Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer A Web browser that made its debut in 1995 as Microsoft's response to Netscape, one of the first graphical-based Web browsers and, at the time, the dominant browser in use with control of over 90 percent of the market. Initially called Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE), Internet Explorer (IE) has long held the title of most popular browser in use, despite strong competition from the likes of Mozilla Firefox, Apple's Safari, Opera and Google Chrome. As with most modern browsers, Internet Explorer supports Java, JavaScript,ActiveX, RSS, CSS and Ajax, while also offering features like tabbed browsing,private browsing, and built-in malware and phishing protection. The latest official release, Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), made its debut in March of 2009, and the next major release, Internet Explorer 9, is currently in development. IE9 is expected to offer a faster Javascript engine called Chakra, hardware accelerated rendering using Direct2D and DirectWrite, and extensive support for CSS3 and HTML5. See What Do Temporary Internet Files Do? in the Did You Know... section of Webopedia. See Internet Explorer 9: A Closer Look at What's New in IE9 on WinPlanet. See also How to Deal With Pop-Ups in the Did You Know... section of Webopedia. Also see All About Cookies and You in the Did You Know... section of Webopedia. y Windows Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer; commonly abbreviated to IE or MSIE), 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 was first released as part of the addon package Plus! for Windows 95 that year. 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. IE 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 IE6.[citation needed] Since its peak of popularity, its usage share has declined in the face of renewed competition from other web browsers to 55%, and is slowly trending downward. Microsoft spent over $100 million per year on IE in the late 1990s,[1] with over 1000 people working on it by 1999.[2] Since its first release, Microsoft has added features and technologies such as basic tabledisplay (in version 1.5); XMLHttpRequest (in version 5), which aids creation of dynamic web pages; and Internationalized Domain Names (in version 7), which allow Web sites to have native-language addresses with non-Latin characters. The browser has also received scrutiny throughout its development for use of third-party technology (such as the source code ofSpyglass Mosaic, used without royalty in early versions) and security and privacyvulnerabilities, and both the United States and the European Union have alleged that integration of IE with Windows has been to the detriment of other browsers. The latest stable release is Internet Explorer 8, which is available as a free update forWindows 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 planned 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.
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Versions of Internet Explorer for other operating systems have also been produced, including an embedded OEM version called Internet Explorer Mobile which is currently based on IE7. Pocket Internet Explorer, later rebranded Internet Explorer Mobile, which is made forWindows Phone 7, Windows CE, and previously Windows Mobile, remains in development alongside the more advanced desktop versions.Internet Explorer for Mac and Internet Explorer for UNIX (Solaris and HP-UX) have been discontinued. History Main article: History of Internet Explorer See also: Internet Explorer versions The Internet Explorer project was started in the summer of 1994[citation needed] by Thomas Reardon,[7] using source code from Spyglass, Inc. Mosaic, an early commercial web browser with formal ties to the pioneering NCSA Mosaic browser.[8][9] In late 1994,Microsoft licensed Spyglass Mosaic for a quarterly fee plus a percentage of Microsoft's non-Windows revenues for the software.[9] Although bearing a name similar to NCSA Mosaic, Spyglass Mosaic had used the NCSA Mosaic source code sparingly.[10]

Internet Explorer 1 [edit]Internet Explorer 1 Main article: Internet Explorer 1 Internet Explorer 1 made its debut 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.[8][9] It came with Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 and the OEM release of Windows 95. It was installed as part of the Internet Jumpstart Kit in Plus!. early development.
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The Internet Explorer team began with about six people in

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 a multi-million USD settlement. [edit]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 andMacintosh System 7.0.1 (PPC or

68k), although the Mac version was not released until January 1996 for PPC, and April for 68k.

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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.[14] 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.[15] The 2.0i version supported double-byte character-set.[15]

Usage share of Internet Explorer,1994±2010 [edit]Internet Explorer 3 Main article: Internet Explorer 3

[citation needed]

Internet Explorer 3 was released on August 13, 1996, and went on to be much more popular than its predecessors. 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.[11] The Internet Explorer team consisted of roughly 100 people during the development of three months.[1] The first major IE security hole, the Princeton Word Macro Virus Loophole, was discovered on August 22, 1996 in IE3. the previous version to a separate directory.[17] [edit]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.
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Backwards compatibility was

handled by allowing users who upgraded to IE3 to still use the last IE, because the installation converted

Internet Mail and

News was replaced with Outlook Express, andMicrosoft Chat and an improved NetMeeting were also

included. This version also was included with Windows 98. New features were added that 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.
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[edit]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,

Market share history snapshot for February 2005[22] IE4: 0.07% IE5: 0.17% IE6: 82.79%

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 ofXMLHttpRequest, 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. However, version 5 was the last version for Mac and UNIX. Version 5.5 was the last to haveCompatibility Mode, which allowed Internet Explorer 4[23] to be run side by side with the 5.x.[11][24] The IE team consisted of over 1,000 people by 1999, with funding on the order of 100 million USD per year.[1][2] [edit]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, DOMlevel 1, and SMIL 2.0.[26] 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 the Windows XP SP1 patch release. In 2002,
[27] the Gopher protocol was disabled and support for it was dropped in Internet Explorer 7. Internet

Market share history snapshot for October 2008[25] IE4: 0.01% IE5: 0.20% IE6: 37.01% IE7: 35.81%

Explorer 6.0 SV1[28] came out August 6, 2004 for Windows XP SP2 and offered various security enhancements and new color buttons on the user interface. Internet Explorer 6 updated the original 'blue e' logo to a lighter blue and more 3Dlook.
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Microsoft now considers IE6 to be an obsolete product and

recommends that users upgrade to Internet Explorer 8. Many corporate IT users have not upgraded

despite this, in part because some still use Windows 2000, which will not run Internet Explorer 7 or above.
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[edit]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 Shell²unlike 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 aWindows 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.[30] [edit]Internet Explorer 8 Main article: Internet Explorer 8

A map Accelerator using the IE8 Accelerators Smart tag Internet Explorer 8 was released on March 19, 2009. It had been in development since August 2007 at the latest.[31] On March 5, 2008, the first public beta (Beta 1) was released to the general public.[32] On August 27, 2008, the second public beta (Beta 2) was released.[33] It is supported inWindows 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.[34] 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.[35][36]It includes much stricter compliance with web standards, including a planned full Cascading Style Sheets 2.1 compliance for the release version.[37] All these changes allow Internet Explorer 8 to pass the Acid2 test.[38] 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,[37] although it still does not pass the Acid3 test, with version 8.0 scoring 20/100.[39] It includes support for Accelerators²which allow supported web applications to be invoked without

explicitly navigating to them²and WebSlices²which allows portions of page to be subscribed to and monitored from a redesigned Favorites Bar.[37] Other features include InPrivate privacy features and SmartScreen phishing filter.[40] [edit]Internet Explorer 9

Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate running on Windows 7 Main article: Internet Explorer 9 Internet Explorer 9, currently in development, will have complete or nearly complete support for allCSS 3 selectors including border-radius and many other properties, faster JavaScript, embedded ICCv2 or v4 color profiles, and hardware accelerated rendering using Direct2D and DirectWrite. Microsoft has confirmed that Web Open Font Format (WOFF) will also be supported.[41] WOFF is "a strong favorite" for standardization by the Web Fonts Working Group of W3C.[42] Microsoft has continued to downplay the importance of passing the Acid3 test,[43] but speculation that IE9 would support the SVG W3C recommendation was ignited when Microsoft announced they had joined the SVG Working Group.[44] Support for the HTML5 video and audio tags was also promised.[45][46] Some industry experts predict that Microsoft will release IE9 as a major out-of-band version that is not tied to any particular version of Windows.[47] According to the Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive page,[48] the system requirements for IE9 are Windows Vista SP2 (with Platform Upgrade and IE8) or Windows 7.[49] The final build of IE9 is expected to be released in 2011. At MIX 10, the first IE9 Platform Preview was released, which featured support for CSS3 and SVG, a new JavaScript engine called Chakra, and a score of 55/100 on the Acid3 test (up from 20/100 for IE8). On May 5, 2010, the second IE9 Platform Preview was released, which featured a score of 68/100 on the Acid3 test and faster performance on the WebKit SunSpider JavaScript benchmark than the first IE9 Platform Preview. On June 23, 2010, the third IE9 Platform Preview was released, which scores 83/100 on the Acid3 test and introduced support for <audio>, <video>, and <canvas> elements and WOFF. On August 4, 2010, the fourth IE9 Platform Preview was released, which features a score of 95/100 on the Acid3 test and a faster JScript engine than the third IE9 Platform Preview. On August 12, 2010, Microsoft announced that the IE9 Public Beta would launch on September 15, 2010 at a special event in San Francisco linked to the idea of 'beauty of the web.' function with Windows Vista and Windows 7. Public Beta, alongside Platform Preview 5.
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It was also confirmed that the browser would only

On September 15, 2010, Microsoft launched the IE9

The sixth IE9 Platform Preview was released on October
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28, 2010, and includes support for CSS3 2D transforms and HTML5 semantic elements. The seventh IE9 Platform Preview was released on November 17, 2010, and features better JScript performance. On

February 10, 2011, the IE9 Release Candidate was released, featuring improved performance, a tracking protection feature, a refined UI, support for more web standards, and other improvements. [edit]Features
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Page zoom as seen in IE8 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 browser wars, Internet Explorer superseded Netscape only when it caught up technologically to support the progressive features of the time.[55] Standards support Internet Explorer, using the Trident layout engine:   supports HTML 4.01, CSS Level 1, XML 1.0, and DOM Level 1, with minor implementation gaps. 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 forXSLT 2.0 lies in the future: semi-official Microsoft bloggers have indicated that development is underway, but no dates have been announced.  partially supports CSS Level 2 and DOM Level 2, with major implementation gaps and conformance issues. Almost full conformance to CSS 2.1 has been added in the Internet Explorer 8 release.  supports XHTML in Internet Explorer 9 (Trident version 5.0). Prior versions can render XHTML documents authored with HTML compatibility principles and served with a text/html MIME-type.  fully supports SVG in Internet Explorer 9 (Trident version 5.0).
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Internet Explorer uses DOCTYPE sniffing to choose between standards mode and a "quirks mode" in which it deliberately mimicks nonstandard behaviors of old versions of MSIE for HTML and CSS rendering on screen (Internet Explorer always uses standards mode for printing). It also provides its own dialect of ECMAScript called JScript. Internet Explorer had been subjected to criticism by W3C over its limited support for SVG promoted by W3C.[58] Non-standard extensions 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 appear broken in standards-

compliant web browsers and has introduced the need for a "quirks mode" to allow for rendering improper elements meant for Internet Explorer in these other browsers. Internet Explorer has introduced a number of extensions to JScript that 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. 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, and which IE is now virtually unique in not supporting.[59] Other non-standard behaviors include: support for vertical text, but in a syntax different from W3C CSS3 candidate recommendation, support for a variety of image effects[60] and page transitions, which are not found in W3C CSS, support for obfuscated script code, in particularJScript.Encode(). for embedding EOT fonts in web pages.[62] Favicon 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. In IE, support was, and still is, provided only for the native Windows ICO format; in other browsers it has now been extended to other types of images such as PNG and GIF. Usability and accessibility
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Support

Organizing Favorites in Internet Explorer 6

The "quick tabs" feature available inInternet Explorer 8

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. Pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing were added respectively in Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7. Tabbed browsing can also be added to older versions by installing MSN Search Toolbar orYahoo Toolbar. 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 content²visited content,web feeds, visited URLs, cookies, etc.[63] Prior to IE7, clearing the cache used to clear the index but the files themselves were not reliably removed, posing a potential security and privacy risk. In IE7 and later, when the cache is cleared, the cache files are more reliably removed, and the index.dat file is overwritten with null bytes. 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 on the Component Object Model (COM) technology. It consists of several major components, each of which is contained in a separateDynamiclink library (DLL) and exposes a set of COM programming interfaces hosted by the Internet Explorer main executable, iexplore.exe: 
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WinInet.dll is the protocol handler for HTTP, HTTPS and FTP. It handles all network communication over these protocols.



URLMon.dll is responsible for MIME-type handling and download of web content, and provides a thread-safe wrapper around WinInet.dll and other protocol implementations.



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.

  

IEFrame.dll contains the user interface and window of IE in Internet Explorer 7 and above. ShDocVw.dll provides the navigation, local caching and history functionalities for the browser. BrowseUI.dll is responsible for the browser user interface, including the browser chrome, which houses all the menus and toolbars.
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Internet Explorer does not include any native scripting functionality. Rather, MSHTML.dll exposes an API that permit a programmer to develop a scripting environment to be plugged-in and to access the DOM tree. Internet Explorer 8 includes the bindings for the Active Scriptingengine, which is a part of Microsoft Windows and 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 (forECMAScript 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. Internet Explorer 8 introduces some major architectural changes, called Loosely Coupled IE (LCIE). LCIE separates the main window process (frame process) from the processes hosting the different web applications in different tabs (tab processes). A frame process can create multiple tab processes, each of which can be of a different integrity level; each tab process can host multiple web sites. The processes use asynchronous Inter-Process Communication to synchronize themselves. Generally, there will be a single frame process for all web sites. InWindows 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. [edit]Extensibility Internet Explorer exposes a set of Component Object Model (COM) interfaces that allow other components to extend the functionality of the browser.[64] 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
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to add support for non-native content formats.

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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.[64] 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 is itself exposed as a Doc object, so HTML in itself is treated as an Active Document.
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Add-on Manager from Windows XP SP2 Internet Explorer 6 SV1 Internet 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-onManager 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.[64] See also: Component Object Model and Browser Helper Object [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 by default runs in what is called Protected Mode, where the privileges of the browser itself are severely restricted²it cannot make any system-wide changes. One can optionally turn this mode off but this is not recommended. 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 throughAutomatic Updates. Although security patches continue to be released for a range of platforms, most feature additions and security infrastructure improvements are only made available on operating systems which are in Microsoft's mainstream support phase. On December 16, 2008, Trend Micro recommended users switch to rival browsers until an emergency IE patch was released to fix a potential security risk which "could allow outside users to take control of a person's computer and steal their passwords". Microsoft representatives countered this recommendation, claiming that "0.02% of internet sites" were affected by the flaw. On December 17, 2008, a fix to the security problem above became available, with the release of the Security Update for Internet Explorer KB960714, which is available from Microsoft Windows Update's webpage. Microsoft has said that this update fixes the security risk found by Trend Micro the previous day.[67][68] [edit]Security vulnerabilities See also: Comparison of web browsers#Vulnerabilities Internet Explorer has been subjected to many security vulnerabilities and concerns: Much of the spyware, adware, and computer virusesacross 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 anActiveX security alert. 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. By 2005, some experts maintained that the dangers of ActiveX have been overstated and there were safeguards in place.[69]In 2006, new techniques using automated testing found more than a hundred vulnerabilities in standard Microsoft ActiveX components.[70]Security features introduced in then recently released Internet Explorer 7 mitigated some of these vulnerabilities.

Internet Explorer in 2008 had a number of published security vulnerabilities. According to research done by security research firm Secunia, Microsoft did not respond as quickly as its competitors in fixing security holes and making patches available. increase from the prior year. According to the latest information, Secunia reports that IE6 has 24 known unpatched vulnerabilities, IE7 has 11, and IE8 has 4. The most severe unpatched Secunia advisories affecting Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.x, 7.x, and 8.x with all vendor patches applied, are all rated Extremely critical. The oldest known unpatched vulnerabilities for IE6, IE7, and IE8 date from November 7, 2003, June 6, 2006, and February 26, 2007 respectively. According to the latest information, security research firm SecurityFocus reports that IE6 has 396 known unpatched vulnerabilities, IE7 has 22, and IE8 has 25. The oldest known unpatched vulnerabilities for IE6, IE7, and IE8 date from November 20, 2000, May 17, 2007, and April 11, 2009 respectively. Internet Explorer has been criticized by one Chris Evan for having a known security vulnerability which could allow information disclosure to remain unfixed for at least 600 days.[72] Microsoft says that it had known about this vulnerability but it was of very low severity as the victim web site must be configured in a special way for this attack to be feasible at all.[73] In December 2010, researchers have been able to bypass the "Protected Mode" feature in Internet Explorer.[74] [edit]Vulnerability exploited in attacks on U.S. firms Main article: Operation Aurora In an advisory on January 14, 2010, Microsoft said that attackers targeting Google and other U.S. companies used software that exploits a security hole, which had already been patched, in Internet Explorer. The vulnerability affected Internet Explorer 6, IE7, and IE8 on Windows 7, Vista, Windows XP, Server 2003, and Server 2008 R2, as well as IE 6 Service Pack 1 on Windows 2000 Service Pack 4.
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The firm also reported 366 vulnerabilities in ActiveX controls, an

The German government warned users against using Internet Explorer and recommended switching to an alternative web browser, due to the major security hole described above that was exploited in Internet Explorer.[76] The Australian and French Government issued a similar warning a few days later.[77][78] The first browser they recommended was Mozilla Firefox, followed by Google Chrome.[79][80] [edit]Market adoption and usage share

The usage share of web browsers. Source: Median values from world wide summary table. Internet Explorer (43.8%) Mozilla Firefox (29.7%; Usage by version number) Google Chrome (13.0%) Safari (6.1%) Opera (2.2%) Mobile browsers (4.3%) See also: Usage share of web browsers 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. 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."[81] By 2002, Internet Explorer had almost completely superseded its main rival Netscape and dominated the market with up to 95 percent market share. After having fought and won the browser wars of the late 1990s, Internet Explorer gained almost total dominance of the browser market. Having attained a peak of about 95% during 2002 and 2003, its market share has since declined at a slow but steady pace. This is mainly 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 60% (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.
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An article notes at the release of Internet Explorer 7 in October 2006 that "IE6 had the lion's
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share of the browser market with 77.22%. Internet Explorer 7 had climbed to 3.18%, while Firefox 2.0 was at 0.69%."

Internet Explorer Market Share ² August 2010[84] via Net Applications [note 1] Internet Explorer 6 Internet Explorer 7 Internet Explorer 8 All variants 16.18% 10.89% 27.90% 60.40%

1. ^ Includes Maxthon, Tencent Traveler, and TheWorld Editions. This box: view · talk · edit 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.[85] Firefox 2.0 had overtaken 1.x by January 2007,[86] but IE7 did not surpass IE6 until December 2007.[87] By January 2008, their respective version market share stood at 43% IE7, 32% IE6, 16% FF2, 4% Safari 3 and both FF1.x and IE5 versions at less than half a percent.[88] 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.[89][90][91][92][93][94] According to StarCounter, which tracks internet usage data, Internet Explorer's marketshare fell below 50% in September 2010.[95] [edit]Market share history overview 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.[90][91][92][93][94][96][97] Total 2010 60.04%[97] 2009 66.92% 2008 72.65% 2007 78.60% 2006 83.30% 2005 87.12% 2004 91.27%
[96] [89] [89] [89] [89] [89]

IE8 29.43%[97] 10.40%
[96] [89]

IE7 11.61%[97] 26.10% 46.06% - 45.50% [96] [89] [89] [89]

IE6 16.79%[97] 27.40% 26.20% 32.64% 78.08% - 82.71% - 83.39%
[96] [89] [89] [89] [89] [89]

IE5 0.0?%[97] 0.08% 0.15% 0.45% 1.42% 4.35% 7.77%
[96] [89] [89] [89] [89] [89]

IE4 0% 0% 0.01% 0.01% 0.02% 0.06% 0.10%
[89] [89] [89] [89] [89]

IE3 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

IE2 IE1 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

0.34%

3.49%

2003 94.43%[91] 2002 93.94% 2001 90.83% 2000 83.95% 1999 75.31% 1998 45.00% 1997 39.40% 1996 20.00%
[91] [91] [91] [94] [93] [90] [90] [90]

-

- 59.00%[91] - 50.00% - 19.00% [91] [91]

34.00%[91] 41.00% 68.00% - 71.00% - 41.00% [91] [91] [91] [91]

1.00%[91] 1.00% 5.00% 13.00% 36.00% [91] [91]

0% 0% 0% 0% 1.00%
[91]

0% 0% 0% 0% 0% ? ? ? ?

0% 0% 0% 0% 0% ? ? ? ?

[91] [91]

? ? -

? ? ? -

1995 2.90%

[edit]Industry adoption The ActiveX extension mechanism is used by many public websites and web applications, including eBay.
[citation needed]

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 thirdparty 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 only a few 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[98] users, but by the start of 2007 90% market share would equate to over 900 million users.[98] 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%.[99] 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. Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, and 7.0 (Experimental) have also been unofficially ported to theLinux operating system from the project IEs4Linux.[102][103]
*

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.

Final version of Windows XP Service Pack 3 does not include IE7. No native support, but possible with third party Standalone installer of IE6 Alpha. See also Internet

Explorer Mobile. Non-desktop versions of IE have supported Windows CE also.
£

Internet Explorer 2.0 and 2.0.1 requires System 7.0.1 or higher. Internet Explorer 2.1 requires System

7.1 or higher.
¼

Included Internet Explorer 3.01 in Mac OS 8.1; Internet Explorer 4.01 in Mac OS 8.5 and 8.5.1; Internet

Explorer 4.5 from Mac OS 8.6 to 9.0.4; Internet Explorer 5 from Mac OS 9.1 to 9.2.2.
¥

Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition requires Mac OS 7.6 or higher. Internet Explorer version 5.1;

5.1.4; 5.1.5; 5.1.6 and 5.1.7 requires Mac OS 8.0 or higher or Mac OS 7.6.1 with Appearance Manager.
16

16-bit version

[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, Internet Explorer for Mac users could still use 4.5 after installing IE 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 Design²The web developer Joe Maddalone who found the solution. Xenocode Browser Sandbox²Xenocode application virtualization.

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 uses a feature introduced in Windows 2000 called DLL redirectionto force it to load older DLLs than the ones installed on the system.  IE Collection. An installer for the standalone versions of IE8.0, IE7.0, IE6.0, IE5.51, IE5.01, IE4.01, IE3.0, IE2.01, IE1.5, and IE1.0.  Microsoft Support document, with instructions for downloading the entire set of installation files.

Internet Explorer 6 running on Linux inWine. 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.[104]

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 PCimages containing pre-activated copies of Windows XP with either IE 6 or IE 7 installed.
[105]

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.
[106][107]

[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 installation, 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 proposed during the United States v. Microsoft case. One of Microsoft's arguments during the trial was that removing Internet Explorer from Windows may result in system instability. Removing Internet Explorer does have a number of consequences. Applications that depend on libraries installed by IE will fail to function (or malfunction). 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. With Windows 7, Microsoft added the ability to safely remove Internet Explorer 8 from Windows.[108] Microsoft does not allow the dependencies to be removed through this process, but the Internet Explorer executable (iexplore.exe) is removed without harming any other Windows components. [edit]

5 ways Internet Explorer helps you get more done I use Microsoft Internet Explorer all day long, every day. I·ve arranged all the settings just how I like them, and once I·ve done that I don't like to change. I'm the kind of girl who just wants technology to work when I need it; I'm not into installing all the latest gadgets and upgrades so I can one-up my friends. So whenever I hear there is a new version of Internet Explorer, my first reaction is, "I don't need that." Then I hear about some cool new feature in the newest version and curiosity gets the better of me. I give the new version a try and I·m always impressed by how things just keep getting better. Each version of Internet Explorer seems to be faster, safer, and easier to use than the last. And it·s free. You can always download and install the latest version of Internet Explorer for free from the Microsoft Download Center. Here are some recently added features that'll make your browsing experience more productive. Browse without navigating to other websites using Accelerators I find that I·m often copying and pasting information from one web page to another when I browse the web³if I want to map an address, find a definition, translate a word, or email content to a friend, for example. It works, but it·s time-consuming and awkward. But, you know what? My copying and pasting days might be over. Now I can use the Accelerator feature, new in Internet Explorer 8, to find what I need to know and do what I need to do without navigating to other websites. Here·s how it works. Highlight text from a web page, such as an address. You·ll see a blue Accelerator (arrow) icon that

appears above your selection. Click the icon, and then point to an option from the menu that appears. For example, if you rest your mouse pointer on the Accelerator Map with Bing on the page you see here, you·ll see a preview of the information you·re looking for without leaving the web page you·re on.

Internet Explorer screen with Accelerator icon selected and mouse resting over the Map with Bing Accelerator option, showing a preview of the map you·ll see if you click that Accelerator If you want more information than you're seeing, click the Map with Bing option and a larger version of the map will appear on its own tab. As I·ve mentioned, I like to set things up so that they suit me exactly. So I want to have the Accelerators I use, and only those, at my fingertips. I click All Acceleratorsat the bottom of the list and then use the Find More Accelerators and Manage Accelerators options that appear on the bottom of the new list to create the Accelerator list that suits me.

Internet Explorer screen with the All Accelerators option selected and Find More Accelerators and Manage Accelerators options circled

Find what you need more quickly with tabbed browsing When you've buried something in a file cabinet, tabbed files are a life saver. A quick glance at each tab lets you know what lies beneath it so you don't have to open every file. When I'm doing research online and want to move quickly between websites, I get the same benefit in Internet Explorer, using a feature called Tabbed Browsing. It lets me manage multiple websites from within one browsing window. Just like opening a paper file drawer to see a row of titled files, now I just glance at the tabs across the top of my Internet Explorer window and click one to see the web page I need. But sometimes even the tabs can get out of control. If you·re someone whose comprehension is better with visuals, you can use Quick Tabs, which gives you a thumbnail view of up to 20 open tabs at a single glance. Just click the arrow of the Quick Tabs icon more than one web page open. Another feature that can help you control your tabs is Tab Groups, which lets you organize multiple tabs into a single group and then save that group as a Favorite. Let·s say you have several tabs open, displaying websites relevant to the Contoso project you·re working on. Save them as a group by clicking Favorites on the Favorites bar the top of the browser window, and then clicking the arrow to the right of Add to Favorites. Then click Add Current Tabs to Favorites and name the folder for the group (Contoso, for example), and then click Add. After this, you·ll be able to open all the tabs with a single click by selecting the tab group from the Favorites list. And here·s one more tab tip. Be sure to right-click on a tab and check out all your options for tab control, right where you need them. In the latest version of Internet Explorer, you can even reopen a tab you·ve closed by mistake and see a list of recently closed tabs. Right-click any tab to display these options. to the left of the row of tabs, and then click the thumbnail view of the website you want to view. The Quick Tabs button appears only when you have

Speed up your search using Windows Live Search I use search engines a lot to find the information I want on the web, and Internet Explorer has made the search easier. I just type a keyword or phrase in the search box. A list of other possible search terms display as I type my search term into the box. I can continue typing, or use my arrow keys or mouse to choose one of the suggested terms. Then I press ENTER to display the search results. Or I press ALT + ENTER to display the search results in a new tab. Over time, I·ve learned some tricks to help me search more efficiently. So, for example, when I want information about a movie, like The Sound of Music, I make sure to surround the title in quotes³´The Sound of Musicµ³so that only those web pages that contain that exact phrase are included in the search results.

If I don·t find what I·m looking for using one search provider, I·ll try another. It·s great that I don·t have to keep opening new browser windows or visit different search engine sites to do this anymore. I·ve even added some specialty search engines to the list of providers available right from the search box. For example, I·ve added eBay to aid in my quest for antique doorknobs and Amazon to satisfy my book lust. And once I find the page I want, I don·t have to waste time looking for the specific information I want. I press CTRL + F to open the Find box and start typing a keyword or phrase. As I type, highlighted matches appear on the web page.

Stop being phishing bait One of the buzzwords on the Internet is "phishing." Anyone who has email and uses the Internet is a potential victim, so listen up. Phishing occurs when an email is sent falsely claiming to be an established, legitimate enterprise. You've probably gotten one of those email messages already: It directs you to visit a website, often has an official logo, and asks you to update credit and other personal information. The motive behind it? To trick you into visiting a bogus website that you think is authentic and scam you into releasing personal information to be stolen and used for illegitimate purposes. The sender is sending bait to thousands, hoping a few fish take it. Hence, the term "phishing," a variation on the leisure sport. Microsoft SmartScreen Filter is a feature in Internet Explorer that helps detect phishing websites and websites that distribute malicious software known as malware. This feature was called Phishing Filter in earlier versions of Internet Explorer. While you browse the web, SmartScreen Filter runs in the background and (with your consent) sends the web addresses of the sites you are visiting to the Microsoft SmartScreen service, to be compared against lists of known phishing and malware sites. If the website you're visiting is on the list, Internet Explorer will display a blocking web page and the Address bar will appear in red. You·ll be given a choice of what to do from there. SmartScreen Filter screen showing options for how to respond to unsafe websites You can adjust your SmartScreen Filter settings off the Tools menu or off the Safetycommand in Internet Explorer 8 or off the Security menu in Internet Explorer 7.

Get content updates through RSS feeds and Web Slices Internet Explorer makes it easy to keep up-to-date on the information that·s important to you, using RSS feeds and Web Slices. RSS feeds

When you're on a site in Internet Explorer, if the RSS Feed icon clicking the Subscribe to this feed button

on the Internet Explorer Command bar

is illuminated, it means the site offers a feed. Click the icon, and you can subscribe to the RSS feed by . RSS feeds are integrated into Internet Explorer 7 and later. .

Note If Internet Explorer also finds Web Slices, the button will change to display the Web Slice button Since Web Slices are based on feeds, you will usually see both Web Slices and feeds when you view available feeds from the Web Slice icon. Read the section on Web Slices below.

Internet Explorer screen with RSS feeds displayed and Subscribe to this feed button circled Come back to the page later by opening your Favorites Center and clicking the Feedstab, which gives you a quick look at all your RSS feeds. You can read news when it arrives and click headline links to get the complete web page.

Favorites pane with Feeds tab selected, showing all saved RSS feeds at a glance Note to tech support If you're part of the technical team supporting a business, the Windows RSS Platform is included as part of Windows Internet Explorer in Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP. Once a feed is subscribed to in one application, that subscription and associated content are made available for applications across the operating system. Web Slices With Internet Explorer 8, subscribing to content just got even easier, using Web Slices. A Web Slice is a specific portion of a web page that you can subscribe to directly from within the web page. It lets you see when updated content³such as the current temperature, or a changing auction price³is available from your favorite websites. When a Web Slice is available on a web page, you will see the Web Slice button point to the content with your mouse. To add the Web Slice to your Favorites bar, do one of the following: y y Click the Web Slice button Click the Web Slice button on the Command bar. on the page. on the Command bar.

The Web Slice button will also appear on the web page next to the content that is available when you

In the dialog box, click Add to Favorites Bar. Once you have subscribed to the Web Slice, it appears as a link on the Favorites bar. When the Web Slice is updated, the link on the Favorites bar will appear with bold formatting. You can then click the link to see the updated content.

And what you've read here is just the tip of the iceberg. You can find out everything you need to know about the latest version on the Internet Explorer home page. You·ll see all the ways that Internet Explorer can make your web experience safer and easier and your days more productive. Why Would Anyone Use Internet Explorer? Published on Friday, March 23, 2007 Don¶t worry, this is not a post about Internet Explorer¶s support (or lack thereof) of code support, but instead solely focused on the end user experience. I regularly try out a number of web browser, and I have one question: Why would anyone use Internet Explorer? The UI I¶m only talking about their latest version, IE 7 here, and the way I see it, it doesn¶t offer anything particular that no-on else does. There have been lots of discussions about the UI and if it¶s actually user-friendly, and I won¶t go into to the entire thing but to say that it just seems stupid to hide away the File, Edit etc menu (although it magically appears when you press Alt). Most inexperienced web browsers users use IE, so to hide something as fundamental as that, and give them an inconsistent experience from (basically) all other programs, doesn¶t seem to be the smartest way to go. Compare it to their biggest competitors on Windows: Firefox and Opera. Both of them have everything clear and visible, and, more importantly, consistent. Browsing Experience Surf around a while with IE, and then switch to Firefox or Opera and feel the difference. To me, IE feels flimsy and shaky, and it has a nasty flicker when scrolling on a web page with a lot of pictures. Overall, IE seems slower, but naturally, some serious tests have to be made to verify this. Another thing that thoroughly annoys me is that opening a new tab takes over a second (!) for me in IE as opposed to milliseconds in the other two. They have implemented a zooming feature (although Opera¶s zooming is way better implemented), but the result of this is that is almost impossible to find how to resize just the text, if desired. Security Yeah, well, I guess this is a given point with IE. IE has a history of being extremely insecure, and as long as they persist on having such a close tie-in between Windows and the web browser itself, it is without a doubt more prone to security risks than their competitors. Extensibility

Firefox has a dominating lead in this field with a myriad of amazing Firefox add-ons, and I think this is one of the reasons it has become so popular. IE 7 is trying their best with Internet Explorer add-onsand Opera has their Plug-ins, but no one is even close to Firefox in this field. Sidetracking With A Little Personal Rant« As a little sidetrack (please forgive me for this), but with my post about semantic URLs the other day close in mind, compare the URLs for IE¶s add-ons to the Firefox and Opera equivalents: Internet Explorer add-ons http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/category.aspx?bcatid=834&tabid=1 Firefox add-ons http://addons.mozilla.org Opera Plug-ins http://www.opera.com/docs/plugins Let¶s just say that different companies has various understandings about how the web should work« Mouse Control Something that a lot of people love about Opera is the ability to control web browsing through Opera mouse gestures. There¶s a Firefox Mouse Gestures add-on to accomplish the same, and also Mouse Gestures for Internet Explorer. I rather prefer using the keyboard as much as the possible, but some are mouse addicted. If you are, check out the three above to find what suits you best. Conclusion I¶m open-minded, and want you to use the web browser that suits your need the best. However, I think that most people using IE don¶t know about the alternatives plainly just don¶t want to. From my experience, people use IE for one or several of these reasons: y y y They don¶t know about the alternatives (without a doubt, the number one reason). It¶s pre-installed on their computer, so they just start it and go (definitely related to the reason above). Some very poorly developed web sites, like certain bank sites and others, only supports one web browser on one platform. Really capturing the essence and the spirit of the web« Not. It¶s, for reasons beyond me, a company policy from narrow-minded System Administrators to narrow them down to one web browser. They like everything from Microsoft, and would use it no matter the quality.

y y

y

They tried something based in the open-source community in 1995, didn¶t like it, and will never give it a whirl again.

Any reason I¶ve missed? Is Internet Explorer your primary web browser and you like it? Please tell my why, I won¶t criticise you, but is genuinely interested in why you like it.

Using Internet Explorer Regular visitors to Hints and Things will know that the ethos of the site is to provide basic, simple but useful information on a variety of subjects. The use of computers is one of the subjects in question and, with this in mind, we have been very lucky in obtaining permission to reproduce some Course Notes supplied by Bear Computer Services Limited. Before using this information please read the Important Notice at the foot of the page.

Starting the web browser 1. Double Click on the Internet Explorer icon on the screen OR 2. Click on the Internet Explorer icon on your task bar OR 3. Click Start (on the task bar), Programs, Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer is started and your Home Page is displayed

Accessing a known web site address

If you know a web site address, such as, www.bbc.co.uk then you can enter this address in the Address bar.

The example address above is preceded with http:// you don t have to type this in as part of the address.

1. 2. 3. 4.

Start Internet Explorer. Click on the Address bar. Any existing address will be highlighted. Type the web site address. i.e. www.bbc.co.uk Press Enter.

Using the Internet Explorer Tool Bar

You can use the Back and Forward buttons in Internet Explorer to move forwards and backwards through the web pages that you have been viewing

If you have started to make a connection and decide that you do not want to continue with it, you may use the Stopbutton to cancel the navigation.

You may occasionally need to Refresh a web page to ensure that you have the latest version of it.

The Home button will move you back to your home web page.

The other really useful button in the tool bar is the Print button, as its name implies, it will print the page you are looking at to the default printer.

Navigating a web page Once you have loaded a web page you can navigate around that page and other pages that are linked to it. You can identify a link by the fact that the mouse pointer changes to a (pointing) hand when you move across it. These links, which may be pictures or text, may go to another web page or to a different place in the same web page. To make links easier to identify they are sometimes underlined if they are text, see the illustration below.

1. To use one of the links, position your cursor over link you want to use. The mouse pointer will change. 2. Click on this link. A new web page will be displayed or you will be moved to a new position within the same page. Adding web sites to µFavorites¶ Once you have found some web sites that you like (or use regularly) you can add them to your favorites , to do this :-

1. 2.

Access the web site that you wish to store. Click on the favorites menu.

3. Click on Add to Favorites, you will be asked to supply a title then click OK. The web site (with the title you gave it) is now added to the favorites folder.

SEARCHING The Internet is a great source of information, you can find web sites relating to the subjects that interest you by usingSearch Engines. There are many search engines that you can use, we will just look at a couple. Using the search button

1.

Click on the Search button on the toolbar.

Your screen will split into two areas (called frames), the left frame displays the search options and the right will keep your current web page. You can Select a different search engine from the drop down list in the left frame if you want to, although it is not necessary to do that.

2. 3.

Type keywords that identify the information that you want to look for i.e. childrens free software Click on the Search button (next to the keywords you just typed)

A list of web sites with possible matches is now displayed in the search area. You can click on them to view the site.

Specialist Search Engine web sites You do not have to use the search engine built in to Internet Explorer, you can use one of the hundreds of internet search engine web sites that are available, some of these include :-

AllTheWeb.com AltaVista AOL Search Ask Jeeves Google HotBot IWon LookSmart Lycos

http://www.alltheweb.com http://www.altavista.com http://search.aol.com http://www.ask.co.uk http://www.google.co.uk http://www.hotbot.com http://www.iwon.com http://www.looksmart.com http://www.lycos.com

MSN Search Netscape Search Open Directory Yahoo

http://search.msn.com http://search.netscape.com http://dmoz.org/ http://www.yahoo.co.uk

To use one of the above sites :-

1. 2.

Click into the Address bar. Enter the address of the search engine you want to use.

3. Press Enter Some search engines allow you to narrow down the search by first selecting a category i.e. Computers, Hobbies, select the category if necessary. 4. 5. Type keywords that identify the information that you want to look for i.e. childrens free software Click on the Search button (next to the keywords you just typed)

You may find information on the internet that you want to keep, this may include text or pictures. Be careful when you do this to ensure that you are not breaking any copyrights. To save the current page on your computer 1. 2. 3. On the File menu, click Save As. Select the folder you want to save the page in. In the File Name box, type a name for the page, and then click Save. Note: Internet Explorer saves only the text on a page, not the graphics

To save a picture 1. 2. 3. Right-click the picture Click Save Target As. Select the folder you want to save the page in.

4.

In the File Name box, type a name for the item, and then click Save.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION The names, places, and/or events used in this publication are purely fictitious and are not intended to correspond to any real individual, group, company, or event. Any similarity or likeness to any real individual, company, or event is purely coincidental and unintentional. NO WARRANTIES OF ANY NATURE ARE EXTENDED BY THE DOCUMENT. Any product and related material disclosed herein are only furnished pursuant and subject to the terms and conditions of a duly executed license or agreement. Bear Computer Services Ltd. cannot accept any financial or other responsibility that may be the result of your use of the information in this document or software material, including direct, indirect, special or consequentialdamages. This information has been reproduced by kind permission of The oh so popular Internet Explorer has a few disadvantages. Everyone knows about Internet Explorer and many people know how to use it. However many people like it, they don¶t know about what its disadvantages are. This article will try to explain some of these ³non-detectable´ disadvantages. 1. Speed. Internet Explorer is very slow agaisnt its rival, Firefox. Firefox is about two times faster than Internet Explorer. This includes going from web page to web page, starting up the web browser, and downloading files from the web to your computer or laptop. Speed is very important if you like being able to do many things in a short period of time. This could bechecking the weather report before traveling. Whatever it is speed is a key factor. 2. Search Bar. Internet Explorer uses Live Search as its search bar that loads up in the top right hand corner. This is run by Microsoft. Many people use Live Search as their default search engine, but more people use Google. If your like me, you don¶t use that search engine because you don¶t even know its there or because you would rather just go to Google to do all of your searching. If however you use that search engine a lot and would like to change it, click on the arrow facing down. Then click ³Find more providers´. After that choose the web search engine you want to search with by click which one you want. Lastly click add provider. It will add it and to use it click the arrow again and select the one you chose. 3. Tabs. If you didn¶t already notice, in Internet Explorer the tabs are already out. This takes up a little bit of the screen view and you can do as much with them. When I say this, I mean that there are not as many features. If you right click on an Internet Explorer tab you only get these options: close, close other tabs, refresh, refresh all, new tab. You may think that this is a lot but if you use Firefox for instance you get these: new tab, reload tab, reload all tabs, close other tabs, bookmark this tab, bookmark all tabs, undo close tab, and close tab. I hope by reading this that you take away something from it. Although you probably didn¶t know about these things, I wanted to be able to give you an insight on what they are. I also hope that you will recognize these and make the switch to another web browser. Thanks for reading! The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Internet The Advantages and Disadvantages of Internet Internet has been perhaps the most outstanding innovation in the field of communication in the history of mankind. As with every single innovation, internet has its own advantages and disadvantages. But usually, greater magnitude of advantages outweighs its disadvantages. During his evolution journey from Neanderthals to Homo erectus and then to Homo sapiens, man has

come long way. Because of his continuous quest for more and more amenities and facilities, the nineties have seen a major turnaround with the invention of computers. 10 years ago, the term internet was practically anonymous to most of the people. And today internet has become the most ever powerful tool for man throughout the world. The internet is a collection of various services and resources. Although, many people still think e-mail and World Wide Web as the principle constituents of internet, there is lot more in store than e-mail, chat rooms, celebrity web sites and search Is this Essay helpful? Join OPPapers to read more and access more than 325,000 just like it! GET BETTER GRADES engines. It also became the best business tool of modern scenario. Today internet has brought a globe in a single room. Right from news across the corner of the world, wealth of knowledge to shopping, purchasing the tickets of your favourite movie-everything is at your finger tips. Internet has great potential and lot to offer« however, like every single innovation in science and technology, internet has its own advantages and disadvantages. Advantages Communication: The foremost target of internet has always been the communication. And internet has excelled beyond the expectations .Still; innovations are going on to make it faster, more reliable. By the advent of computer¶s Internet, our earth has reduced and has attained the form of a global village. Now we can communicate in a fraction of second with a person who is sitting in the other part of the world. Today for better communication, we can avail the facilities of e-mail; we can chat for hours with our... Advantages of Internet Explorer 9 (IE 9): y y y y y y y y y A Very Simple and Decent hassle free User Interface Speed is good, better than earlier versions of IE Improved JavaScript Engine Support for HTML5 Compatible with Latest Web Standards and Services UI emphasizes more on the content you are viewing, rather than the toolbars, status bars, logos of IE, they are all hidden in IE 9, what you will see is just the trademark ³e´ sign at the top. Browser warns when an add-on slows down the browser¶s performance Ability to Pin your favorite websites to the Window¶s Taskbar New Download Manager

Disadvantages: Some UI changes are weird and will be uncomfortable for users in the beginning. For example: The address bar aligned with the tabs in the same row y To Update the browser, it needs to be restarted. User¶s may not prefer that y HD Video performance is better in other browsers Verdict: y

Overall IE 9 wins over its older versions, however its still in Beta phase, once released with full built, its challenge would be to compete with Firefox and Chrome. But there is no doubt that Microsoft has done a good job with IE9 Disadvantages of internet Explorer are :- The oh so popular Internet Explorer has a few disadvantages. Everyone knows about Internet Explorer and many people know how to use it. However many people like it, they don¶t know about what its disadvantages are. This article will try to explain some of these ³nondetectable´ disadvantages. Speed. Internet Explorer is very slow agaisnt its rival, Firefox. Firefox is about two times faster than Internet Explorer. This includes going from web page to web page, starting up the web browser, and downloading files from the web to your computer or laptop. Speed is very important if you like being able to do many things in a short period of time. This could be checking the weather report before traveling. Whatever it is speed is a key factor. Search Bar. Internet Explorer uses Live Search as its search bar that loads up in the top right hand corner. Advantages The Internet provides many facilities to the people. The main advantages of Internet are discussed below. 1. Sharing Information You can share information with other people around the world. The scientist or researchers can interact with each other to share knowledge and to get guidance etc. Sharing information through Internet is very easy, cheap and fast method. 2. Collection of Information A lot of information of different types is stored on the web server on the Internet. It means that billions websites contain different information in the form of text and pictures. You can easily collect information on every topic of the world. For this purpose, special websites, called search engines are available on the Internet to search information of every topic of the world. The most popular search engines are altavista.com, search.com, yahoo.com, ask.com etc. The scientists, writers, engineers and many other people use these search engines to collect latest information for different purposes. Usually, the information on the Internet is free of cost. The information on the Internet is available 24 hours a day. 3. News You can get latest news of the world on the Internet. Most of the newspapers of the world are also available on the Internet. They have their websites from where you can get the latest news about the events happening in the world. These websites are periodically updated or they are immediately updated with latest news when any event happens around the world. 4. Searching Jobs You can search different types of jobs all over the world, Most of the organizations/departments around the world, advertise their vacantvacancies on the Internet. The search engines are also used to search thejobs on Internet. You can apply for the required job through Internet. These two major browsers are coming closer to each other regarding the DHTML effects possible towards newer versions. However you will need to remember that IE is more flexible than Netscape and due to small differences something that works really well in IE might not work at all in Netscape. So you need to be really careful and alert when

programming for both browsers. One hint you can follow in most cases is that if you get it working in Netscape it should most probably work in IE. Another major limitation of Netscape as compared to IE is that not all properties of a page can be changed at any time. This is because when the web page is once written to the screen, only position, visibility and clipping can be manipulated dynamically. The good news is that from the web designing point of view you can now forget completely about debugging all your websites for Netscape 4.x as a very small fraction of the Netscape community still use it. Think of it this way, if you are bent on making the website work perfectly for version 4.x then you cannot use some effects (especially javascript and CSS) that are easily supported by the latest versions of all the major browsers. For Dreamweaver to not keep throwing up Netscape 4 errors set the browser check settings to show Netscape 6 instead of the default 4.0. To do this click on the Results panel, select the Target Browser Check tab, click on the green arrow to show the list of options - select the Settings option and set Netscape Navigator to version 6.0. The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Using Internet Explorer As one of the most powerful web browsers available today, Internet Explorer was the one that had the most market share back in 2002 and 2003 (95% usage share). This web browser was (and still is) developed by Microsoft and it¶s included by default on computers with Microsoft¶s Windows operating system. Since 2003, Internet Explorer or ³IE´ usage share started to decline as a consequence of the huge and tough competition from other companies that wanted to improve and expand what web browsers can accomplish for users. Now many high quality web browsers are available for all the platforms and many are available for free. In order for us to determine if Internet Explorer is a good web browser or not, we need to discover its main advantages as well as disadvantages. By doing so we can decide if it¶s worth using. 1- Advantages: ‡ Availability: Internet Explorer comes for free by default with any Windows operating system distribution. All you need to do is to install Windows and start browsing. ‡ Browsing in tabs: This new feature allowed the users to open all their webpages in the same window in what we call ³tabs´ (no need to open 20 windows and use a huge amount of memory). Other web browsers obviously have this feature too. ‡ Phishing filter: This is probably one of the biggest pluses of IE, because phishing represents a huge security problem for internet users. With the last versions of IE you don¶t need to be afraid anymore about

phishing issues. ‡ Application support: As IE was the standard of the industry, it has a support for almost every application available on the internet, and in addition, it has many useful tools built based on it. ‡ Reopen last sessions: You now what¶s the most annoying thing that can happen to you when browsing? It¶s when you close your browsers by accident and lose all the tabs that you were working on. With IE, this doesn¶t happen anymore because the newer versions will save them for you and reopen them the next time you open the browser window. 2- Disadvantages: ‡ Speed: As we are in the speed age, IE doesn¶t have this luxury. It¶s considered as one of the slowest browsers compared to other web browsers like Firefox and Chrome. The factor of speed includes: loading WebPages, downloading files from the internet, start up/launching time«etc. ‡ Security: This is probably the most annoying thing about internet browsers. One of the main factors that goes into how you choose your web browser is obviously based on its security. Because IE is the main target of internet hackers, Microsoft is struggling trying to fix its vulnerabilities and prevent them from stealing its user¶s private information. ‡ Customization: IE has fewer options compared to other web browsers, like Firefox for example. You don¶t have a lot of choices to customize your privacy settings. As you may have noticed, IE has many disadvantages as well as advantages, but it is still a good internet browser that is used by a lot of internet users. That¶s why Microsoft is still spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing it.

y An Internet browser that also includes a website building utility, Netscape Navigator lets you access the Internet, your email and newsgroups all without having to install additional applications. Netscape Navigator is free and still available for downloading from a number of file websites. The program interfaces with other applications seamlessly and even works with multiple search engine toolbars. Netscape Navigator, like other Internet browsers, has its advantages and disadvantages.

Supporting Multiple Operating Systems & JavaScript
y Netscape Navigator is not exclusively for Windows like some other Internet browsers. The program is also available for Mac and Linux. The Internet browser fully supports websites implementing JavaScript and Flash plug-ins.

Integration With Other Programs
y The Internet browser automatically launches Adobe Acrobat to process Portable Document Format (.pdf) files; lets you connect third-party email applications such as Eudora and Outlook to its list of programs to launch; and works with other Internet-related toolbars and programs automatically without the hassle of manually launching the utilities.

Multiple Tabbed Windows
y Like other Internet browsers, Netscape Navigator has the ability to open multiple tabbed windows so you can stay on the website you are viewing, but still access a link on the page.

Bookmarking
y Netscape Navigator lets you save your favorite websites in a "Bookmark" file that is also a webpage. The Bookmark webpage is viewable within the Netscape Navigator browser as well as from the program's "Bookmark" menu option.

Built-In Search Engine
y The program includes a built-in search engine that lets you key a partial website name in the "Address" bar and locate and access the page's full address.

Multiple Profiles

y Netscape Navigator lets you set up multiple user and computer profiles, so if you share your computer with others, the other parties can't access your personal bookmarks and settings. Or if you are working on job-related websites, you can keep those bookmarks in a different profile from your personal websites.

Browser History Issue
y To access the websites you visited last week or at some past date, you must navigate through Netscape Navigator's menus to find the "History" option. The history listing is basic and an icon is not present for the option on the main toolbar.

Copying & Pasting Website Information
y When copying website information from the browser to a word processing document or third-party HyperText Markup Language (HTML) editor, Netscape Navigator strips HTML coding and converts it plain text. This is a disadvantage when wanting to preserve the HTML coding for modification or to study the coding.

Older Versions Crashing
y Older versions of Netscape Navigator (version 5.0 and below) tend to stop responding if a website contains advanced programming features such as Flash, embedded audio files and other features the browser cannot handle.
These two major browsers are coming closer to each other regarding the DHTML effects possible towards newer versions. However you will need to remember that IE is more flexible than Netscape and due to small differences something that works really well in IE might not work at all in Netscape. So you need to be really careful and alert when programming for both browsers. One hint you can follow in most cases is that if you get it working in Netscape it should most probably work in IE. Another major limitation of Netscape as compared to IE is that not all properties of a page can be changed at any time. This is because when the web page is once written to the screen only position visibility and clipping can be manipulated dynamically. The good news is that from the web designing point of view you can now forget completely about debugging all your websites for Netscape 4.x as a very small fraction of the Netscape community still use it. Think of it this way if you are bent on making the website work perfectly for version 4.x then you cannot use some effects (especially javascript and CSS) that are easily supported by the latest versions of all the major browsers. For Dreamweaver to not keep throwing up Netscape 4 errors set the browser check settings to show Netscape 6 instead of the default 4.0. To do this click on the Results panel select the Target Browser Check tab click on the green arrow to show the list of options - select the Settings option and set Netscape Navigator to version 6.0.