaos>: The Single Line of Code That Sent a Generation of Developers Into Therapy
Features

<!DOCTYPE Chaos>: The Single Line of Code That Sent a Generation of Developers Into Therapy

Before you could write a single div, before you could float a single image, there was a question that determined your entire fate: did you remember the DOCTYPE? Internet Explorer's quirks mode vs. standards mode war was the original trolley problem of web development, and spoiler alert — we kept pulling the wrong lever. Decades later, the ghosts of that decision are still haunting your codebase.

Jul 14, 2026

Congratulations, Chrome: You've Become the Monster We Swore We'd Never Build Again
Opinion

Congratulations, Chrome: You've Become the Monster We Swore We'd Never Build Again

We spent a decade screaming into the void about Internet Explorer's compatibility nightmares, proprietary quirks, and fragmentation sins. Now, squinting at our modern browser landscape, something deeply uncomfortable is staring back at us. Turns out, we didn't slay the dragon — we just gave it a faster JavaScript engine.

Jul 13, 2026

Debugging in the Dark: How Internet Explorer Forged (and Fractured) an Entire Generation of Web Developers
Features

Debugging in the Dark: How Internet Explorer Forged (and Fractured) an Entire Generation of Web Developers

Your first browser wasn't just a window to the internet — it was a psychological stress test in disguise. For millions of developers who cut their teeth on Internet Explorer, the scars run deep, the workarounds run deeper, and the therapy bills are still loading.

Jul 13, 2026