Products · Product
Internet Explorer
Raised as a usability problem by 193 people on Hacker News over 20 years (2007–2026), in 187 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Pages with JavaScript take about twenty seconds to loadUnreviewed
20072026- Web apps fail to work across versions, and the browser is slow and locks up2020-08-30
- New tab page is cluttered with junk and stutters, slowing the user's flow2019-08-27
- Browser makes web app run glacially slow with hidden performance hotspots2015-08-19
Progress bar reaches 80% before any data arrives, so loading is unclearUnreviewed
20072026- Progress bar advances without real data, so users can't tell whether the page is loading2021-11-11
- Progress bar never turns into the button until developer tools are opened2018-06-21
- Progress bar keeps advancing to 90% then sticks forever when connection drops2014-04-06
Popups make site content impossible to seeUnreviewed
20072026- Pop-up and pop-behind windows flood the screen, making browsing hostile to users2023-07-24
- Popup made sites' content impossible to see under any circumstances2019-05-01
- Cookie popups appear for sites even though no browser window is open2010-01-15
Tabs and address bar are harder to use than in ChromeUnreviewed
20072026- Tabs and address bar look blocky, unfinished, and waste window space2015-03-30
- Tabs sit beside the URL bar so titles and URLs are never fully visible2013-06-22
- Tabs and address bar are placed or shown in ways that are harder to use than Chrome2010-09-17
Touch-oriented interface works poorly with a mouseUnreviewed
20072026- Touch-oriented UX works poorly when using a mouse2017-08-30
- Touch events behave inconsistently across IE versions, with corner-case bugs developers must work around2015-03-14
- Metro UI feels odd to navigate with a mouse instead of touch2011-09-14
Debugging shows a cryptic alert instead of useful informationUnreviewed
20072026- Developers had no real debugging tools, only a status bar error alert and line numbers2024-11-18
- Debugging shows a cryptic, unhelpful alert instead of useful information2023-08-03
- JavaScript error messages were too cryptic to debug code with2021-07-27
Lacks tabs, popup blocking and standards supportUnreviewed
20072026- Lacked tabs, popup blocking, and standards support, with terrible performance2026-01-01
- Lacked tabs and popup blocking that other browsers had2025-07-13
- Slow, frustrating performance with many toolbars and popups makes browsing unusable2017-12-22
Hard to set Google as default search engine; no option listedUnreviewed
20072026- Can't set the search provider used by the search button2014-02-23
- Hard to set Google as default search engine; no option listed2013-06-27
- Search button defaults to Google, which doesn't load correctly in Chrome and can't be edited2011-02-03
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Clicking links and buttons does nothing outside Internet Explorer2026-11-03
- Cannot find where the actual archive is on the homepage2026-05-09
- Lacked tabs, popup blocking, and standards support, with terrible performance2026-01-01
- Window appears instantly but takes 10-15 seconds before accepting any input2025-11-25
- Browsers picked the wrong text encoding, so pages showed garbled characters unless the user manually chose one2025-08-24
- Lacked tabs and popup blocking that other browsers had2025-07-13
- Search operators are ignored when results are few, so specific searches become nearly impossible2025-06-30
- Can't just watch the live hockey game without signing into something2025-05-18
- Standards-compliant CSS renders wrong in IE6, forcing convoluted cross-browser workarounds2024-12-01
- Unrated sites are blocked by a password prompt, so legitimate sites like a locksmith's become unreachable2024-11-27
- Developers had no real debugging tools, only a status bar error alert and line numbers2024-11-18
- Parent couldn't tell how to load a typed web address after the Go button was removed2024-10-24
- Important updates hidden among dozens of unread automated messages, forcing users to sift2024-06-15
- Installing it replaced system files, breaking other apps and making OS reinstallation nearly impossible2023-12-17
- Large uploads are extremely slow and fail with a network error2023-09-04
- Debugging shows a cryptic, unhelpful alert instead of useful information2023-08-03
- Bugs that vanish when dev tools open and inconsistent cross-origin behaviour2023-08-03
- Sites render incorrectly or refuse to work outside Internet Explorer on Windows2023-08-01
- Pop-up and pop-behind windows flood the screen, making browsing hostile to users2023-07-24
- No documentation exists for the metadata tags needed to enable emulation2023-07-14
- Transitions are useless gimmicks; Page-Enter/Page-Exit can't show relationships between pages in both directions2023-06-18
- Ads are too slow, distracting and useless, cluttering browsing for the user2023-05-11
- Error popups appear one at a time, forcing slow trial-and-error debugging2023-03-28
- Browser is unusable on modern websites, so the user switched phones2023-02-26
- Forced redirection to Edge breaks bank software and needs registry hacks to fix2023-02-20
- Mobile site fails to load more results and arrows don't page between files2022-10-22
- PDFs take about 10 seconds per page to render on e-readers2022-05-01
- Cannot read early messages because auto-scroll keeps moving them away2022-04-08
- Back and forward shortcuts silently follow prev/next links, confusing users who can't predict it2022-04-04
- Without the Flickr account, individual images can no longer be searched or previewed easily2022-04-04
- Work sites get blocked and unblocking requires filling a form each time2022-02-24
- Yellow bar prompts for external resources cause warning fatigue and users stop reading them2022-02-19
- Launching Internet Explorer opens Edge and shows a 'doesn't work in IE' error page2021-11-12
- Progress bar advances without real data, so users can't tell whether the page is loading2021-11-11
- JavaScript error messages were too cryptic to debug code with2021-07-27
- Must create separate browser shortcuts and renamed launchers to run different sites2021-05-13
- F12 developer tools crash on large web apps, so debugging is impossible2021-05-13
- Browser freezes briefly when switching tabs and the address bar is fiddly2021-05-04
- Optional toolbar opt-outs hidden behind defaults, advanced buttons, and confusing cancel-to-decline dialogs2021-05-03
- Revamped banking site is harder to use than the old working interface2021-03-06
- Constant dialog boxes lead users to click OK on download prompts without reading them2021-02-24
- Uninstalling IE was a comedy of errors that forced reinstalling Windows2021-01-10
- Web apps fail to work across versions, and the browser is slow and locks up2020-08-30
- Toolbars pile up until the browser's usable window shrinks to about two inches2020-04-13
- Debugger takes forever to launch, freezes and sluggishly freezes the whole browser2020-04-01
- Short custom 404 pages get replaced by IE's own error page, hiding the site's message2020-02-02
- Client-side JavaScript so slow that even trivial pivot tables took ten seconds2020-01-03
- Can't tell whether online because cached pages still load2019-12-22
- Switches to a scrolling mode in portrait view that the reader dislikes2019-10-25
- New tab page is cluttered with junk and stutters, slowing the user's flow2019-08-27