Internet Explorer

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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 7.0.5730.13 (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)

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. 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 [1] in the late 1990s, with over 1000 people
working on IE by 1999. [2]

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.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 History
o 1.1 Version 1
o 1.2 Version 2
o 1.3 Version 3
o 1.4 Version 4
o 1.5 Version 5
o 1.6 Version 6
o 1.7 Version 7
o 1.8 Version 8
• 2 Features
o 2.1 Standards support
o 2.2 Proprietary features
 o 2.3 Usability and accessibility
o 2.4 Cache
o 2.5 Security
o 2.6 Group Policy
• 3 Architecture
• 4 Extensibility
• 5 Security vulnerabilities
• 6 Market adoption
o 6.1 Usage Share
o 6.2 Market share by year and version
o 6.3 Industry adoption
• 7 OS compatibility
• 8 "Standalone" Internet Explorer
• 9 Removal
• 10 References
• 11 See also

• 12 External links

[edit] 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. 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.[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. Only supported Windows, and Windows
Mobile versions remain in active development.

[edit] 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!. [4]

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.[1][5].

[edit] Version 2

Main article: Internet Explorer 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.[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]

[edit] Version 3

Main article: Internet Explorer 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.[9] The Internet Explorer team consisted of
roughly 100 people during the development of three months.[1]

[edit] Version 4
 Main article: Internet Explorer 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.[10][11][12]

[edit] Version 5

Main article: Internet Explorer 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[13] to be run side by side with the 5.x.[9][14] The
IE team consisted of over 1000 people by 1999, with funding on the order
of 100 million USD per year.[1][15]
[edit] Version 6

Main article: Internet Explorer 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.[16] 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.[17]

Internet Explorer 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. IE6 updated the original 'blue e' logo to
a lighter blue and more 3-d look.[9]

[edit] Version 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), 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.

[edit] Version 8
 This article or section contains information about
computer software currently in development.
The content may change as the software development progresses.
Main article: Internet Explorer 8

The Wikipedia Main Page on Internet Explorer 8, Beta 1 running on

Windows Vista.

Internet Explorer 8.0 is the latest version of Internet Explorer and has
been in development since August 2007 at the latest.[19] On March 5, 2008,
the first public beta (Beta 1) was released to the general public.[20] 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.[21]

Security, ease of use, and improvements in RSS, CSS, and Ajax support
are Microsoft's priorities for IE8.[22][23] It includes much stricter compliance
with web standards, including a planned full Cascading Style Sheets 2.1
compliance for the release version.[24] All these changes allow Internet
Explorer 8 to pass the Acid2 test.[25] 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.

IE8 also includes numerous improvements to JavaScript support as well as

performance improvements.[24] 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.[24] An
enhanced phishing filter (now called Safety filter) blocks access to sites
known to contain malware.

[edit] 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.[26]
[edit] 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.[27] 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.

[edit] 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 '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, 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[28] and page transitions,
which are not found in W3C CSS.
• Support for obfuscated script code, in particular
JScript.Encode().[29]
• Support for embedding EOT fonts in web pages.[30]

[edit] Usability and accessibility

Organizing Favorites in Internet Explorer 6

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.

[edit] 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 - visited
content, web feeds, autocomplete entries, visited URLs, cookies etc.[31]

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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Group Policy

Main article: 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 behavior, and others. Policy settings can be configured for each
user and for each machine. Internet Explorer also supports Integrated
Windows Authentication.

[edit] 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. 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:[32]

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.[33]
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.[34]

[edit] Extensibility
Internet Explorer also exposes a set of Component Object Model (COM)
interfaces that allow other components to extend the functionality of the
browser.[32] 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.[32] 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.[32] 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.[32]

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 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.[32]
 See also: Component Object Model and Browser Helper Object

[edit] 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 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. 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.[35]
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,[36] in
some cases[weasel words] giving malicious web site operators months to exploit
them before Microsoft releases a patch.

[edit] Market adoption

[edit] Usage Share

Browser Market Share in June 2008[37]

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%

Usage share of Internet Explorer, 1994–2008[38]

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." [39]

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.[40] 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%."[41] 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. [42] Firefox 2.0 had overtaken 1.x by January
2007, [43], but IE7 did not surpass IE6 until December 2007. [44] 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. [45]

[edit] 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. [46] [47] [48] [49] [50]
[51]

Total IE8 IE7 IE6 IE5 IE4 IE3 IE2 IE1

78.6%[46] 45.5%[46] 32.64%[46] 0.45%[46] 0.01%[46]
2007 - 0% 0% 0%
▼ ▲ ▼ ▼ ▼
2006 83.3%[46] - 3.49%[46] 78.08%[46] 1.42%[46] 0.02%[46] 0% 0% 0%
 ▼ ▲ ▼ ▼ ▼
87.12%[46] 82.71%[46] 4.35%[46] 0.06%[46]
2005 - - 0% 0% 0%
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
91.27%[46] 83.39%[46] 7.77%[46] 0.10%[46]
2004 - - 0% 0% 0%
▼ ▲ ▼ ▼
94.43%[48]
2003 - - 59%[48] ▲ 34%[48] ▼ 1%[48] ▼ 0% 0% 0%
▲
93.94%[48]
2002 - - 50%[48] ▲ 41%[48] ▼ 1%[48] ▼ 0% 0% 0%
▲
90.83%[48] 5.0%[48]
2001 - - 19%[48] ▲ 68%[48] ▼ 0% 0% 0%
▲ ▼
83.95%[48]
2000 - - - 71%[48] ▲ 13%[48] ▼ 0% 0% 0%
▲
75.31%[51]
1999 - - - 41%[48] ▲ 36%[48] ▼ 1%[48] 0% 0%
▲
1998 45%[50] ▲ - - - - ?▲ ? ? ?
39.4%[47]
1997 - - - - ?▲ ? ? ?
▲
1996 20%[47] ▲ - - - - - ? ? ?
1995 2.9%[47] ▲ - - - - - - ? ?

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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[52]
users, but by the start of 2007 90% market share would equate to over 900
million users.[53] 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%.[54] 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.

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[55][56]
*
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.

[edit] "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[dead link] — 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.

Internet Explorer 6 running on Linux in Wine.

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.[57]

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.[58] 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.[59][60]

[edit] 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.

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.[61] 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[62] 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.