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Windows Internet Explorer (formerly '''Microsoft Internet Explorer''' abbreviated '''MSIE'''), commonly abbreviated to '''IE''', is a series of Proprietary Graphical Web Browser s developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of Operating System s starting in 1995. After the first release for Windows 95, additional versions of Internet Explorer were developed for other operating systems: Internet Explorer For Mac and Internet Explorer For UNIX (the latter for use through the X Window System on Solaris and HP-UX ). Only the Windows version remains in active development; the Mac OS X version is no longer supported. It has been the Most Widely Used Web Browser since 1999, peaking at nearly 90% market share with IE6 in the early 2000s—corresponding to over 900 million users worldwide by 2006.12 Though released in 1995 as part of the initial OEM release of Windows 95 , Internet Explorer was not included in the first retail, or shrink-wrap, release of Windows 95. The most recent release is version 7.0, which is available as a free update for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 , and Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 or later, and is included with Windows Vista . Versions of Internet Explorer prior to 6.0 SP2 are also available as a separate download for versions of Windows prior to Windows XP . 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 codebase and should not be confused with desktop versions of the browser. VERSION HISTORY See Also: History of Internet Explorer Internet Explorer began conceptually as one of the major components of the unreleased Windows 97, imagined as the successor to Windows 95 . The 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 Versions 1, 2, and 3 Internet Explorer was not widely used until the release of version 3, which 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 Applet s, inline multimedia, and the PICS system for content Metadata . These were significant improvements compared to its main competitor at the time, Netscape Navigator . 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.
"STANDALONE" INTERNET EXPLORER While Microsoft claims it is impossible to keep multiple versions of Internet Explorer on the same machine, some Hacker s 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.
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 .
It is also possible to install Internet Explorer on operating systems supporting WINE .
REMOVAL See Also: 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. 14. 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 System s. Both of these pieces of software can remove IE after the installation of the operating system. However, both of these pieces of software work, in part, by installing obsolete versions of components (such as Windows Explorer ) required by the Operating System to function. 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. NLite , on the other hand, is an automated program that allows 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. It is also not possible to run Microsoft's Windows Update with any other browser due to the service's implementation of an ActiveX control, which no other browser supports. REFERENCES SEE ALSO
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