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Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 (IE3) is a graphical web browser and the third version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. It was released on August 13, 1996, for Windows and on January 8, 1997, for Apple's Mac OS. It was available for Windows 3.1, Windows NT 3.5, Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0, Mac OS System 7, and Mac OS 8.

It was the first more widely used version of Internet Explorer, although it did not surpass Netscape or become the browser with the most market share. During its tenure, IE market share went from roughly 3–9% in early 1996 to 20–30% by the end of 1997.[1][2][3] It was superseded by Internet Explorer 4 in September 1997.

IE3 was the first commercial browser with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) support.[4] It introduced support for ActiveX controls, Java applets, inline multimedia, and the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) system for content metadata. This version was the first version of Internet Explorer to use the blue 'e' logo, which later became a symbol of the browser. Version 3 came bundled with Internet Mail and News, NetMeeting, and an early version of the Windows Address Book, and was itself included with Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2. There were 16-bit and 32-bit versions depending on the OS.

This is the first version of Internet Explorer developed without Spyglass source code, but still used Spyglass technology, so the Spyglass licensing information remained in the program's documentation. In 1996, Microsoft said of its new browser, "Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 adds many new features which are great for HTML authors and demonstrates our accelerating commitment to W3C HTML standards."[5]

It is the last version of Internet Explorer to support Windows NT 3.5 and Windows NT 4.0 RTM through SP2 and Windows NT 4 for RISC (though the 16-bit version can still be run through NTVDM).

Internet Explorer 3 is no longer supported and is not available for download from Microsoft.

Overview

Internet Explorer 3 was released free of charge on August 13, 1996. Microsoft thus made no direct revenues on IE and was liable to pay Spyglass only the minimum quarterly fee. In 1997, Spyglasas threatened Microsoft with a contractual audit, in response to which Microsoft settled for US$8 million.

Version 3 included Internet Mail and News 1.0 and Windows Address Book. IE3 has support for Netscape's plugins technology (NPAPI), ActiveX, frames, and a reverse-engineered version of JavaScript called JScript. Other new features included ActiveMovie multimedia API, HTML Layout Control, a Quick Links toolbar, and VRML.

Microsoft announced on July 29, 1996, that it would develop a native version of IE for "Solaris and other popular variants of UNIX" to be available "by the end of 1996" which would have "equivalent functionality as that provided in Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0", thus "delivering on its commitment to provide full-featured Web browser support on all major operating system platforms" as well as "supporting and promoting open standards, including HTML, ActiveX and Java".[6]

Security

The Princeton Word Macro Virus was discovered on August 22, 1996, nine days after Internet Explorer 3's release, which could allow webmasters to cause an end-user's computer to initiate downloads without their consent via a backdoor.[citation needed] Microsoft patched the vulnerability the following day; however, researchers went on to find more vulnerabilities and new types of problems, such as the ability to spoof a website (similar to the later phishing problem), with these issues triggering public concern over browser security. In early 1997, Microsoft released IE 3.02 as an update to fix most of the discovered security problems.

Microsoft Authenticode, its code signing technology, became inoperable on June 30, 1997, when its trust anchor expired. After this, IE users needed to upgrade to Authenticode 2.0, which required at least IE 3.02.

Bundled software

IE3 launched with a variety of integrated apps:[7]

Later versions of Internet Explorer 3 included the following:

IE3 also included Microsoft Java Virtual Machine, which continued to be included until IE5.5. Because of a legal battle with Sun Microsystems (the developer of Java), Microsoft stopped offering it in 2001, although it was supported until the end of 2007.

References

  1. ↑ Jones Thompson, Maryann (8 October 1998). "Behind the numbers: Browser market share". CNN. Archived from the original on August 16, 2000. Retrieved 28 December 2012. 
  2. ↑ Kubaitis, Ed (June 1996). "Browser Statistics for June 1996". Engineering Workstations Lab. University of Illinois. Archived from the original on 7 May 2001. Retrieved 28 December 2012. 
  3. ↑ Browser wars: High price, huge rewards
  4. ↑ Håkon Wium Lie; Bert Bos. "Chapter 20 – The CSS saga". World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 23 June 2010. 
  5. ↑ "Internet Explorer HTML Specification". Citycat.ru. 
  6. ↑ Microsoft (29 July 1996). "Best-of-Breed Browsers for Multiple Platforms". Press release. Archived from the original on 13 January 2009. 
  7. ↑ "Internet Explorer History". Windows History. Microsoft. 30 June 2003. Archived from the original on 2 October 2003. 

External links

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