Windows Internet Explorer
Wikipedia's Main Page in Windows Internet Explorer 7 running on Windows Vista
Developed by	Microsoft
Initial release	August 1995 (12–13 years ago)
Latest release	7. ***************************************************************************************** * * Windows Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops A software developer is a person or organization concerned with facets of the software development process wider than design and coding a somewhat broader scope of Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer Year 1995 ( MCMXCV) was a Common year starting on Sunday. Events of 1995 A software release is the distribution whether public or private of an initial or new and upgraded version of a Computer software product 0. 5730. 13 (Windows XP) 7. 0. 6001. 18000 (Windows Vista SP1) / 2008
Preview release	8. A software release is the distribution whether public or private of an initial or new and upgraded version of a Computer software product 0. 6001. 17184 (IE8 Beta 1) / March 5, 2008
OS	Microsoft Windows Mac OS System 7 to Mac OS X (discontinued) Solaris and HP-UX (discontinued)
Genre	Web browser and RSS Reader
License	Proprietary EULA
Website	microsoft.com/ie

Windows Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer abbreviated MSIE), commonly abbreviated to IE, is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems starting in 1995. Events 363 - Roman Emperor Julian moves from Antioch with an army of 90000 to attack the Sassanid Empire, in a 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Mac OS is the trademarked name for a series of Graphical user interface -based Operating systems developed by Apple Inc System 7 (codenamed "Big Bang" and sometimes called Mac OS 7) is a single-user Graphical user interface -based Operating system for Macintosh Mac OS X (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently Solaris is a Unix -based Operating system introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1992 as the successor to SunOS. HP-UX (Hewlett Packard UniX is Hewlett-Packard 's proprietary implementation of the Unix Operating system, based on System V (initially Computer software can be organized into categories based on common function type or field of use A web browser is a software application which enables a user to display and interact with text images videos music games and other information typically located on a RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works – such as Blog entries news headlines audio and video – in a standardized A software license (or software licence in commonwealth usage is a Legal instrument governing the usage or redistribution of copyright protected software Proprietary software is Computer software on which the producer has set restrictions on use private modification copying, or republishing. A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages A web browser is a software application which enables a user to display and interact with text images videos music games and other information typically located on a Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination It has been the most widely used web browser since 1999, attaining a peak of about 95% usage share during 2002 and 2003 with IE5 and 6 but steadily declining since, despite the introduction of IE7. Usage share, in Web browser statistics is the percentage of visitors to a group of web sites that use a particular browser Usage share, in Web browser statistics is the percentage of visitors to a group of web sites that use a particular browser Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 (abbreviated IE5) is a graphical Web browser released in March 1999 by Microsoft, primarily for Microsoft Windows Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (commonly abbreviated to IE6 is a graphical Web browser developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Microsoft spent over a 100 million dollars (USD) a year ^[1] in the late 1990s, with over 1000 people working on IE by 1999. The United States dollar ( sign: $; code: USD) is the unit of Currency of the United States; it has also been ^[2]

Internet Explorer was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95. Microsoft Plus! is a commercial Operating system enhancement product by Microsoft. Later versions were available as free downloads, or in service packs, and included in the OEM service releases of Windows 95 and later versions of Windows. An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM is typically a company that uses a component made by a second company in its own product or sells the product of the second company The most recent release is version 7.0, which is available as a free update for Windows XP Service Pack 2, and Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 or later, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008. Windows XP is a family of 32-bit and 64-bit Operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and Windows XP is a family of 32-bit and 64-bit Operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and Windows Server 2003 (also referred to as Win2K3 is a server Operating system produced by Microsoft. Windows Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops Windows Server 2008 is the most recent release of Microsoft Windows ' server line of Operating systems Released to manufacturing on 4 February An embedded OEM version called Internet Explorer for Windows CE (IE CE) is also available for WinCE based platforms and is currently based on IE6. Another Windows CE/ Windows Mobile browser known as Internet Explorer Mobile is from a different code base and should not be confused with desktop versions of the browser. Windows CE (also known officially as Windows Embedded Compact post version 6 Windows Mobile is a compact Operating system combined with a suite of basic applications for Mobile devices based on the Microsoft Win32 Internet Explorer Mobile or IE Mobile (formerly named Pocket Internet Explorer or PIE before Windows Mobile 5 In early 2008, a beta for the next version Internet Explorer 8 was released to the public. A software release is the distribution whether public or private of an initial or new and upgraded version of a Computer software product Windows Internet Explorer 8 (commonly abbreviated IE8) is the next version of Microsoft's Windows Internet Explorer web browser succeeding

History

Main article: History of Internet Explorer

The Internet Explorer project was started in the summer of 1994 by Thomas Reardon and subsequently led by Benjamin Slivka, leveraging source code from Spyglass, Inc. Mosaic, an early commercial web browser with formal ties to the pioneering NCSA Mosaic browser. The following is a history of the Internet Explorer graphical Web browser from Microsoft developed over 8 major Spyglass Inc ( was an Internet software company based in Champaign Illinois. The National Center for Supercomputing Applications ( NCSA) is one of five original centers in the National Science Foundation 's Supercomputer Centers Program and a Mosaic is the browser which popularized the World Wide Web. It was also a browser for earlier concepts such as Ftp, Usenet, and Gopher In late 1994, Microsoft licensed Spyglass Mosaic for a quarterly fee plus a percentage of Microsoft's non-Windows revenues for the software. Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer Although bearing a name similar to NCSA Mosaic, which was the first widely used web browser, Spyglass Mosaic was relatively unknown in its day and used the NCSA Mosaic source code only sparingly. The National Center for Supercomputing Applications ( NCSA) is one of five original centers in the National Science Foundation 's Supercomputer Centers Program and a Mosaic is the browser which popularized the World Wide Web. It was also a browser for earlier concepts such as Ftp, Usenet, and Gopher ^[3]

Internet Explorer for Mac and Internet Explorer for UNIX (the latter for use through the X Window System on Solaris and HP-UX), and versions for many older versions of Windows have been discontinued, and are no longer available from Microsoft. Internet Explorer for Mac (also referred to as Internet Explorermac, IEmac or Internet Explorer Macintosh Edition) was a proprietary Web Internet Explorer for UNIX is a proprietary graphical Web browser that was freely available and produced by Microsoft for Solaris is a Unix -based Operating system introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1992 as the successor to SunOS. HP-UX (Hewlett Packard UniX is Hewlett-Packard 's proprietary implementation of the Unix Operating system, based on System V (initially Only supported Windows, and Windows Mobile versions remain in active development.

Version 1

Version 1, released in August 1995 was a modified version of Spyglass Mosaic. Other names In Arabic, the month is called أغسطسص ʾUġusṭuṣ or آب ʾĀb; usage varies from place to place and Year 1995 ( MCMXCV) was a Common year starting on Sunday. Events of 1995 It came with Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 and OEM release of Windows 95. Microsoft Plus! is a commercial Operating system enhancement product by Microsoft. Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented Graphical user interface -based Operating system. It was installed as part of the Internet Jumpstart Kit in Plus!. ^[4]Version 1. 5 was released several months later for Windows NT and added support for basic table rendering. The Internet Explorer team began with about half a dozen people in early development. ^[1][5]

Version 2

Main article: Internet Explorer 2

Internet Explorer 2. Microsoft Internet Explorer 2 (Internet Explorer 20 is a graphical Web browser released in November 1995 by Microsoft for Windows 95 and 0 was released for Windows 95, Windows NT 3.5, and NT 4.0 in November 1995 (following a 2. Windows NT is a family of Operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993 Windows NT 40 is a preemptive, graphical and business-oriented Operating system designed to work with either Uniprocessor or symmetric 0 beta in October). It featured support for SSL, cookies, VRML, RSA, and Internet newsgroups. VRML ( Virtual Reality Modeling Language, pronounced vermal or by its initials originally — before 1995 — known as the Virtual Reality Markup Language In Cryptography, RSA is an Algorithm for Public-key cryptography. Usenet, a Portmanteau of "user" and "network" is a world-wide distributed Internet discussion system Version 2 was also the first release for Windows 3.1 and Macintosh System 7.0.1(PPC or 68k), although the Mac version was not released until January 1996 for PPC, and April for 68k. System 7 (codenamed "Big Bang" and sometimes called Mac OS 7) is a single-user Graphical user interface -based Operating system for Macintosh ^[6] Version 2. 1 for the Mac came out in August of 1996, although by this time Windows was getting 3. 0. Version 2 was included in Windows 95 OSR 1 and Microsoft's Internet Starter Kit for Windows 95 in early 1996, ^[7] It launched with twelve languages including English but this expanded to 24, 20, and 9 for Win 95, Win 3. 1 and Mac respectively by April 1996. ^[8] The 2. 0i version supported double-byte character-set. ^[8]

Version 3

Main article: Internet Explorer 3

Internet Explorer 3, released in August, 1996, was the first widely used version of Internet Explorer. Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 (Internet Explorer 30 is a graphical Web browser released on August 13 1996 by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Other names In Arabic, the month is called أغسطسص ʾUġusṭuṣ or آب ʾĀb; usage varies from place to place and Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) It was the first version developed without Spyglass source code (although still using Spyglass "technology", so the Spyglass licensing information remained in the program's documentation). Internet Explorer 3 was the first major browser with CSS support, although this support was only partial. Released on August 13, 1996, it also introduced support for ActiveX controls, Java applets, inline multimedia, and the PICS system for content metadata. Events 3114 BC - According to the Lounsbury correlation the start of the Maya calendar. Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) ActiveX is a Component object model (COM developed by Microsoft for Windows. ActiveX is a Component object model (COM developed by Microsoft for Windows. A Java applet is an Applet delivered in the form of Java bytecode. The Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS is a specification created by W3C that uses metadata to label webpages to help parents and teachers control what Metadata ( meta data, or sometimes metainformation) is "data about data" of any sort in any media Version 3 also came bundled with Internet Mail and News, NetMeeting, and an early version of the Windows Address Book, and was itself included with Windows 95 OSR 2. Microsoft Internet Mail and News was a Freeware e-mail and News client and ancestor of Outlook Express. Microsoft NetMeeting is a VoIP and multi-point Videoconferencing client included in many versions of Microsoft Windows (from Windows 95 OSR2 Windows Address Book is a component of Microsoft Windows that lets users keep a single list of contacts that can be shared by multiple programs Version 3 proved to be the first popular version of Internet Explorer, which brought with it increased scrutiny. In the months following its release, a number of security and privacy vulnerabilities were found by researchers and hackers. This version of Internet Explorer was the first to have the 'blue e' logo. ^[9] The Internet Explorer team consisted of roughly 100 people during the development of three months. ^[1]

Version 4

Main article: Internet Explorer 4

Internet Explorer 4, released in September, 1997 deepened the level of integration between the web browser and the underlying operating system. Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 (also IE4) is a graphical web browser released in September 1997 by Microsoft, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but also Events in September It is the start of the academic year in many countries in the Northern Hemisphere. Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar Installing version 4 on a Windows 95 or Windows NT 4 machine and choosing "Windows Desktop Update" would result in the traditional Windows Explorer being replaced by a version more akin to a web browser interface, as well as the Windows desktop itself being web-enabled via Active Desktop. Microsoft 's Windows Desktop Update was an optional feature included with Internet Explorer 4, which introduced several updated shell features to the Active Desktop is a feature of Microsoft Internet Explorer 40 's optional Windows Desktop Update that allows the user to add HTML content The integration with Windows, however, was subject to numerous packaging criticisms (see United States v. Microsoft). United States v Microsoft There were many civil actions taking place in May 18 1998 This option was no longer available with the installers for later versions of Internet Explorer but was not removed from the system if already installed. Internet Explorer 4 introduced support for Group Policy, allowing companies to configure and lock down many aspects of the browser's configuration. Group Policy is a feature of Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems that provides centralized management and configuration of computers and remote users in an Internet Mail and News was replaced with Outlook Express, and Microsoft Chat and an improved NetMeeting were also included. Outlook Express is an e-mail / News client that was included with Internet Explorer versions Internet Explorer 4 This version also was included with Windows 98. Windows 98 ( codenamed Memphis) is a graphical Operating system released on 25 June 1998 by Microsoft and the successor to Windows 95 Internet Explorer 4. 5 dropped support for 68k Macs, but offered new features such as easier 128-bit encryption. The Motorola 680x0 / m68k / 68k / 68K is a family of 32-bit CISC Microprocessor CPU chips and was the primary ^{[10] [11] [12]}

Version 5

Main article: Internet Explorer 5

Internet Explorer 5, launched on March 18, 1999, and subsequently included with Windows 98 Second Edition and bundled with Office 2000, was another significant release that supported bi-directional text, ruby characters, XML, XSL and the ability to save web pages in MHTML format. Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 (abbreviated IE5) is a graphical Web browser released in March 1999 by Microsoft, primarily for Microsoft Windows Events 37 - The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius ' will and proclaims Caligula emperor Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) Windows 98 ( codenamed Memphis) is a graphical Operating system released on 25 June 1998 by Microsoft and the successor to Windows 95 Microsoft Office is a set of interrelated desktop applications servers and services collectively referred to as an Office suite, for the Microsoft Windows and Bi-directional text is used as some Writing systems of the world notably the Arabic (including variants such as Nasta'liq) and Hebrew scripts Ruby characters are small annotative Glosses that can be placed above or to the right of a Chinese character when writing logographic languages such as Don't change "Extensible" In Computing, the Extensible Stylesheet Language ( XSL) a family of Transformation languages allows one to describe how to format or transform files encoded MHTML, short for MIME HTML, is a web page archive format used to bind resources which are typically represented by external links (such as images Flash IE5 was bundled with Outlook Express 5. Outlook Express is an e-mail / News client that was included with Internet Explorer versions Internet Explorer 4 Also, with the release of Internet Explorer 5. 0, Microsoft released the first version of XMLHttpRequest, giving birth to Ajax (even though the term "Ajax" wasn't coined until years later. XMLHttpRequest ( XHR) is an API that can be used by JavaScript and other Web browser Scripting languages to transfer XML ) It was the last with a 16-bit version. Internet Explorer 5. 01, a bug fix version, was released in December 1999. December 1999: January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - Windows 2000 includes this version. Windows 2000 (also referred to as Win2K) is a preemptive, interruptible graphical and business-oriented Operating system designed to work with Internet Explorer 5. 5 followed in July 2000, improving its print preview capabilities, CSS and HTML standards support, and developer APIs; this version was bundled with Windows Me. Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (IPA pronunciation, iː is a hybrid 16-bit / 32-bit graphical Operating system released on 14 September Version 5. 5 also included support for 128-bit encryption. However, Version 5 was the last version for Mac and UNIX. Internet Explorer for Mac (also referred to as Internet Explorermac, IEmac or Internet Explorer Macintosh Edition) was a proprietary Web Internet Explorer for UNIX is a proprietary graphical Web browser that was freely available and produced by Microsoft for Version 5. 5 was the last to have Compatibility Mode, which allowed Internet Explorer 4^[13] to be run side by side with the 5. Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 (also IE4) is a graphical web browser released in September 1997 by Microsoft, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but also x. ^{[9] [14]} The IE team consisted of over 1000 people by 1999, with funding on the order of 100 million USD per year. The United States dollar ( sign: $; code: USD) is the unit of Currency of the United States; it has also been ^[1][15]

Version 6

Main article: Internet Explorer 6

Internet Explorer 6. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (commonly abbreviated to IE6 is a graphical Web browser developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft 0 was released on August 27, 2001, a few months before Windows XP. Events 479 BC - Greco-Persian Wars: Persian forces led by Mardonius are routed by Pausanias, the Spartan Year 2001 ( MMI) was a Common year starting on Monday according to the Gregorian calendar. This version included DHTML enhancements, content restricted inline frames, and partial support of CSS level 1, DOM level 1 and SMIL 2. The Document Object Model ( DOM) is a platform- and language -independent standard Object model for representing HTML or XML and related SMIL (ˈsmaɪl "smile" the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, is a W3C recommended XML Markup language for describing 0. ^[16] The MSXML engine was also updated to version 3. Microsoft XML Core Services ( MSXML) is a set of services that allow applications written in JScript, VBScript, and Microsoft development tools to build 0. Other new features included a new version of the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK), Media bar, Windows Messenger integration, fault collection, automatic image resizing, P3P, and a new look-and-feel that was in line with the "Luna" visual style of Windows XP, when used in Windows XP. Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK was an add-on to Internet Explorer to let an organization customize IE for their needs released by Microsoft Windows Messenger is a proprietary Instant messaging client by Microsoft that is included in the Windows XP Operating system The Platform for Privacy Preferences Project, or P3P, is a protocol allowing Websites to declare their intended use of information they collect about browsing 6. 0 SP1 offered several security enhancements and coincided with XP SP1 patch release. In 2002, the Gopher protocol was disabled and support for it was dropped in Internet Explorer 7. For other uses see Gopher. Gopher is a distributed Document search and retrieval Network protocol designed ^[17] 6. 0 SV1 ('6 SP2')^[18] came out August 6, 2004 for Windows XP SP2 and offered various security enhancements and new color buttons on the user interface. Events 1538 - Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada. "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Windows XP is a family of 32-bit and 64-bit Operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and IE6 updated the original 'blue e' logo to a lighter blue and more 3-d look. ^[9]

Version 7

screen shot

Main article: Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 7 is available only for Windows XP SP2 and later, including Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows Vista since October 2006. The first beta version of the browser was released on July 27, 2005 for technical testing, and a first public preview version of Internet Explorer 7 (Beta 2 preview: Pre-Beta 2 version) was released on January 31, 2006. Events 1214 - Battle of Bouvines: In France, Philip II of France defeats John of England. Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1504 - France cedes Naples to Aragon. 1606 - Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. The final public version was released on October 18, 2006. Events 1009 - The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church in Jerusalem, is completely destroyed by the Fatimid Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. On February 15, 2005, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced that the new version of its browser would be released at the RSA Conference 2005 in San Francisco. Events 590 - Khosrau II is crowned as king of Persia 1637 - Ferdinand III becomes Holy Roman Emperor Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer If you would like to experiment with Wikipedia please copy ^[19] It includes bug fixes, enhancements to its support for web standards, tabbed browsing with tab preview and management, a multiple-engine search box, a web feeds reader, Internationalized Domain Name support (IDN), and antiphishing filter. In the area of Graphical user interfaces a tabbed document interface ( TDI) is one that allows multiple Documents to be contained within a single window An internationalized domain name ( With IE7, Internet Explorer has been decoupled from the Windows Shell - unlike previous versions, the Internet Explorer ActiveX control is not hosted in the Windows Explorer process, but rather runs in a separate Internet Explorer process. ActiveX is a Component object model (COM developed by Microsoft for Windows. On October 5, 2007, Microsoft removed the 'genuine software' validation before install, which means that all versions of Windows, whether able to pass validation or not, are able to install the browser. Events 869 - The Fourth Council of Constantinople is convened to decide about what to do about Patriarch Photius of Constantinople Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer A web browser is a software application which enables a user to display and interact with text images videos music games and other information typically located on a

Version 8

Main article: Internet Explorer 8

The Wikipedia Main Page on Internet Explorer 8, Beta 1 running on Windows XP. Windows Internet Explorer 8 (commonly abbreviated IE8) is the next version of Microsoft's Windows Internet Explorer web browser succeeding ***************************************************************************************** * * Windows Internet Explorer 8 (commonly abbreviated IE8) is the next version of Microsoft's Windows Internet Explorer web browser succeeding Windows XP is a family of 32-bit and 64-bit Operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and

Internet Explorer 8 is the latest version of Internet Explorer and has been in development since August 2007 at the latest. ^[20] On March 5, 2008, the first public beta (Beta 1) was released to the general public. ^[21] It supports Windows XP SP2 and SP3, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 on both 32-bit as well as 64-bit architectures. Windows XP is a family of 32-bit and 64-bit Operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and Windows Server 2003 (also referred to as Win2K3 is a server Operating system produced by Microsoft. Windows Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops Windows Server 2008 is the most recent release of Microsoft Windows ' server line of Operating systems Released to manufacturing on 4 February ^[22]

Security, ease of use, and improvements in RSS, CSS, and Ajax support are Microsoft's priorities for IE8. RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works – such as Blog entries news headlines audio and video – in a standardized ^[23][24] It includes much stricter compliance with web standards, including a planned full Cascading Style Sheets 2. Web standards is a general term for the formal standards and other technical Specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. 1 compliance for the release version. ^[25] All these changes allow Internet Explorer 8 to pass the Acid2 test. Acid2 is a test page published and promoted by the Web Standards Project to identify Web page rendering flaws in Web browsers and other applications ^[26] However, to prevent compatibility issues, IE8 also includes the IE7 rendering behavior. Sites that expect IE7 quirks can disable the IE8's breaking changes by including a meta element. Meta elements are HTML or XHTML elements used to provide structured Metadata about a Web page.

IE8 also includes numerous improvements to JavaScript support as well as performance improvements. JavaScript is a Scripting language most often used for Client-side web development ^[25] It includes support for Activities - which allow supported web applications to be invoked without explicitly navigating to them - and WebSlices - which allows portions of page to be subscribed to and monitored from a redesigned Favorites Bar. In Software engineering, a web application or webapp is an application that is accessed via Web browser over a network such as the Internet ^[25] An enhanced phishing filter (now called Safety filter) blocks access to sites known to contain malware. In the field of computer security phishing is the Criminally Fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames Passwords Malware, a Portmanteau word from the words '''mal'''icious and soft'''ware''', is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without

Features

Internet Explorer has been designed to view a broad range of web pages and to provide certain features within the operating system, including Microsoft Update. Windows Update is a service provided by Microsoft for users of Microsoft Windows which provides updates for the Operating system and its installed components During the heyday of the historic browser wars, Internet Explorer superseded Netscape only when it caught up technologically to support the progressive features of the time. The term "browser wars" refers to the competition for dominance in the Web browser marketplace Netscape Communications (formerly known as Netscape Communications Corporation and commonly known as Netscape) is an American computer services company ^[27]

Standards support

Internet Explorer, using the Trident layout engine, almost fully supports HTML 4. Trident (also known as MSHTML) is the name of the Layout engine for the Microsoft Windows version of Internet Explorer. HTML, an initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant Markup language for Web pages It provides a means to describe the structure 01, CSS Level 1, XML 1. Don't change "Extensible" 0 and DOM Level 1, with minor implementation gaps. The Document Object Model ( DOM) is a platform- and language -independent standard Object model for representing HTML or XML and related It partially supports CSS Level 2 and DOM Level 2, with major implementation gaps and conformance issues. Full conformance to the CSS 2. 1 specification is on the agenda for the final Internet Explorer 8 release. Windows Internet Explorer 8 (commonly abbreviated IE8) is the next version of Microsoft's Windows Internet Explorer web browser succeeding ^[28] It has no support for XHTML, though it can render XHTML documents authored with HTML compatibility principles and served with a text/html MIME-type. Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions ( MIME) is an Internet standard that extends the format of e-mail to support text in Character

Internet Explorer uses DOCTYPE sniffing to choose between "quirks mode" (renders similarly to older versions of MSIE) and standards mode (renders closer to W3C's specifications) for HTML and CSS rendering on screen (for printing Internet Explorer always uses standards mode). The following tables compare HTML compatibility and support for a number of Layout engines Please see the individual products' articles for further information Quirks mode refers to a technique used by some Web browsers for the sake of maintaining backwards compatibility with Web pages designed for older browsers instead of Quirks mode refers to a technique used by some Web browsers for the sake of maintaining backwards compatibility with Web pages designed for older browsers instead of It fully supports XSLT 1. Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations ( XSLT) is an XML -based language used for the transformation of XML documents into other XML or "human-readable" 0 or the December 1998 Working Draft of XSL, depending on the version of MSXML (a dynamic link library) available. In Computing, the Extensible Stylesheet Language ( XSL) a family of Transformation languages allows one to describe how to format or transform files encoded Microsoft XML Core Services ( MSXML) is a set of services that allow applications written in JScript, VBScript, and Microsoft development tools to build Dynamic-link library (also written without the hyphen or DLL, is Microsoft 's implementation of the Shared library concept in the Microsoft Windows It also provides its own dialect of ECMAScript called JScript. ECMAScript is a Scripting language, standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification. JScript is the Microsoft dialect of the ECMAScript Scripting language specification

Internet Explorer has been subjected to criticism over its limited support for open web standards and a major goal of Internet Explorer 8 is to improve support for such standards. An open standard is a Standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it Web standards is a general term for the formal standards and other technical Specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web.

Proprietary features

Internet Explorer has introduced an array of proprietary extensions to many of the standards, including HTML, CSS and the DOM. This has resulted in a number of web pages that can only be viewed properly using Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer has introduced a number of extensions to JScript which have been adopted by other browsers. These include the innerHTML property, which returns the HTML string within an element; the XMLHttpRequest object, which allows the sending of HTTP request and receiving of HTTP response; and the designMode attribute of the contentDocument object, which enables rich text editing of HTML documents. Some of these functionalities were not possible until the introduction of the W3C DOM methods. Its Ruby character extension to HTML is also accepted as a module in W3C XHTML 1. Ruby characters are small annotative Glosses that can be placed above or to the right of a Chinese character when writing logographic languages such as 1, though it is not found in all versions of W3C HTML.

The favicon (short for "favorites icon") introduced by Internet Explorer is now also supported and extended in other browsers. A It allows web pages to specify a 16-by-16 pixel image for use in bookmarks. Originally, support was provided only for the native Windows ICO format, however it has now been extended to other types of images such as PNG and GIF.

Microsoft submitted several other features of IE for consideration by the W3C for standardization. These include the 'behavior' CSS property, which connects the HTML elements with JScript behaviors (known as HTML Components, HTC); HTML+TIME profile, which adds timing and media synchronization support to HTML documents (similar to the W3C XHTML+SMIL); and the VML vector graphics file format. HTML+TIME (Timed Interactive Multimedia Extensions was the name of a W3C submission from Microsoft, Compaq/DEC and Macromedia that proposed XHTML+SMIL is a W3C Note that describes an integration of SMIL semantics with XHTML and CSS. Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points lines, Curves and shapes or Polygon (s which are all based However, all were rejected, at least in their original forms. VML was, however, subsequently combined with PGML (proposed by Adobe and Sun), resulting in the W3C-approved SVG format, currently one of the few vector image formats being used on the web. Precision Graphics Markup Language ( PGML) is an XML -based language for representing Vector graphics. Adobe Systems Incorporated (pronounced a-DOE-bee əˈdoʊbiː ( is an American Computer software company headquartered in San Jose California Sun Microsystems Inc ( is a multinational vendor of Computers computer components Computer software, and Information technology services

Other proprietary standards include:

• Support for vertical text, but in a syntax different from W3C CSS3 candidate recommendation.
• Support for a variety of image effects^[29] and page transitions, which are not found in W3C CSS.
• Support for obfuscated script code, in particular JScript. Obfuscated code is Source code or Intermediate language that is very hard to read and understand often intentionally Encode(). ^[30]
• Support for embedding EOT fonts in web pages. Font embedding refers to the ability to embed Font files into a document Embedded OpenType ( EOT) Fonts are a compact form of OpenType fonts designed by Microsoft for use as embedded fonts on Web pages Font embedding on the Web refers to the ability to embed Fonts into Web pages This allows for more flexibility when deciding about what font to use and is especially ^[31]

Usability and accessibility

Organizing Favorites in Internet Explorer 6

Internet Explorer makes use of the accessibility framework provided in Windows. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (commonly abbreviated to IE6 is a graphical Web browser developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Internet Explorer is also a user interface for FTP, with operations similar to that of Windows Explorer (although this feature requires a shell window to be opened in recent versions of the browser, rather than natively within the browser). Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is not supported, but available via extension (iMacros). Visual Basic for Applications ( VBA) is an event-driven implementation of Microsoft's Visual Basic, a Procedural programming language Recent versions feature pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing. Pop-up ads or popups are a form of online advertising on the World Wide Web intended to attract Web traffic or capture email addresses In the area of Graphical user interfaces a tabbed document interface ( TDI) is one that allows multiple Documents to be contained within a single window Tabbed browsing can also be added to older versions by installing Microsoft's MSN Search Toolbar or Yahoo's Yahoo Toolbar. In the area of Graphical user interfaces a tabbed document interface ( TDI) is one that allows multiple Documents to be contained within a single window Windows Live Toolbar is a Toolbar designed as part of Microsoft 's Windows Live range of services Yahoo! Toolbar is a Toolbar that installs on the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers within the context of Internet access functions

Cache

Main articles: Temporary Internet Files and Index.dat

Internet Explorer caches visited content in the Temporary Internet Files folder to allow quicker access (or offline access) to previously visited pages. Temporary Internet Files is a directory on Microsoft Windows computer systems In the Microsoft Windows Operating system, indexdat is a file used by the Internet Explorer Web browser. Temporary Internet Files is a directory on Microsoft Windows computer systems The content is indexed in a database file, known as Index.dat. In the Microsoft Windows Operating system, indexdat is a file used by the Internet Explorer Web browser. Multiple Index.dat files exist which index different content - visited content, web feeds, autocomplete entries, visited URLs, cookies etc. In the Microsoft Windows Operating system, indexdat is a file used by the Internet Explorer Web browser. A web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content Uniform Resource Locator is an URI which also specifies where the identified resource is available and the protocol for retrieving it ^[32]

Prior to IE7, clearing the cache used to clear the index but the files themselves were not removed. This feature can be a potential security risk for both individuals and companies. IE7 on, both the entries as well as the files themselves are removed.

Security

Internet Explorer uses a zone-based security framework that groups sites based on certain conditions, including whether it is an Internet- or intranet-based site as well as a user-editable whitelist. This article describes how security can be achieved through design and engineering Security restrictions are applied per zone; all the sites in a zone are subject to the restrictions.

Internet Explorer 6 SP2 onwards uses the Attachment Execution Service of Microsoft Windows to mark executable files downloaded from the Internet as being potentially unsafe. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Accessing files marked as such will prompt the user to make an explicit trust decision to execute the file, as executables originating from the Internet can be potentially unsafe. This helps in preventing accidental installation of malware.

Internet Explorer 7 introduced the phishing filter, that restricts access to phishing sites unless the user overrides the decision. In the field of computer security phishing is the Criminally Fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames Passwords With version 8, it also blocks access to sites known to host malware. Malware, a Portmanteau word from the words '''mal'''icious and soft'''ware''', is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without Downloads are also checked to see if they are known to be malware-infected.

In Windows Vista, Internet Explorer can optionally run in what is called Protected Mode, where the privileges of the browser itself is severely restricted - it cannot make any system-wide changes. Windows Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops This also effectively restricts the privileges of any add-ons. As a result, even if the browser or any add-on is compromised, the damage the security breach can cause is limited.

Patches and updates to the browser are released periodically and made available through the Windows Update service, as well as through Automatic Updates. Windows Update is a service provided by Microsoft for users of Microsoft Windows which provides updates for the Operating system and its installed components Although security patches continue to be released for a range of platforms, most recent feature additions and security improvements are released for Windows XP only. Windows XP is a family of 32-bit and 64-bit Operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and

Group Policy

Main article: Group policy

Internet Explorer is fully configurable using Group Policy. Group Policy is a feature of Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems that provides centralized management and configuration of computers and remote users in an Group Policy is a feature of Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems that provides centralized management and configuration of computers and remote users in an Administrators of Windows Server domains can apply and enforce a variety of settings that affect the user interface (such as disabling menu items and individual configuration options), as well as underlying security features such as downloading of files, zone configuration, per-site settings, ActiveX control behavior, and others. A Windows Server domain is a logical group of computers running versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system that share a central directory database Policy settings can be configured for each user and for each machine. Internet Explorer also supports Integrated Windows Authentication. Integrated Windows Authentication ( IWA) is a term associated with Microsoft products that refers to the SPNEGO, Kerberos, and NTLMSSP

Architecture

The architecture of IE8. Previous versions had a similar architecture, except that both tabs and the UI were within the same process. Consequently, each browser window could have only one "tab process".

Internet Explorer uses a componentized architecture built around the Component Object Model (COM) technology. Component-based software engineering (CBSE (also known as Component-Based Development (CBD or Software Componentry) is a branch of the Software engineering Component Object Model ( COM) is an interface standard for Software componentry introduced by Microsoft in 1993 It is made up of five major components, each of which are contained in a separate .dll and expose a set of COM interface that enables them to be hosted by the Internet Explorer main executable, iexplore. Dynamic-link library (also written without the hyphen or DLL, is Microsoft 's implementation of the Shared library concept in the Microsoft Windows Interface generally refers to an abstraction that an entity provides of itself to the outside exe:^[33]

WinInet. dll

WinInet. dll is the protocol handler for HTTP and FTP. Hypertext Transfer Protocol ( HTTP) is a Communications protocol for the transfer of information on the Internet. It handles all network communication over these protocols.

URlMon. dll

URLMon. dll is responsible for MIME-type handling and download of web content. Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions ( MIME) is an Internet standard that extends the format of e-mail to support text in Character

MSHTML. dll

MSHTML. dll houses the Trident rendering engine introduced in Internet Explorer 4, which is responsible for displaying the pages on-screen and handling the Document Object Model of the web pages. Trident (also known as MSHTML) is the name of the Layout engine for the Microsoft Windows version of Internet Explorer. Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 (also IE4) is a graphical web browser released in September 1997 by Microsoft, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but also The Document Object Model ( DOM) is a platform- and language -independent standard Object model for representing HTML or XML and related MSHTML. dll parses the HTML/CSS file and creates the internal DOM tree representation of it. The Document Object Model ( DOM) is a platform- and language -independent standard Object model for representing HTML or XML and related It also exposes a set of APIs for runtime inspection and modification of the DOM tree. The DOM tree is further processed by a layout engine which then renders the internal representation on screen. ^[34]

Internet Explorer does not include any scripting functionality natively. Rather MSHTML. dll exposes another set of APIs that allow any scripting environment to be plugged-in and access the DOM tree. Internet Explorer 8 includes the bindings for the Active Scripting engine (which is a part of Microsoft Windows) is provided, which allows any language implemented as an Active Scripting module to be used for client-side scripting. Active Scripting (formerly known as ActiveX Scripting) is the technology used in Windows to implement component-based scripting support Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. By default, only the JScript and VBScript modules are provided; third party implementations like ScreamingMonkey (for ECMAScript 4 support) can also be used. JScript is the Microsoft dialect of the ECMAScript Scripting language specification VBScript (short for Visual Basic Scripting Edition) is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft. Tamarin is a free Virtual machine and just-in-time (JIT Compiler intended to implement the fourth edition of the ECMAScript standard ECMAScript is a Scripting language, standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification. Microsoft also makes available the Microsoft Silverlight runtime that allows CLI languages, including DLR-based dynamic languages like IronPython and IronRuby, to be used for client-side scripting. Microsoft Silverlight is a programmable Web browser Plugin that enables features such as Animation, Vector graphics and CLI Languages are computer programming languages that are used to produce libraries and programs that conform to the Common Language Infrastructure specifications The Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR from Microsoft is an ongoing effort to bring a set of services that run on top of the CLR and provides language services for IronPython is an implementation of the Python programming language, targeting the. IronRuby is an upcoming implementation of the Ruby programming language targeting Microsoft.

ShDocVw. dll

ShDocVw. dll provides the navigation, local caching and history functionalities for the browser.

BrowseUI. dll

BrowseUI. dll is responsible for the browser user interface, including the browser chrome, which houses all the menus and toolbars.

Internet Explorer 8 introduces some major architectural changes, called Loosely Coupled IE (LCIE). Windows Internet Explorer 8 (commonly abbreviated IE8) is the next version of Microsoft's Windows Internet Explorer web browser succeeding LCIE separates the UI processes from the process hosting the different web applications in different tabs (tab processes). An UI process can create multiple tab processes, each of which can be of a different integrity level; each tab process can host multiple web sites. Mandatory Integrity Control ( MIC, also called Integrity levels) is a new security feature in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Each tab process has its own cookie cache. The two processes use asynchronous Inter-Process Communication to synchronize themselves. Inter-Process Communication ( IPC) is a set of techniques for the exchange of data among two or more threads in one or more processes. Generally, there will be a single tab process for all web sites. In Windows Vista with protected mode turned on, however, opening privileged content (such as local HTML pages) will create a new tab process as it will not be constrained by protected mode of operation. Windows Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops ^[35]

Extensibility

Internet Explorer also exposes a set of Component Object Model (COM) interfaces that allow other components to extend the functionality of the browser. Component Object Model ( COM) is an interface standard for Software componentry introduced by Microsoft in 1993 ^[33] Extensibility is divided into two types: Browser extensibility and Content extensibility. The browser extensibility interfaces can be used to plug in components to add context menu entries, toolbars, menu items or Browser Helper Objects (BHO). BHOs are used to extend the feature set of the browser, whereas the other extensibility options are used to expose the feature in the UI. Content extensibility interfaces are used by different content-type handlers to add support for non-native content formats. ^[33] BHOs not only have unrestricted access to the Internet Explorer DOM and event model, they also can access the filesystem, registry and other OS components. The Document Object Model ( DOM) is a platform- and language -independent standard Object model for representing HTML or XML and related Content extensibility can be either in terms of Active Documents (Doc Objects) (e. g. , SVG or MathML) or ActiveX controls. Mathematical Markup Language ( MathML) is an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content ActiveX is a Component object model (COM developed by Microsoft for Windows. ^[33] ActiveX controls are used for content handlers that render content embedded within an HTML page (e. g. , Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight). Adobe Flash (previously called Shockwave Flash and Macromedia Flash) is a set of Multimedia software created by Macromedia and currently Microsoft Silverlight is a programmable Web browser Plugin that enables features such as Animation, Vector graphics and Doc objects are used when the content type won't be embedded in HTML (e. g. , Microsoft Word, PDF or XPS). Microsoft Word is Microsoft 's flagship word processing software. The XML Paper Specification ( XPS) formerly codenamed " Metro " is a specification for a Page description language and a fixed-document format In fact, the Trident rendering engine itself exposed as a Doc object, so HTML in itself is treated as an Active Document. ^[33]

Add-on Manager from Windows XP SP2 Internet Explorer 6 SV1

Interner Explorer add-on components run with the same privileges as the browser itself, unlike client-side scripts that have a very limited set of privileges. Add-ons can be installed either locally, or directly by a web site. Since the add-ons have a more privileged access to the system, malicious add-ons can be and has been used to compromise the security of the system. Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 2 onwards provide various safeguards against this, including an Add-on Manager for controlling ActiveX controls and Browser Helper Objects and a "No Add-Ons" mode of operation as well as greater restrictions on sites installing add-ons.

Internet Explorer itself can be hosted by other applications via a set of COM interfaces. This can be used to embed the browser functionality inside the application. Also, the hosting application can choose to host only the MSHTML. dll rendering engine, rather than the entire browser. ^[33]

See also: Component Object Model and Browser Helper Object

Security vulnerabilities

Internet Explorer has been subjected to many security vulnerabilities and concerns: Much of the spyware, adware, and computer viruses across the Internet are made possible by exploitable bugs and flaws in the security architecture of Internet Explorer, sometimes requiring nothing more than viewing of a malicious web page in order to install themselves. Component Object Model ( COM) is an interface standard for Software componentry introduced by Microsoft in 1993 A Browser Helper Object ( BHO) is a DLL module designed as a Plugin for Microsoft 's Internet Explorer Web browser Such content will be deleted Specific software is to be mentioned in this article only Adware or advertising-supported software is any software package which automatically plays displays or downloads advertisements A computer virus is a Computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user This is known as a "drive-by install". The expression drive-by download is used in three increasingly strict meanings Any Download that happens without knowledge of the user There are also attempts to trick the user into installing malicious software by misrepresenting the software's true purpose in the description section of an ActiveX security alert.

A screenshot of a malicious website attempting to install spyware via an ActiveX Control in IE6

A number of security flaws affecting IE originated not in the browser itself, but ActiveX-based add-ons used by it. Such content will be deleted Specific software is to be mentioned in this article only ActiveX is a Component object model (COM developed by Microsoft for Windows. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (commonly abbreviated to IE6 is a graphical Web browser developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft ActiveX is a Component object model (COM developed by Microsoft for Windows. Because the add-ons have the same privilege as IE, the flaws can be as critical as browser flaws. This has led to the ActiveX-based architecture being criticized for being fault-prone. More recently, other experts have maintained that the dangers of ActiveX have been overstated and there are safeguards in place. Other browsers that use NPAPI as their extensibility mechanism are suffering the same problems. In an April 2005 eWeek opinions column, Larry Seltzer stated:

While there has been a striking lack of actual evidence that ActiveX is unsafe, there has been no shortage of baseless assertions and cheap shots against it. My favorite was the "Internet Exploder" incident in which Sun actually paid someone to write a malicious ActiveX control. The test system brought up all the warning dialogs about the program that you usually get and the Sun employee actually had the nerve to keep whacking on the enter key quickly so they would close as quickly as possible and didn't mention that there were any such warnings. Meanwhile, they also didn't mention that a signed Java applet could also perform dangerous privileged operations and would provide similar warnings. Most ActiveX criticism is simply uninformed, but this example was hypocritical and dishonest. ^[36]

While Internet Explorer is not alone in having exploitable vulnerabilities, its ubiquity has resulted in many more affected computers when vulnerabilities are found. Microsoft has not responded as quickly as competitors in fixing security holes and making patches available,^[37] in some cases giving malicious web site operators months to exploit them before Microsoft releases a patch.

Market adoption

Usage Share

Usage share of Internet Explorer, 1994–2008^[39]

The adoption rate of Internet Explorer seems to be closely related to that of Microsoft Windows, as it is the default web browser that comes with Windows. Since the integration of Internet Explorer 2. 0 with Windows 95 OSR 1 in 1996, and especially after version 4. 0's release, the adoption was greatly accelerated: from below 20% in 1996 to about 40% in 1998 and over 80% in 2000. This effect, however, has recently been dubbed the "Microsoft monoculture", by analogy to the problems associated with lack of biodiversity in an ecosystem. Monoculture is the agricultural practice of producing or growing one single crop over a wide area Biodiversity is the variation of Life forms within a given Ecosystem, Biome or for the entire Earth. An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants animals and micro-organisms( Biotic factors in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical ( By 2002, Internet Explorer had almost completely superseded its main rival Netscape and dominated the market. Netscape Communications (formerly known as Netscape Communications Corporation and commonly known as Netscape) is an American computer services company

A CNN article noted at the release of Internet Explorer 4, "Microsoft's Internet Explorer has made inroads and various estimates put its share of the browser market 30 to 35 percent from about 10 percent a year ago. Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 (also IE4) is a graphical web browser released in September 1997 by Microsoft, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but also " ^[40]

After having fought and won the browser wars of the late 1990s, Internet Explorer began to see its usage share shrink. Having attained a peak of about 95% during 2002 and 2003, it has since been in a slow, steady decline, due to the adoption of Mozilla Firefox, which statistics indicate is currently the most significant competition. Nevertheless, Internet Explorer remains the dominant web browser, with a global usage share of around 75% (though measurements vary). Usage is higher in Asia and lower in Europe.

Firefox 1. 0 had surpassed Internet Explorer 5 in early 2005 with Firefox 1. Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 (abbreviated IE5) is a graphical Web browser released in March 1999 by Microsoft, primarily for Microsoft Windows 0 at roughly 8 percent market share. ^[41] An article notes at the release of Internet Explorer 7 in October 2006, "IE6 had the lion's share of the browser market with 77. 22%. Internet Explorer 7 had climbed to 3. 18%, while Firefox 2. 0 was at 0. 69%. "^[42] Internet Explorer 7 was released at the same time as Firefox 2. 0, and overtook Firefox 1. x by November 2006, at roughly 9% market share. ^[43] Firefox 2. 0 had overtaken 1. x by January 2007, ^[44], but IE7 did not surpass IE6 until December 2007. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (commonly abbreviated to IE6 is a graphical Web browser developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft ^[45] By January 2008, their respective version market share stood at 43% IE7, 32% IE6, 16% FF2, 4%SF 3, and both FF1. Safari is a Web browser developed by Apple Inc and included in Mac OS X. x and IE5 versions at less than half a percent. ^[46]

Market share by year and version

Approximate usage over time based on various usage share counters averaged for the year overall, or for the fourth quarter, or for the last month in the year depending on availability of reference. ^{[47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52]}

Industry adoption

The proprietary extension mechanism ActiveX is used by many public websites and web applications, including eBay. ActiveX is a Component object model (COM developed by Microsoft for Windows. In Software engineering, a web application or webapp is an application that is accessed via Web browser over a network such as the Internet eBay Inc is an American Internet company that manages eBaycom an Online auction and shopping Website in which people and businesses buy and Similarly, Browser Helper Objects are also used by many search engine companies and third parties for creating add-ons that access their services, such as search engine toolbars. Because of the use of COM, it is possible to embed web-browsing functionality in third-party applications. Hence, there are a number of Internet Explorer shells, and a number of content-centric applications like RealPlayer also use Internet Explorer's web browsing module for viewing web pages within the applications. An Internet Explorer shell is Computer software that uses the Trident rendering engine of Internet Explorer. RealPlayer (briefly known also as RealOne Player) is a proprietary Cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number

OS compatibility

IE versions, over time, have had widely varying OS compatibility, ranging from being available for many platforms and several versions of Windows to just a couple versions of Windows. Many versions of IE had some support for an older OS but stopped getting updates. The increased growth of the Internet in the 1990s and 2000s means that current browsers with small market shares have more total users than the entire market early on. For example, 90% market share in 1997 would be roughly 60 million^[53] users, but by the start of 2007 90% market share would equate to over 900 million users. ^[54] The result is that later versions of IE6 had many more users in total than all the early versions put together.

The release of IE7 at the end of 2006 resulted in a collapse of IE6 market share; by February 2007 market version share statistics showed IE6 at about 50% and IE7 at 29%. ^[55] Regardless of the actual market share, the most compatible version (across operating systems) of IE was 5. x, which had Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X, Unix, and most Windows versions available and supported for a short period in the late 1990s (although 4. x had a more unified codebase across versions) By 2007, IE had much narrower OS support, with the latest versions supporting only Windows XP Service Pack 2 and above.

^[56][57]

^* Internet Explorer 6 SP2 is only available as part of Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server 2003 SP1 or SP2. Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 (also IE4) is a graphical web browser released in September 1997 by Microsoft, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but also Trident (also known as MSHTML) is the name of the Layout engine for the Microsoft Windows version of Internet Explorer. Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 (Internet Explorer 30 is a graphical Web browser released on August 13 1996 by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer for UNIX is a proprietary graphical Web browser that was freely available and produced by Microsoft for Microsoft Internet Explorer 2 (Internet Explorer 20 is a graphical Web browser released in November 1995 by Microsoft for Windows 95 and Windows Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer abbreviated MSIE) commonly abbreviated to IE, is a series of graphical Spyglass Inc ( was an Internet software company based in Champaign Illinois. The following is a history of the Internet Explorer graphical Web browser from Microsoft developed over 8 major Spyglass Inc ( was an Internet software company based in Champaign Illinois. Microsoft Plus! is a commercial Operating system enhancement product by Microsoft.
^** The version of Internet Explorer included with Windows 95 varied by OSR release; 2. 0 was included with OSR1, 3. 0 was included with OSR2, and 4. 0 was included with OSR2. 5.
^*** No native support, but possible with third-party "Standalone" installer.

"Standalone" Internet Explorer

Early versions of Internet Explorer such as 5 had a compatibility mode to run Internet Explorer 4, though this feature was dropped (also MacUsers could still use 4. 5 after installing 5). While Microsoft claims it is impossible to keep multiple versions of Internet Explorer on the same machine, some hackers have successfully separated several versions of Internet Explorer, making them standalone applications. In Computing, hacker has several meanings A community of enthusiast Computer programmers and Systems designers originated in the 1960s These are referred to as "standalone" IEs and have included versions 3 through 7.

• Multiple IEs in Windows Web Design — The web developer Joe Maddalone who found the solution.
• Multiple Explorers — Downloads of all the versions, originally packaged by Ryan Parman.

Microsoft has discontinued standalone installers for Internet Explorer to the general public. However, there are unofficial procedures for downloading the complete install package. Internet Explorer standalone hacks exploit a known workaround to DLL hell, which was introduced in Windows 2000, called DLL redirection. In Computing, DLL hell is a colloquial term for the complications that arise when working with dynamic link libraries, (DLLs used with Microsoft Windows

• Multiple IEs. An installer for the standalone versions of IE6, IE5.5, IE5.01, IE4.01, and IE3
• Microsoft Support document, with instructions for downloading the entire set of installation files.

Internet Explorer 6 running on Linux in Wine. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks Wine is a free Software application which aims to allow Unix-like computer Operating systems on the X86 architecture to execute

It is also possible to install Internet Explorer via Wine. Wine is a free Software application which aims to allow Unix-like computer Operating systems on the X86 architecture to execute

• IEs4Linux automatically sets up Internet Explorer 5. 0, 5. 5, and 6. 0 in Wine. Supporting Internet Explorer 7 is currently in development; as of August 2007, the IE7 rendering engine can be used with the IE6 user interface. ^[58]

After Internet Explorer 7 is installed, an Internet Explorer 6 executable is still available in C:\WINDOWS\ie7, hidden by default. Launching this executable provides the user with the older IE6 interface, however web pages are rendered using the IE7 engine. The IE6 engine can be re-enabled by placing a file named "iexplore. exe. local" into the IE7 folder.

As an alternative to using IE standalone, Microsoft now makes available Virtual PC images containing pre-activated copies of Windows XP with either IE 6 or IE 7 installed. Microsoft Virtual PC is a Virtualization suite for Microsoft Windows Operating systems and an Emulation suite for Windows XP is a family of 32-bit and 64-bit Operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and ^[59] Microsoft recommends this approach for web developers seeking to test their pages in the different versions of IE as the standalone versions are unsupported and may not work the same way as a properly installed copy of IE. ^[60][61]

Removal

Main article: Removal of Internet Explorer

While a major upgrade of Internet Explorer can be uninstalled in a traditional way if the user has saved the original application files for uninstallation, the matter of uninstalling the version of the browser that has shipped with an operating system remains a controversial one. Internet Explorer removal has changed over its version history but the nature of many of its upgrades and installation methods has been source of public interest

The idea of removing a stock install of Internet Explorer from a Windows system was first proposed during the United States v. Microsoft case. United States v Microsoft There were many civil actions taking place in May 18 1998 Critics felt that users should have the right to uninstall Internet Explorer freely just like any other application software. Application software is a subclass of Computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly and thoroughly to a task that the user wishes to perform One of Microsoft's arguments during the trial was that removing Internet Explorer from Windows may result in system instability.

The Australian computer scientist Shane Brooks demonstrated that Windows 98 could in fact run with Internet Explorer removed. ^[62] Brooks went on to develop software designed to customize Windows versions by removing "undesired components", which is known as 98lite. 98lite is a utility for Windows 98 and Windows Me written by Shane Brooks. He later created XPLite to support NT based operating systems. 2000-XPLite is a computer program produced by Shane Brooks based on 98lite which removes components of the Windows 98/Me operating systems (on X86 An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination Both of these pieces of software can remove IE after the installation of the operating system.

There are a few popular methods for removing IE from a copy of the Windows install disc so it never touches the user's hard drive. A method developed by Fred Vorck^[63] involves the manual removal of IE from installation discs. His process has been automated as a feature of HFSLIP. HFSLIP is an Open source Hotfix and Service Pack slipstreaming utility designed to update Windows 2000 SP4 XP SP2 and nLite and HFSLIP are automated programs that allow users to exclude IE and many other Windows components from installation as desired. nLite and vLite are freeware applications used to create customized installation CDs of Microsoft 's Windows 2000, XP, 2003 HFSLIP is an Open source Hotfix and Service Pack slipstreaming utility designed to update Windows 2000 SP4 XP SP2 and In some older versions of Windows and in Windows Fundamentals there is an option to install Internet Explorer. Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (" WinFLP " is a Thin client Operating system from Microsoft, based on Windows XP Embedded

Removing Internet Explorer does have a number of consequences. Some applications that depend on libraries installed by IE may fail to function, or have unexpected behaviors. Intuit's Quicken is a typical example, which depends heavily upon the HTML rendering components installed by the browser. Intuit Inc ( is an American Software company that develops financial and Tax preparation software and related services for Small HTML, an initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant Markup language for Web pages It provides a means to describe the structure The Windows help and support system will also not function due to the heavy reliance on HTML help files and components of IE. Microsoft Compiled HTML Help is a proprietary format for online help files developed by Microsoft and first released in 1997 as a successor to the In versions of Windows before Vista, it is also not possible to run Microsoft's Windows Update or Microsoft Update with any other browser due to the service's implementation of an ActiveX control, which no other browser supports. Windows Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops Windows Update is a service provided by Microsoft for users of Microsoft Windows which provides updates for the Operating system and its installed components Windows Update is a service provided by Microsoft for users of Microsoft Windows which provides updates for the Operating system and its installed components ActiveX is a Component object model (COM developed by Microsoft for Windows. In Windows Vista, Windows Update is implemented as a Control Panel applet. The Control Panel is a part of the Microsoft Windows Graphical user interface which allows users to view and manipulate basic system settings and controls

References

See also

• Internet Explorer for Mac
• Internet Explorer for UNIX
• History of the Internet
• List of web browsers
• Comparison of web browsers
• Browser timeline
• Browser wars

External links

• Internet Explorer: Home Page
• IEBlog — The weblog of the Internet Explorer team
• Internet Explorer Architecture
• Internet Explorer Community — The official Microsoft Internet Explorer Community
• Internet Explorer History
• List of vulnerabilities by SecurityFocus
• Secunia – Vulnerability Report – Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.x
• Secunia – Vulnerability Report – Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.x
• Drip — A utility to detect and measure IE's memory leaks. Internet Explorer for Mac (also referred to as Internet Explorermac, IEmac or Internet Explorer Macintosh Edition) was a proprietary Web Internet Explorer for UNIX is a proprietary graphical Web browser that was freely available and produced by Microsoft for Prior to the widespread internetworking that led to the Internet most communication networks were limited by their nature to only allow communications between the stations on the network and The following is a list of Web browsers Historical Notable Browsers In order of release: WorldWideWeb, February 26 The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of Web browsers Please see the individual products' articles for further information A time line of Web browsers from the early 1990s to the present The term "browser wars" refers to the competition for dominance in the Web browser marketplace
• IE Leak Patterns — Microsoft's analysis of IE's memory leak problem.
• Internet Explorer Exploits
• Rendering problems in Internet Explorer
• How the web was almost won — Just how close did we come to a Net ruled by Microsoft? The "server wars" show a grim counterpart to the browser wars