Calling it "the browser you loved to hate," Microsoft is encouraging nerds to give Internet Explorer 9 a second look, and even try it out—at least for a site or two.

The new tumblog brings together hipster-trolling graphs, quotable quotes from Twitter, blogs, and the press, and video advertisements to make a single case: Internet Explorer is actually pretty good now, and instead of dismissing it out of hand, it's worth checking out. Microsoft even goes so far as to say that users don't have to switch from their current browsers—just pin a few popular sites to their taskbars and use Internet Explorer for those.

The new campaign mirrors our own findings when we reviewed Internet Explorer 9. Almost exactly a year ago, we wrote "Even if you don't use Internet Explorer, you should try it out. Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are embarrassments that you should be ashamed to use. Internet Explorer 8 is acceptable, but no more than that. Internet Explorer 9 is the anti-IE6."

In the 12 months since, Firefox and Chrome have both overtaken Internet Explorer in many regards once more, but Internet Explorer remains usable, and is worlds apart from the Internet Explorer of old.

The video that Microsoft has produced of a classic Internet Explorer hater visiting a psychiatrist to try to overcome his Internet Explorer problem, and stop preaching the mantra that Internet Explorer's only value is to download other browsers. The video recognizes the role that nerds played in building market share for Firefox and, to at least some extent, Chrome.

For all the steps that Microsoft took with Internet Explorer 9, and the steps the company is taking with Internet Explorer 10—it's currently shaping up extremely well—it's still going to struggle to win over this nerd demographic. The nerds' friends and families might not need the richness of addons and extensions that Firefox and Chrome boast, but the nerds themselves do. Without these extras, they'll never be comfortable using Internet Explorer as their primary browser, and that makes it awfully hard for them to recommend it to others.