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Internet Explorer Internet Explorer Logo (2012) (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, and commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a discontinued series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft. It was first released as a part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 in 1995; later versions were available as free downloads or in service packs and included in the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) service release of Windows 95 until Windows 10. Microsoft spent over US$100 million per year on Internet Explorer in the late 1990s, with over 1,000 people involved in the project by 1999. While IE has since been discontinued on most Windows editions, it remains supported on certain editions of Windows, such as Windows 10 LTSB/LTSC.

Internet Explorer was once the most widely used web browser, attaining a peak of 95% usage share by 2003. It has since fallen out of general use after discontinuation. This came after Microsoft used bundling to win the first browser war against Netscape, which was the dominant browser in the 1990s. Its usage share has since declined with the launches of Firefox (2004) and Google Chrome (2008), and with the growing popularity of mobile operating systems such as Android and iOS that do not support Internet Explorer. Microsoft Edge, IE's successor, first overtook Internet Explorer in terms of market share in November 2019. Versions of Internet Explorer for other operating systems have been produced, including an Xbox 360 version, and for platforms Microsoft no longer supports: Internet Explorer for Mac and Internet Explorer for UNIX (Solaris and HP-UX), and an embedded OEM version called Pocket Internet Explorer, later rebranded Internet Explorer Mobile, made for Windows CE and Windows Phone.

The browser has been scrutinized throughout its development for its use of third-party technology (such as the source code of Spyglass Mosaic, used without royalty in early versions) and security and privacy vulnerabilities, and the United States and the European Union have determined that the integration of Internet Explorer with Windows has been to the detriment of fair browser competition.

On March 17, 2015, Microsoft announced that Microsoft Edge would replace Internet Explorer as the default browser for Windows 10 devices, effectively making IE11 the last release. New feature development for Internet Explorer was discontinued in 2016, and support for the browser officially ended on June 15, 2022, for Windows 10 Semi-Annual Channel (SAC) editions. It remained on versions of Windows 10 until version 21H1 for legacy purposes.

History

Main articles: History of Internet Explorer and Internet Explorer version history

Internet Explorer 1

The Internet Explorer project was started in the summer of 1994 by Thomas Reardon, who, according to former project lead Ben Slivka, used source code from Spyglass, Inc.'s Mosaic, an early commercial web browser with formal ties to the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Mosaic browser. In late 1994, Microsoft licensed Spyglass Mosaic for a quarterly fee plus a percentage of Microsoft's non-Windows revenues for the software. Although bearing a name similar to NCSA Mosaic, Spyglass Mosaic had used the NCSA Mosaic source code sparingly.

The first version, dubbed Microsoft Internet Explorer, was installed as part of the Internet Jumpstart Kit in the Microsoft Plus! pack for Windows 95 in August 1995. The Internet Explorer team started with about six people in early development. Version 1.5 was released several months later for Windows NT and added support for basic table rendering. Because the web browser was completely free, Microsoft was not required to pay royalties to Spyglass Inc., resulting in a lawsuit that was settled for US$8 million on January 22, 1997.

Microsoft was sued by SyNet Inc. in 1996 for trademark infringement, claiming it owned the rights to the name "Internet Explorer". It ended with Microsoft paying $5 million to settle the lawsuit.

Internet Explorer 2

Internet Explorer 2 is the second major release of Internet Explorer, released on November 22, 1995 for Windows 95 and Windows NT, and on April 23, 1996 for the Apple Macintosh and Windows 3.1. IE2 introduced new or improved features for its time period, many of which either became ubiquitous or obsolete. Some of these features included:

Internet Explorer 3

Internet Explorer 3 is the third major release of Internet Explorer, released on August 13, 1996, for Windows and on January 8, 1997, for Mac OS.

Internet Explorer 4

Internet Explorer 4 is the fourth major release of Internet Explorer, released in September 1997 for Windows, Mac OS, Solaris, and HP-UX. It is the first version of Internet Explorer to use the MSHTML (Trident) layout engine, and has support for Browser Helper Objects (BHO).

Internet Explorer 5

Internet Explorer 5 is the fifth major release of Internet Explorer, released on March 18, 1999 for Windows NT 3, Windows 3.1, Windows NT 4.0 SP3, Windows 98, Mac OS X, classic Mac OS, Solaris, and HP-UX. Its distribution methods and Windows integration were involved in the United States v. Microsoft case.

Internet Explorer 6

Internet Explorer 6 is the sixth major release of Internet Explorer, released on August 24, 2001, for Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, and as the default web browser for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 7 is the seventh major release of Internet Explorer, released on October 18, 2006, for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 SP1 and as the default web browser for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Embedded POSReady 2009.

Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer 8 is the eighth major release of Internet Explorer, released on March 19, 200,9 for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and as the default web browser for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Internet Explorer 9

Internet Explorer 9 is the ninth major release of Internet Explorer, released on March 14, 2011, for Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Internet Explorer 10

Internet Explorer 10 is the tenth major release of Internet Explorer, released on October 26, 2012, for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It is the default web browser for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.

Internet Explorer 11

Internet Explorer 11 is the eleventh and last major release of Internet Explorer, released on October 17, 2013, for Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server 2012.

Replacement and end of support

Microsoft Edge [Legacy], officially unveiled on January 21, 2015 as "Project Spartan",[1] replaced Internet Explorer as the default browser on Windows 10.[2] Internet Explorer is still installed in Windows 10 to maintain compatibility with older websites and intranet sites that require ActiveX and other legacy web technologies.[1][3] The browser's MSHTML rendering engine also remains for compatibility reasons.

Additionally, Microsoft Edge shipped with the "Internet Explorer mode" feature, which enables support for legacy Internet applications. This is possible through the use of the Trident MSHTML engine, the rendering code of Internet Explorer. Microsoft has committed to supporting Internet Explorer mode at least through 2029, with a one-year notice before it is discontinued.[4]

Various websites have dropped support for Internet Explorer. On June 1, 2020, the Internet Archive removed IE from its list of supported browsers, due to its dated nature.[5] Since November 30, 2020, the web version of Microsoft Teams can no longer be accessed using Internet Explorer, followed by the remaining Microsoft 365 applications since August 17, 2021.[6][7] WordPress also dropped support for the browser in July 2021.[8]

If a user attempts to open Internet Explorer on Windows 11, Microsoft Edge will open instead with the user's default homepage on IE. Previously, this was only when IE navigated to a site that did not support it. This is due to a browser object helper included with the OS, IE to Edge BHO.[9]

Internet Explorer is no longer installed on systems that come with Windows 11; rather, they include Microsoft Edge with an Internet Explorer (IE) mode for any legacy websites that require it.

Features

Standards support

Internet Explorer, using the MSHTML (Trident) browser engine:

Internet Explorer uses DOCTYPE sniffing to choose between standards mode and a "quirks mode" in which it deliberately mimics nonstandard behaviors of old versions of IE for HTML and CSS rendering on screen (Internet Explorer always uses standards mode for printing). It also provides its own dialect of ECMAScript called JScript.

Tim Berners-Lee criticized Internet Explorer for its limited support of SVG, which is promoted by the W3C.

Non-standard extensions

Internet Explorer has introduced an array of proprietary extensions to many of the standards, including HTML, CSS, and the DOM. This has resulted in several web pages that appear broken in standards-compliant web browsers and has introduced the need for a "quirks mode" to allow for rendering improper elements meant for Internet Explorer in these other browsers.

Internet Explorer has introduced several extensions to the DOM that have been adopted by other browsers.

These include the inner HTML property, which provides access to the HTML string within an element, which was part of IE 5 and was standardized as part of HTML 5 roughly 15 years later after all other browsers implemented it for compatibility, the XMLHttpRequest object, which allows the sending of HTTP request and receiving of HTTP response, and may be used to perform AJAX, and the designMode attribute of the content Document 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 1.1, though it is not found in all versions of W3C HTML.

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. However, all were rejected, at least in their original forms; VML was subsequently combined with PGML (proposed by Adobe and Sun), resulting in the W3C-approved SVG format, one of the few vector image formats being used on the web, which IE did not support until version 9.

Other non-standard behaviors include: support for vertical text, but in a syntax different from W3C CSS3 candidate recommendation, support for a variety of image effects and page transitions, which are not found in W3C CSS, support for obfuscated script code, in particular JScript.Encode, as well as support for embedding EOT fonts in web pages.

Favicon

Support for favicons was first added in Internet Explorer 5.[10] Internet Explorer supports favicons in PNG, static GIF, and native Windows icon formats. In Windows Vista and later, Internet Explorer can display native Windows icons that have embedded PNG files.[11][12]

Usability and accessibility

Internet Explorer makes use of the accessibility framework provided in Windows. It is also a user interface for FTP, with operations similar to Windows Explorer. Internet Explorer 5 and 6 had a sidebar for web searches, enabling jumps through pages from results listed in the sidebar. Pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing were added, respectively, in Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7. Tabbed browsing can also be added to older versions by installing MSN Search Toolbar or Yahoo Toolbar.

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. The content is indexed in a database file, known as Index.dat. Multiple Index.dat files exist, which index different content, such as visited content, web feeds, visited URLs, and cookies.[13]

Before IE7, clearing the cache used to clear the index, but the files themselves were not reliably removed, posing a potential security and privacy risk. In IE7 and later, when the cache is cleared, the cache files are more reliably removed, and the index.dat file is overwritten with null bytes.

Caching was improved in IE9.[14]

Group Policy

Main article: Group Policy

Internet Explorer is fully configurable using Group Policy. Administrators of Windows Server domains (for domain-joined computers) or the local computer can apply and enforce a variety of settings on computers 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. Policy settings can be configured for each user and for each machine. Internet Explorer also supports Integrated Windows Authentication.

Gallery

See also: Internet Explorer logos

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Weber, Jason (January 21, 2015). "Spartan and the Windows 10 January Preview Build". IEBlog. Microsoft. Archived from the original on January 22, 2015. 
  2. ↑ Goldman, David (April 29, 2015). "'Microsoft Edge' will replace Internet Explorer". CNN. 
  3. ↑ Warren, Tom (January 27, 2015). "Microsoft reveals its Internet Explorer successor will support extensions". The Verge. 
  4. ↑ Lifecycle FAQ - Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Docs.
  5. ↑ Farewell to IE11, Internet Archive Blogs. May 1, 2020.
  6. ↑ Microsoft 365 apps say farewell to Internet Explorer 11 and Windows 10 sunsets Microsoft Edge Legacy, Microsoft 365 Blog. 2021-02-08.
  7. ↑ Microsoft Internet Explorer is finally dead, The Independent. August 20, 2020.
  8. ↑ Desrosiers, Jonathan (May 19, 2021). "Dropping support for Internet Explorer 11". WordPress. 
  9. ↑ https://www.winhelponline.com/blog/disable-auto-redirect-unsupported-sites-ie-to-edge/
  10. ↑ "How to Add a Shortcut Icon to a Web Page". MSDN. Microsoft. Archived from the original on December 17, 2008. 
  11. ↑ Davis, Jeff (December 27, 2007). "why doesn't the favicon for my site appear in IE7?". jeffdav on code. 
  12. ↑ "Fun with Favicons". MSDN. Microsoft. September 7, 2013. 
  13. ↑ Windows Core Networking Team (August 4, 2006). "A bit about WinInet's Index.dat". MSDN. Microsoft. Archived from the original on January 12, 2008. 
  14. ↑ "Internet Explorer 9 Network Performance Improvements". MSDN. Microsoft. March 17, 2011. 

External links

Internet Explorer
History
Windows versions
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11
Other platforms
Mobile • Macintosh • UNIX
Technologies
MSXML • RSS Platform • Smart tags • JScript • DHTML (HTA) • Vector Markup Language • XMLHttpRequest • ActiveX • Temporary Internet Files • Index.dat • Favicon • Web Slice • Accelerator
Software and engines
Administration Kit • Developer Tools • Integrated Windows Authentication • Tasman • Trident (Chakra)
Implementations
Outlook Express • Internet Mail and News • Comic Chat • NetMeeting • NetShow • ActiveMovie • DirectX Media • Windows Address Book • Windows Desktop Update • Active Desktop • Active Channel • MSN Explorer
Events
United States v. Microsoft
People
Dean Hachamovitch • Scott Isaacs • Tantek Çelik