Internet Explorer
2008/9 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Software
| Windows Internet Explorer | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Wikipedia's Main Page in Windows Internet Explorer 7 running on Windows Vista. |
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| Developed by | Microsoft |
| Initial release | August 1995 (12–13 years ago) |
| Latest release | 7.0.5730.13 (Windows XP/Windows 2003 Server) 7.0.6001.18000 (Windows Vista SP1) / 2008 |
| Preview release | 8.0.6001.17184 (IE8, Beta 1) / March 5, 2008 |
| OS | Microsoft Windows Mac OS System 7 to Mac OS X (discontinued) Solaris and HP-UX (discontinued) |
| Type | 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. 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. Microsoft spent over 100 million dollars (USD) a year in the late 1990s, with over 1000 people working on IE by 1999.
Internet Explorer was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95. 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. 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. 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. In early 2008, a beta for the next version Internet Explorer 8 was released to the public.
History
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. 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, 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.
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. Only supported Windows, and Windows Mobile versions remain in active development.
Version 1
Internet Explorer 1.0, released in August 1995 was a modified version of Spyglass Mosaic. It came with Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 and OEM release of Windows 95. It was installed as part of the Internet Jumpstart Kit in Plus!.
Internet Explorer 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..
Version 2
Internet Explorer 2.0 was released for Windows 95, Windows NT 3.5, and NT 4.0 in November 1995 (following a 2.0 beta in October). It featured support for SSL, cookies, VRML, RSA, and Internet newsgroups. 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. 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, 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. The 2.0i version supported double-byte character-set.
Version 3
Internet Explorer 3.0, released in August, 1996, was the first widely used version of Internet Explorer. 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. 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. 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. The Internet Explorer team consisted of roughly 100 people during the development of three months.
Version 4
Internet Explorer 4.0, released in September, 1997 deepened the level of integration between the web browser and the underlying operating system. 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. The integration with Windows, however, was subject to numerous packaging criticisms (see United States v. Microsoft). 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. Internet Mail and News was replaced with Outlook Express, and Microsoft Chat and an improved NetMeeting were also included. This version also was included with Windows 98.
Internet Explorer 4.5 dropped support for 68k Macs, but offered new features such as easier 128-bit encryption.
Version 5
Internet Explorer 5.0, 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. IE5 was bundled with Outlook Express 5. 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.) It was the last with a 16-bit version.
Internet Explorer 5.01, a bug fix version, was released in December 1999. Windows 2000 includes this version.
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. Version 5.5 also included support for 128-bit encryption. However, Version 5 was the last version for Mac and UNIX. Version 5.5 was the last to have Compatibility Mode, which allowed Internet Explorer 4 to be run side by side with the 5.x. The IE team consisted of over 1000 people by 1999, with funding on the order of 100 million USD per year.
Version 6
Internet Explorer 6.0 was released on August 27, 2001, a few months before Windows XP. This version included DHTML enhancements, content restricted inline frames, and partial support of CSS level 1, DOM level 1 and SMIL 2.0. The MSXML engine was also updated to version 3.0. 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 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.
Internet Explorer 6.0 SV1 ('6 SP2') came out August 6, 2004 for Windows XP SP2 and offered various security enhancements and new colour buttons on the user interface. IE6 updated the original 'blue e' logo to a lighter blue and more 3-d look.
Version 7
Internet Explorer 7 was released on October 18, 2006. 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. 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. It is included with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, and is available for Windows XP Service Pack 2 and later, and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and later.
The original release of Internet Explorer 7 required the computer to pass a Windows Genuine Advantage validation check prior to installing, but on October 5, 2007, Microsoft removed this requirement. As some statistics show, by mid-2008, Internet Explorer 7 exceeded Internet Explorer 6 in number of users.
Version 8
Internet Explorer 8.0 is the latest version of Internet Explorer and has been in development since August 2007 at the latest. On March 5, 2008, the first public beta (Beta 1) was released to the general public. 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.
Security, ease of use, and improvements in RSS, CSS, and Ajax support are Microsoft's priorities for IE8. It includes much stricter compliance with web standards, including a planned full Cascading Style Sheets 2.1 compliance for the release version. All these changes allow Internet Explorer 8 to pass the Acid2 test. However, to prevent compatibility issues, IE8 also includes the IE7 rendering behaviour. Sites that expect IE7 quirks can disable the IE8's breaking changes by including a meta element.
IE8 also includes numerous improvements to JavaScript support as well as performance improvements. 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. An enhanced phishing filter (now called Safety filter) blocks access to sites known to contain malware.
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. 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.
Standards support
Internet Explorer, using the Trident layout engine, almost fully supports HTML 4.01, CSS Level 1, XML 1.0 and DOM Level 1, with minor implementation gaps. 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. 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.
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). It also provides its own dialect of ECMAScript called JScript.
It fully supports XSLT 1.0 as well as an obsolete Microsoft dialect of XSLT often referred to as WD-xsl, which was loosely based on the December 1998 W3C Working Draft of XSL. Support for XSLT 2.0 lies in the future: semi-official Microsoft bloggers have indicated that development is underway, but no dates have been announced.
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.
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 1.1, 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. 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 'behaviour' 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, 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.
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 and page transitions, which are not found in W3C CSS.
- Support for obfuscated script code, in particular
JScript.Encode(). - Support for embedding EOT fonts in web pages.
Usability and accessibility
Internet Explorer makes use of the accessibility framework provided in Windows. 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). Recent versions feature pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing. Tabbed browsing can also be added to older versions by installing Microsoft's MSN Search Toolbar or Yahoo's Yahoo Toolbar.
Cache
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 - visited content, web feeds, autocomplete entries, visited URLs, cookies etc.
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. 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. 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. With version 8, it also blocks access to sites known to host malware. 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. 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. 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.
Group Policy
Internet Explorer is fully configurable using Group Policy. 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 behaviour, and others. Policy settings can be configured for each user and for each machine. Internet Explorer also supports Integrated Windows Authentication.
Architecture
Internet Explorer uses a componentized architecture built around the Component Object Model (COM) technology. 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.exe:
- WinInet.dll
- WinInet.dll is the protocol handler for HTTP and FTP. It handles all network communication over these protocols.
- URlMon.dll
- URLMon.dll is responsible for MIME-type handling and download of web content.
- 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. MSHTML.dll parses the HTML/CSS file and creates the internal DOM tree representation of it. 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.
- 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. By default, only the JScript and VBScript modules are provided; third party implementations like ScreamingMonkey (for ECMAScript 4 support) can also be used. 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.
- 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). 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. Each tab process has its own cookie cache. The two processes use asynchronous Inter-Process Communication to synchronize themselves. 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.
Extensibility
Internet Explorer also exposes a set of Component Object Model (COM) interfaces that allow other components to extend the functionality of the browser. 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. 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. Content extensibility can be either in terms of Active Documents (Doc Objects) (e.g., SVG or MathML) or ActiveX controls. ActiveX controls are used for content handlers that render content embedded within an HTML page (e.g., Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight). Doc objects are used when the content type won't be embedded in HTML (e.g., Microsoft Word, PDF or XPS). In fact, the Trident rendering engine itself exposed as a Doc object, so HTML in itself is treated as an Active Document.
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 and have 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.
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. This is known as a " drive-by install". 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 number of security flaws affecting IE originated not in the browser itself, but ActiveX-based add-ons used by it. 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.
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, in some cases giving malicious web site operators months to exploit them before Microsoft releases a patch.
Market adoption
Usage Share
| Internet Explorer, All Versions | 73.01% |
| Internet Explorer 4 | 0.01% |
| Internet Explorer 5.0 | 0.07% |
| Internet Explorer 5.5 | 0.07% |
| Internet Explorer 6 | 26.38% |
| Internet Explorer 7 | 46.45% |
| Internet Explorer 8 | 0.03% |
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. By 2002, Internet Explorer had almost completely superseded its main rival Netscape and dominated the market.
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."
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 1.0 at roughly 8 percent market share. 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%." 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. Firefox 2.0 had overtaken 1.x by January 2007, , but IE7 did not surpass IE6 until December 2007. By January 2008, their respective version market share stood at 43% IE7, 32% IE6, 16% FF2, 4% SF 3, and both FF1.x and IE5 versions at less than half a percent.
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.
| Total | IE8 | IE7 | IE6 | IE5 | IE4 | IE3 | IE2 | IE1 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 78.6% ▼ | - | 45.5% ▲ | 32.64% ▼ | 0.45% ▼ | 0.01% ▼ | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 2006 | 83.3% ▼ | - | 3.49% ▲ | 78.08% ▼ | 1.42% ▼ | 0.02% ▼ | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 2005 | 87.12% ▼ | - | - | 82.71% ▼ | 4.35% ▼ | 0.06% ▼ | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 2004 | 91.27% ▼ | - | - | 83.39% ▲ | 7.77% ▼ | 0.10% ▼ | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 2003 | 94.43% ▲ | - | - | 59% ▲ | 34% ▼ | 1% ▼ | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 2002 | 93.94% ▲ | - | - | 50% ▲ | 41% ▼ | 1% ▼ | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 2001 | 90.83% ▲ | - | - | 19% ▲ | 68% ▼ | 5.0% ▼ | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 2000 | 83.95% ▲ | - | - | - | 71% ▲ | 13% ▼ | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 1999 | 75.31% ▲ | - | - | - | 41% ▲ | 36% ▼ | 1% | 0% | 0% |
| 1998 | 45% ▲ | - | - | - | - | ? ▲ | ? | ? | ? |
| 1997 | 39.4% ▲ | - | - | - | - | ? ▲ | ? | ? | ? |
| 1996 | 20% ▲ | - | - | - | - | - | ? | ? | ? |
| 1995 | 2.9% ▲ | - | - | - | - | - | - | ? | ? |
Industry adoption
The proprietary extension mechanism ActiveX is used by many public websites and web applications, including eBay. 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.
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 users, but by the start of 2007 90% market share would equate to over 900 million users. 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%. 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.
| Years | Layout engine | Microsoft Windows | IBM OS/2 | Apple Inc. Macintosh | Unix (HP-UX, Solaris) | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vista, WS 08 | WS 03 | XP | Me | 2000 | 98 | NT 4.0 | 95 | 3.1/ NT 3.x | X PPC |
9 PPC |
8 PPC/68k |
7 PPC/68k |
|||||
| Years | - | - | 2006 | 2003 | 2001 | 2000 | 2000 | 1998 | 1996 | 1995 | 1992 | 1988 | 2001 | 1999 | 1997 | 1991 | (1990s) |
| IE 8 | 2008- | Trident VI | Beta | Beta (with SP2) | Beta (with SP2/SP3) | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| IE 7 | 2006- | Trident V | Included | Yes (with SP1/ SP2) | Yes (with SP2/SP3) | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| IE 6 | 2001 | Trident IV | No | Included | Included | Dropped 6.0 SP1 |
Dropped 6.0 SP1 |
Dropped 6.0 SP1 |
Dropped 6.0 SP1 |
No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| IE 5.5 | 2000 | Trident III | No | No | No*** | Included | Yes | Yes | Yes | Dropped | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| IE 5.0 | 1999 | Trident II (Win) Tasman (Mac) |
No | No | No*** | No | Included 5.01 |
Included | Yes | Yes | Dropped 5.0 |
? | Dropped 5.2.3 Included |
Dropped 5.1.7 Included |
Dropped 5.1.7 |
Dropped 5.01 SP1 |
|
| IE 4.0 | 1997 | Trident | No | Included | Included** | Yes | No | Included | Included | Yes | Yes | ||||||
| IE 3.0 | 1996 | - | No | No | No*** | No | No *** | No | Yes | Included** | Yes | Win 3.1 version | No | No | Included | Yes | Beta |
| IE 2.0 | 1995 | - | No | No | No | No | No | No | Included | Included** | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | |
| IE 1.5 | 1996 | Spyglass | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| IE 1.0 | 1995 | Spyglass | No | Plus! | |||||||||||||
* Internet Explorer 6 SP2 is only available as part of Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server 2003 SP1 or SP2.
** 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. 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.
- 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.
It is also possible to install Internet Explorer via Wine.
- 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.
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 Microsoft Virtual PC images containing pre-activated copies of Windows XP with either IE 6 or IE 7 installed. 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.
Removal
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.
The idea of removing a stock install of Internet Explorer from a Windows system was first proposed during the United States v. Microsoft case. Critics felt that users should have the right to uninstall Internet Explorer freely just like any other application software. 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. Brooks went on to develop software designed to customize Windows versions by removing "undesired components", which is known as 98lite. He later created XPLite to support NT based operating systems. 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 involves the manual removal of IE from installation discs. His process has been automated as a feature of HFSLIP. nLite and HFSLIP are automated programs that allow users to exclude IE and many other Windows components from installation as desired. In some older versions of Windows and in Windows Fundamentals there is an option to install Internet Explorer.
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. The Windows help and support system will also not function due to the heavy reliance on HTML help files and components of IE. 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. In Windows Vista, Windows Update is implemented as a Control Panel applet.