Microsoft considered rebranding Internet Explorer to escape negative perception

Microsoft's Internet Explorer has a bit of a brand identity issue on its hands. Because of decisions made many, many years ago, Internet Explorer 6 has left a sour taste in the mouths of developers and consumers. Even some of the older iterations like IE7 and 8 are still loathed by consumers but later iterations like IE10 and 11 have fared much better in terms of providing a positive web browsing experience.

During an AMA that took place today on Reddit, the team was asked if they had ever considered rebranding the browser to escape the negative perception left behind by earlier versions of the browser. While Microsoft, at first, joked about renaming, they did say that they actually considered it. In fact, they revealed that there was a "particularly long email thread" talking about the change but the final decision was to keep the name in place.