That percentage share has since declined in the face of renewed competition from other web browsers – Mozilla Firefox most of all. Its usage share now sits at approximately 50% to 66% and is trending downward. Microsoft spent over $100 million a year on IE in the late 1990s, with over 1,000 people working on it by 1999.
The latest release is Internet Explorer 8, which is available as a free update for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or later, Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 or later, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008, and is included with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Internet Explorer was originally going to be omitted from Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 in Europe, but Microsoft later dropped the plans, and instead included a browser ballot screen with the products, allowing users to select a different web browser if they wish. Versions of Internet Explorer for other operating systems have also been produced, including Internet Explorer Mobile (Windows CE and Windows Mobile), Internet Explorer for Mac (discontinued) and Internet Explorer for UNIX (Solaris and HP-UX).
Overview
Internet Explorer was first released as 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 OEM service releases of Windows 95 and later versions of Windows.Other versions available since the late 1990s include an embedded OEM version called Internet Explorer for Windows CE (IE CE) available for WinCE based platforms and is currently based on IE6. Internet Explorer for Pocket PC, later rebranded Internet Explorer Mobile for Windows Mobile was also developed, and remain in development alongside the more advanced desktop versions.
History
Main article: History of Internet Explorer
See also: Internet Explorer versions
Internet Explorer
Main article: Internet Explorer 1
Internet Explorer 1 debuted on August 16, 1995. It was a reworked version of Spyglass Mosaic which Microsoft had licensed, like many other companies initiating browser development, from Spyglass Inc. 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!. The Internet Explorer team began with about half a dozen people in early development. Internet Explorer 1.5 was released several months later for Windows NT and added support for basic table rendering. However, by including it for free on their OS they did not have to pay royalties to Spyglass Inc., which resulted in a lawsuit and multi-million USD settlement.Internet Explorer 2
Main article: Internet Explorer 2
Internet Explorer 2 was released for Windows 95, Windows NT 3.5, and NT 4.0 on November 22, 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 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.
Internet Explorer 3
Main article: Internet Explorer 3
Internet Explorer 3, was released on August 13, 1996, and went on to be much more popular than its predecessors. It was developed without Spyglass source code, although still crediting Spyglass "technology" in the program's documentation. Internet Explorer 3 was the first major browser with CSS support, although this support was only partial. 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 more 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. The first major IE security hole, the Princeton Word Macro Virus Loophole, was discovered on August 22, 1996 in IE3. Backwards compatibility was handled by allowing users who upgraded to IE3 to still use the last IE, because the installation converted the previous version to separate directory.Internet Explorer 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. 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 as well as support for offline browsing. 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. New features were added which allow you to save and retrieve posts in comment forms which are still not being used today. Internet Explorer 4.5 offered new features such as easier 128-bit encryption. It also offered a dramatic stability improvement over prior versions, particularly the 68k version which was especially prone to freezing.| Market Share History Snapshot for February, 2005 |
|---|
| IE4 - .07% |
| IE5 - 6.17% |
| IE6 - 82.79% |
Internet Explorer 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, XSLT 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 1,000 people by 1999, with funding on the order of 100 million USD per year.| Market Share History Snapshot for October 2008 |
|---|
| IE4 - 0.01% |
| IE5 - 0.20% |
| IE6 - 37.01% |
Internet Explorer 6
Main article: Internet Explorer 6
Internet Explorer 6 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 came out August 6, 2004 for Windows XP SP2 and offered various security enhancements and new color buttons on the user interface. IE6 updated the original 'blue e' logo to a lighter blue and more 3D look.Internet Explorer 7
Main article: Internet Explorer 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), Extended Validation Certificate support, and anti-phishing 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 market share exceeded that of Internet Explorer 6 in a number of regions.Internet Explorer 8
Main article: Internet Explorer 8
Internet Explorer 8 was released on March 19, 2009. It had 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. On August 27, 2008, the second public beta (Beta 2) was released. It is supported in Windows XP SP2 and SP3, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 on both 32-bit as well as 64-bit architectures. Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) RC1 was released on January 26, 2009. Internet Explorer 8 "Final" was released on March 19, 2009. 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 behavior. Sites that expect IE7 quirks can disable IE8's breaking changes by including a meta element in the HEAD section of the HTML document. IE8 also includes numerous improvements to JavaScript support as well as performance improvements, although it still does not pass the Acid3 test, with version 8.0 scoring 20/100. It includes support for Accelerators - 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. Other features include InPrivate privacy features, and SmartScreen phishing filter.Internet Explorer 9
Internet Explorer 9, currently in development, has complete or nearly complete support for all CSS 3 selectors, border-radius CSS 3 property, faster JavaScript, and hardware accelerated rendering using Direct2D and DirectWrite. During the October 2009 Typ09 conference, Microsoft were reported as saying that they were 'considering' supporting WOFF in Internet Explorer 9. WOFF is "a strong favourite" for standardization by the W3C Web Fonts Working Group. Microsoft has continued to downplay the importance of passing the Acid3 test. Current builds of IE 9 score 32/100, up from 20/100 for IE 8 and 14/100 for IE 7.Microsoft has not yet announced when the final version will be released.Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_explorer
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