searchspell:explorercorrected for internet explorer
Internet Explorer, abbreviated IE or MSIE, is a proprietary graphical web browser made by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. It is the most widely used web browser today. Microsoft has shipped Internet Explorer as the default browser in all versions of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 OSR1. The last major upgrade to Internet Explorer, 6.0 SV1[1], is included in Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 only. Beta versions of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP SP2 have been available since July 27, 2005 and versions specific to Windows Server 2003 as well as for 64-bit editions of Windows will also be released, though it won't be available for older versions of Windows. Internet Explorer versions, prior to the one included in Windows XP SP2, are also available as a separate download for versions of Windows uptil Windows XP. In the past, Internet Explorer was also developed for several 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). All of these versions have ceased active development. Internet Explorer is currently known as Microsoft Internet Explorer, but the name will change to Windows Internet Explorer with the release of Internet Explorer 7.
HistoryInternet Explorer 4.0 under Windows
Internet Explorer is derived from Spyglass Mosaic, an early commercial web browser. In 1995, Spyglass Mosaic was licensed by Microsoft in an arrangement under which Spyglass would receive a quarterly fee plus a percentage of Microsoft's revenues for the software. Although bearing a name similar to NCSA Mosaic, which was the first widely used browser, Spyglass Mosaic was relatively unknown in its day and did not use any of the NCSA Mosaic source code [2]. Internet Explorer 3 was the first major browser with CSS support released in August, 1996 and it could handle the PICS system for content metadata. The improvements were significant, compared to its main competitor at the time, Netscape Navigator. The browser was not widely used until version 4, which was released in October 1997 and was integrated with the Windows 98 operating system. This integration, however, was subject to numerous criticisms (see United States v. Microsoft). Version 5, released in September 1998, was another significant release that supported bi-directional text, ruby characters, XML and XSL. Version 6 was released on August 27, 2001, a few weeks before Windows XP. This version included DHTML enhancements, content restricted inline frames, and better 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 IEAK, Media bar, Windows Messenger integration, fault collection, automatic image resizing, P3P, and a new look-and-feel that is in line with the style of Windows XP. On February 15, 2005, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced that the new version of its browser will be released at the RSA Conference 2005 in San Francisco [3]. The decision to update the browser occurred in the wake of a decline in the use of Internet Explorer for the first time. Microsoft also stated that Internet Explorer 7 will only be available for Windows XP SP2 and later, including Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows Vista. The first beta version of the browser was released on July 27, 2005 for technical testing, and a first public preview version of Internet Explorer 7 (Beta 2 preview: Pre-Beta 2 version) was released on January 31, 2006. Version 7 is intended to defend users from phishing as well as deceptive or malicious software, and also features full user control of ActiveX, and better security framework. It includes important bug fixes, enhancements to support the web standards, improvements in HTML 4.01/CSS 2, Tabbed Browsing, Tab preview and management, and web feeds reader. Features
Internet Explorer has been designed to view the broadest range of web pages and to provide certain features within the operating system, including Windows Update. During the heydays of the historic browser wars, Internet Explorer superseded Netscape by supporting many of the progressive features of the time. Component architectureThe Component Object Model (COM) technology is used extensively in Internet Explorer. It allows third parties to add functionalities via Browser Helper Objects (BHO); and allows websites to offer rich content via ActiveX. As these objects have the same privileges as the browser itself (in certain situations), this raised concern over security. This issue was addressed in Internet Explorer 6.0 Service Pack 2, which provides an Add-on Manager for controlling ActiveX controls and Browser Helper Objects. Internet Explorer 7 provides a "No Add-Ons" version (Under Programs/Accessories/System Tools) to address this issue, as well. Usability and accessibilityTabbed browsing in Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 previewSince it is tightly integrated with the operating system, 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. The ability to block popup windows was introduced with Internet Explorer 6.0, Service Pack 2. Tabbed browsing can be added to Internet Explorer 6 by installing Microsoft's MSN Search Toolbar, and is natively supported as of Internet Explorer 7. Security frameworkInternet Explorer uses a zone-based security framework, which means that sites are grouped based upon certain conditions. It allows the restriction of broad areas of functionality, and also allows specific functions to be restricted. Patches and updates to the browser are released periodically and made available through Windows Update website. 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. A report in April 2005 showed that only 24% of corporate PCs had upgraded to XP SP2. Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 2 provide Download Monitoring and Install Monitoring that user can choose to download, or not to download and, choose to install, or not to install Applications, Executables and Installations. This prevents installation of Spywares, Adwares, Viruses or Malwares. Standards supportInternet Explorer 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 some implementation gaps and conformance issues. It supports XHTML 1.0 to the extent that HTML 4.01 compatibility guidelines are followed. 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. It fully supports XSLT 1.0 or the December 1998 Working Draft of XSL, depending on the version of MSXML (a dynamic link library) available. It also provides its own dialect of ECMAScript called JScript. Proprietary extensionsInternet 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. Many view this as an example of what is called "embrace, extend and extinguish" (EEE), a way to drive competitors out of business by forcing them to use proprietary technology that a company controls, resulting in vendor lock-in. Netscape Navigator up to version 4.7 was also responsible for massive proprietary extension of the core web standards, but was not criticized for it as much. Version 7.0Internet Explorer 7's "Quick Tabs"Version 7.0 of Internet Explorer has been renamed to Windows Internet Explorer, as part of Microsoft's rationalization of component names that are included with Windows. Set to ship with Windows Vista, and as a separate download for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, large amounts of the underlying architecture, including the rendering engine and security framework, have been completely overhauled. Partly as a result of these security enhancements, the browser will be a stand-alone application, rather than integrated with the Windows shell, and it will no longer be capable of acting as a file browser. The Windows Vista version will incorporate additional security measures, most significantly "Protected Mode", whereby the browser runs in a sandbox with even lower rights than a limited user account software. As such, it can write to only the Temporary Internet Files folder and can not install start-up programs or change any configuration of the operating system. This is expected to increase the security of the system considerably.[4] On January 31st 2006, Microsoft released a public preview build (Beta 2 preview: Pre-Beta 2 version) of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (not for Windows Server 2003 SP 1) on their web site. It stated that more public preview builds (possibly Beta 2 in April) of Internet Explorer 7 will be released in first half of 2006, and final version will be released in second half of 2006.[5] New featuresInternet Explorer 7's Web feed reader
Criticisms
Internet Explorer is subject to a relatively high volume of criticism. Much of this criticism is related to concerns about security: A notable portion of the widespread promulgation of spam, spyware, adware, and computer viruses across the Internet is known to be facilitated by exploitable bugs and flaws in the security architecture of Internet Explorer. Furthermore, a notable number of users and security experts have pointed out that Microsoft has not been sufficiently committed to fixing the browser's exploitable bugs in a timely manner, and has been ineffective in pushing those changes out to users. Several companies maintain databases of security vulnerabilities known to exist in Internet Explorer and for which no fixes have been published by Microsoft — as of June 2005, there were between 20 and 27 such vulnerabilities reported in Internet Explorer 6 for Windows XP SP2, and 146 in Internet Explorer 6 for Windows 2000 SP4. Other criticisms, mostly coming from technically proficient users and developers of websites and browser-based software applications, concern Internet Explorer's support of open standards. Internet Explorer supports, to some degree, a number of standardized technologies, but has implementation gaps and conformance failures — some minor, some not — that have led to criticism from an increasing number of developers. The increase is attributable, in large part, to the fact that competing browsers that offer relatively thorough, standards-compliant implementations are becoming more widely used. Internet Explorer's ubiquity, in spite of its perceived inferiority in this area, frustrates developers who want to write standards-compliant, cross-browser code.
Market adoptionUsage share
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 3.0 with Windows 95 OSR 2 in late 1996, 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. 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 96% in 2002, it has since been in a steady decline. Statistics indicate the current most significant competition comes from Gecko-based browsers, in particular Mozilla Firefox. Nevertheless, Internet Explorer remains the dominant web browser, with a usage share of around 85% (based on statistics reference) in United States. It's relatively high in Asia, and much lower in Europe, For instance, the share is around 93% in Japan, and around 70% in Germany.[14] Industry adoptionActiveX is used by many public websites and web applications, including eBay. Similarly, BHOs are also used by many search engine companies and third parties for creating add-ons that access their services, for example, search engine toolbars. Because of the use of COM, it is possible to include web-browsing functionality in third-party applications. Hence, there are a number of Internet Explorer shells, and a number of applications like RealPlayer (a media player) also use Internet Explorer's web browsing module for viewing the World Wide Web within the applications. "Standalone" Internet ExplorerWhile it is not officially possible to keep multiple versions of Internet Explorer on the same machine, some hackers (Joe Maddalone, Ryan Parman, et al.) successfully separated several versions of Internet Explorer making them standalone applications. These were referred as "standalone" IEs and included versions 3.0 to 5.5 SP2.
Microsoft has discontinued standalone installers for Internet Explorer to the general public. However, a blogger/web developer/programmer named Liew Cheon Fong has posted a procedure for downloading the complete install package.
Be aware that unlike previous standalone versions of IE, running IE7 in standalone alongside a normal installation of IE6 may cause severe problems when using IE6 thereafter, owing to the insertion of at least one registry key. Some users have been unable to fix the resulting problems once IE7 has been run. It may be unwise to attempt running IE7 in standalone mode if you are not prepared for the possible consequences. See Jon Galloway's script for running IE7 more safely:
Removal
The idea of removing 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. An Australian computer scientist Shane Brooks demonstrated that Windows 98 could in fact run with IE files removed [15]. 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. nLite, on the other hand, is an automated program that allows users to exclude IE and many other Windows components from installation as desired. It is also not possible to run Microsoft's Windows Update with any other browser because of its use of ActiveX, therefore removing Internet Explorer will cause this. Footnotes
References
See also
External links
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