Internet Explorer version history

Originally Microsoft Internet Explorer only ran on Windows using an Intel compatible (x86) processor.

The browser has also received scrutiny throughout its development for use of third-party technology (such as the source code of Spyglass Mosaic, used without royalty in early versions) and security and privacy vulnerabilities, and both the United States and the European Union have alleged that integration of Internet Explorer with Windows has been to the detriment of other browsers.

Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, and 7.0 (Experimental) have also been unofficially ported to the Linux operating system from the project IEs4Linux.

[8][9] Microsoft Internet Explorer 1.5 was released several months later for Windows NT and added support for basic HTML table rendering.

By including it free of charge on their operating system, they did not have to pay royalties to Spyglass Inc, resulting in a lawsuit and a US$8 million settlement on January 22, 1997.

Support for Internet Explorer 1.0 ended on December 31, 2001, the same day as older Windows Versions.

It featured support for JavaScript, SSL, cookies, frames, VRML, RSA, and Internet newsgroups.

It also introduced support for ActiveX controls, Java applets, inline multimedia, and the PICS system for content metadata.

[14] The first major IE security hole, the Princeton Word Macro Virus Loophole, was discovered on August 22, 1996, in IE3.

[16] Microsoft Internet Explorer 4, released on September 22, 1997, deepened the level of integration between the web browser and the underlying operating system.

The integration with Windows, however, was subject to numerous packaging criticisms (see United States v. Microsoft).

[18] Internet Mail and News was replaced with Outlook Express, and Microsoft Chat and an improved NetMeeting were also included.

New features that allowed users to save and retrieve posts in comment forms were added, but they are not used today.

[19][20][21] Microsoft 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.

Internet Explorer 5.5 followed in June 2000, improving its print preview capabilities, CSS and HTML standards support, and developer APIs; this version was bundled with Windows ME.

[25] Internet Explorer 6.0 SV1[26] came out on August 6, 2004 for Windows XP SP2 and offered various security enhancements and new colour buttons on the user interface.

[27] Microsoft has launched a website, https://web.archive.org/web/20110304205645/http://ie6countdown.com/, with the goal of getting Internet Explorer 6 usage to drop below 1 percent worldwide.

According to Microsoft, security, ease of use, and improvements in RSS, CSS, and Ajax support were its priorities for IE8.

At MIX 10, Microsoft showed and publicly released the first Platform Preview for Internet Explorer 9, a frame for IE9's engine not containing any UI of the browser.

[42] Leading up to the release of the final browser, Microsoft released updated platform previews, each featuring improved JavaScript compiling (32-bit version), improved scores on the Acid3 test, as well as additional HTML5 standards support, approximately every six weeks.

The first public beta was released at a special event in San Francisco, which was themed around "the beauty of the web".

The final version was released during the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference in Austin, Texas, on March 14, 2011.

[47] Internet Explorer was to be omitted from Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 in Europe, but Microsoft ultimately included it, with a browser option screen allowing users to select any of several web browsers (including Internet Explorer).

[48][49][50][51][52] Internet Explorer is now available on Xbox 360 with Kinect support, as of October 2012, although this version is extremely limited today.

[54] Microsoft announced Internet Explorer 10 in April 2011, at MIX 11 in Las Vegas, releasing the first Platform Preview at the same time.

It features a major update to its developer tools,[57][58] enhanced scaling for high DPI screens,[59] HTML5 prerender and prefetch,[60] hardware-accelerated JPEG decoding,[61] closed captioning, HTML5 full screen,[62] and is the first Internet Explorer to support WebGL[63][64][65] and Google's protocol SPDY (starting at v3).

[62] Internet Explorer 11 was made available for Windows 7 users to download on November 7, 2013, with Automatic Updates in the following weeks.

Microsoft claimed that Internet Explorer 11, running the WebKit SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, was the fastest browser as of October 15, 2013.

[76] In May 2021, Microsoft announced that support for Internet Explorer 11 on editions of Windows 10 that are not in the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) would end on June 15, 2022.