HTML5 in Metro-style Apps

Metro style apps in Windows 8 have all the performance benefits of IE10 when showing Web content. In Metro style apps, Web content is always JIT compiled and hardware-accelerated. 

Other platforms do not provide the same level of performance in apps. For example, Cocoa apps on iOS offer significantly worse JavaScript performance than the same content running in Safari.

Many applications embed HTML to provide a richer and always up to date experience for consumers. 

For example, the developer of a restaurant guide app might want to include a live map showing the locations of the list of restaurants the user is choosing from. 

If you write an app on iOS, common actions like panning and zooming the map will run twice as slow in an app compared with Safari.

Anyone writing a Metro style app for Windows 8 can easily include Web content in their app. 

In an HTML or XAML app, just include an <iframe> element or a WebView control to get the full benefit of IE 10 performance.

With Metro style apps, it’s easy to integrate many existing Web services seamlessly into your app. 

It’s also possible to build new services for your app that let you deliver dynamic HTML content without having to update your application.

When you include Web content in your Metro style app, your app gets all the performance benefits of IE10 automatically without any additional or special work. 

JavaScript code continues to run fast with JIT compilation, and your app will automatically use GPU to accelerate HTML graphics.

Native HTML5 First IE10

Web sites and HTML5 run best when they run natively, on a browser optimized for the operating system on your device.

We built IE9 from the ground up for HTML5 and for Windows to deliver the most native HTML5 experience and the best Web experience on Windows. 

IE10 continues on IE9’s path, directly using what Windows provides and avoiding abstractions, layers, and libraries that slow down your site and your experience:

The only native experience of the Web and HTML5 today is on Windows 7 with IE9. 

IE9’s approach to taking advantage of what the operating system offers – from the native graphics stack to jump lists in the shell – maximizes performance, usability, and reliability. 

We released a fast, clean, trusted, and interoperable IE9 globally for consumers and businesses four weeks ago with the goal of delivering the best experience of HTML5. 

The best HTML5 is native to the operating system, so Web sites have the fewest translation layers to pass through. The best HTML5 enables sites to use the same markup – the same HTML, CSS, and script – across browsers. 

The best HTML5 respects developers’ time and enables same markup by treating site-ready HTML5 differently from unstable technologies.

Native HTML5 support in Windows with IE9 makes a huge difference in what sites can do. We demonstrated real-world sites from the development community that a year ago would have been possible only with a plug-in or application. 

These sites are live now and show that the technologies as implemented in IE9 are production-ready for consumers and businesses. Links are available at www.beautyoftheweb.com for you to try them out. 

These sites are proof of progress on the goal of same markup and standards-based Web technologies. They run in other browsers – just slower. As an industry, we’ve just started to see what’s possible when sites can take advantage of these capabilities. 

The experiences may be new today; they reflect what people will simply come to expect from sites in the future.

An Early Look at IE10

We’re about three weeks into development of IE10, and based on the progress we’ve made, we want to start engaging the development community now. At the MIX conference today, we showed the new browsing engine along with several new browser test drives that anyone on the Web can try out. 

You can run these at www.ietestdrive.com to see emerging standards like CSS3 Multi-column Layout (link), CSS3 Grid Layout (link) and CSS3 Flexible Box Layout (link), CSS3 Gradients (link), and ES5 Strict Mode in action. 

We also demonstrated additional standards support (like CSS3 Transitions (link) and CSS3 3D Transforms (link)) that will be available in subsequent platform previews of IE10, which we will update every 8-12 weeks.

Also available are new test drive samples for today’s production browsers. For example, Fishbowl is an update to the original FishIE tank that now uses more HTML5 technologies. 

Paintball is another great demonstration of what fully hardware accelerated HTML5 Canvas delivers.
Progress, not just activity, in improving the Web

Many of us share the goal of a more powerful, native, and robust Web. We want actual progress, not just iteration and activity, toward that goal.

This is how the Web delivers on the promise and value of the standards: when we as an industry deliver consumer-ready and business-ready HTML5.

The cadence of browser releases reflects how often technologies are updated, not how much the technologies actually advance from instability to robustness. 

Higher cadence just means more frequent releases of incomplete software (and larger version numbers). What matters is when consumers and businesses take delivery of robust, production-ready browsers that use the new technology.

Practical developers ask about the stability of emerging standards and when they can expect the same mark-up will work consistently across browsers. IE9 includes support for many emerging, not yet final standards (like font embedding, performance measurement, and privacy) that are stable enough for same markup to work consistently. 

Other emerging standards (like WebSockets and IndexedDB) need to stabilize before developers can expect that. We work with the community on these as part of HTML5 Labs, where iteration will not affect consumers and mainstream developers.

When browsers prematurely implement technology, the result is activity more than progress. 

Unstable technology results in developers wasting their time rewriting the same site. 

The gaps in same markup working consistently across browsers are obstacles to advancing the interoperable Web, not just annoyances.

Native implementations are just better for developers, consumers, and businesses. They keep Web sites from falling behind applications in performance and other important ways. 

While using cross-platform, non-native compatibility layers makes browser development easier, they don’t necessarily make a better browser. Browsers that use modern operating systems more directly deliver better experiences. 

Browsers that compromise by spreading across too many OSes and OS versions face challenge.

IE 9.0.5 Available via Windows Update

The February 2012 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer is now available via Windows Update. This security update resolves 5 privately reported vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. 

The most severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user visits a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. 

An attacker who successfully exploited any of these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the local user.  

Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less affected than users who operate with administrative user rights.

This security update is rated Critical for Internet Explorer Windows Clients, except IE6 client, where it is rated Moderate; and Moderate for Internet Explorer on Windows servers, except IE6, where it is not rated. 

Most have enabled automatic updating and do not need to take any action. We recommend that customers, who have not enabled automatic updating, enable it (Start Menu, type “Windows Update”).

We recommend that administrators, enterprise installations, and end users who want to install this security update manually, apply the update immediately using update management software or by checking for updates using the Microsoft Update service.

Benefits of GPU-powered HTML5

Performance

The benefit of building on Direct2D technologies is that the browser makes the most of the underlying PC hardware that is optimized for rendering rich graphics. This results in faster web applications and a higher quality browsing experience for users and web developers.

As IE9 does more work using the GPU, there is less CPU load, enabling other browser subsystems to do more, as well as enabling higher frame rates for smooth animation and video playback.

The GPU is a much better choice for some graphical operations – for example, the GPU executes alpha blending and bilinear image scaling much faster than the CPU, and uses pixel shaders to perform complex per pixel calculations.

Super-fast zoomed browsing

IE9 uses the GPU to scale images and other content, making zoomed browsing very fast – this is what makes the map zooming demo on ietestdrive.com so fast.

Windows is still the only broadly used operating system that allows the users to change the size of all UI elements on the screen to improve readability and legibility on new high DPI displays on laptops and desktop computers. 

IE9 builds on the work done in Internet Explorer 8 (the first browser to zoom Web page content by default) to ensure that users can easily read the Web on high DPI displays.

Hardware accelerated HTML5 video using Windows Media Foundation

IE9 makes the most of your graphics hardware by using the Windows Media Foundation system to play HTML5 video, using the CPU or the hardware video decoder if available.

The reduction in CPU usage on machines with hardware video decoders greatly improves battery life – MIX demo we played two 720p HD videos, using barely 30% CPU on a $400 netbook. (versus 100% CPU usage in other browsers, playing only one HD video while dropping frames.)

The IE video engine decodes video directly with and into the GPU. Once the video frames are decoded, they can be treated like any other bitmap in the graphics pipeline with full compositing and integration into the rendering system.

High quality image and color support

IE9 uses the Windows Imaging Component (WIC) to decode PNG, JPEG and (new for IE9) TIFF and JPEG XR images. For a lot of uses, JPEG XR offers a good compression improvement over JPEG, allowing you to serve higher quality images at the same file size.

In addition to being up to 30% faster than IE8 decoders, the new WIC decoders understand embedded color profiles in images, making IE9 a color-managed browser that understands ICC v2 and v4 profiles.

Text quality and performance

IE9 uses the GPU (via DirectWrite) to do text output – up to twice as fast as IE8, and with higher quality. Text can be smoothly animated in IE9, and sub-pixel positioning is a more faithful representation of the Web (and font) designer’s intent.

High quality graphics printing

To do high quality printing of HTML5, you need a high quality print subsystem. Internet Explorer 9 directly converts web content into XPS format when sending output to the printing system.

XPS is a more modern print system with native support for features such as opacity and complex paths, which results in increased fidelity and quality when printing modern web content.

Because IE9 is built on Direct2D, it has full software fallback support for every feature. The goal is to improve graphics performance and fidelity even for the small number of machines in the world without GPUs, via high quality software emulation.

New HTML5 experiences – with the power of the GPU
Taken together, all of these GPU-powered capabilities in IE9 make it easier than ever before to create amazing new class of Web applications using same markup. 

For example, it took just an hour to create the final MIX demo – a rotating carousel of four translucent videos (at the 28:00 mark in the video). 

The page uses simple HTML and JavaScript - the same markup that runs in other browsers, but with higher quality and performance made possible by harnessing the power of the GPU.

Microsoft Updates IE 9

Microsoft on Wednesday updated its rough-edged preview of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), adding support for several crucial HTML5 standards and boasting that the browser is faster than ever.

Last updated seven weeks ago , the IE9 Platform Preview is not a full-fledged browser, but instead features a very bare bones interface wrapped around Microsoft's newest rendering and JavaScript engines.

When Microsoft debuted IE9 in mid-March, the company committed to updating the IE9 preview approximately every eight weeks until it issues a public beta. Microsoft has not disclosed a release date for either a public beta or the final version of IE9.

The third preview released Wednesday introduces support for HTML5's Canvas element the tag lets site designers insert dynamic, scriptable rendering of 2D shapes and bitmap images into pages as well as for hardware-accelerated audio and video tags.

Microsoft has pinned IE9's attempt to match or surpass the speeds of rivals on the browser's ability to offload text, image and video rendering chores to the computer's graphics processor, dramatically increasing performance.

The company also touted the preview's improved JavaScript speed and Web standards test scores.

According to Microsoft , IE9 Platform Preview 3 completes the SunSpider JavaScript test suite almost 47% faster than its May predecessor, although it still lags behind production editions of Apple's Safari 5 and Google's Chrome 5 on Windows. 

Platform Preview 3 was more than 10 times faster at rendering JavaScript than 2009's IE8, Microsoft said.

On the Acid3 benchmark , which checks how closely a browser follows certain Web standards, the IE9 Platform Preview 3 scored 83 out of a possible 100, a 22% improvement over Platform Preview 2.

Unlike production editions of IE, the preview runs alongside existing versions, such as IE7 on Vista or IE8 on Windows 7 . 

Neither the Platform Preview or the final version of IE9 will run on Windows XP because the browser relies on APIs (application programming interfaces) built into Windows 7 and added to Vista and Server 2008 R2 in October 2009, but not available on the nearly nine-year-old XP.

IE has been in decline for years. Although that slide has occasionally stalled, Microsoft has lost 8.3 percentage points in the last 12 months. 

The most recent data from Web analytics firm Net Applications puts IE's usage share at just under 59.8%, a record low.

Microsoft speeds up Internet Explorer

Microsoft is taking 5.7 million measurements a day to help it make Internet Explorer the fastest web browser on the market.

Microsoft had been panned for its years of neglect of the Internet Explorer web browser and letting it become a security nightmare. 

In an attempt to show how seriously it takes Internet Explorer development today, Microsoft said it is running round-the-clock tests in its Internet Explorer Performance Lab as it rather belatedly tries to make its browser the fastest on the market.

For Microsoft, Internet Explorer is one of the firm's major consumer facing applications and with rival outfits Google and Mozilla promoting faster web browsing, Microsoft knows it can't be left behind again. 

The firm claims to measure Internet Explorer's performance loading content and web applications through peusdo real-world testing down to the nanosecond level.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer Performance Lab uses over 120 machines of varying hardware specifications to try to resolve Internet Explorer's performance issues. 

Curiously Microsoft decided not to connect these machines to the internet but to its own managed network, where it tries to simulate different connections, effectively creating a little version of the internet.

There's little doubt Microsoft is taking Internet Explorer performance seriously. 

Its considerable resources should mean it can outspend some of its rivals, however with Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome eating up Internet Explorer's market share, all this testing is perhaps five years too late.

Internet Explorer 10

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

At the show, it was said that Internet Explorer 10 was about 3 weeks in development. 

This release further improves upon standards support, including CSS3 gradients. Internet Explorer 10 drops support for Windows Vista and will only run on Windows 7 and later. 

Internet Explorer 10 Developer Preview was also released on the Windows 8 Developer Preview platform.

Windows Internet Explorer 10 (abbreviated as IE10) is the next version of Internet Explorer currently being developed by Microsoft, and the successor to Internet Explorer 9. 

On April 12, 2011, Microsoft released the first "IE10 Platform Preview", which only runs on Windows 7 and later; subsequent platform previews only run on Windows 8. 

It expanded on Internet Explorer 9 functionality in regards to CSS 3 uptake and hardware acceleration. 

The release, only four weeks after the final release of Internet Explorer 9, has been noted as a fast release cycle in the context of the new browser wars.

On Windows 8 it will be divided into two versions with different user interfaces: a new Metro app that will not support plug-ins, and a traditional desktop application, which will retain plug-in support.

Internet Explorer 9

Internet Explorer 9 was released on March 14, 2011. Development for Internet Explorer 9 began shortly after the release of Internet Explorer 8. 

Microsoft first announced Internet Explorer 9 at PDC 2009, and spoke mainly about how it takes advantage of hardware acceleration in DirectX to improve the performance of web applications and quality of web typography. 

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

Leading up to the release of the final browser, Microsoft released updated platform previews, each featuring improved JavaScript compiling (32-bit version), improved scores on the Acid3 test, as well as additional HTML5 standards support, approximately every 6 weeks. 

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

The release candidate was released on February 10, 2011, and featured improved performance, refinements to the UI, and further standards support. 

The final version was released during the South by Southwest (SXSW) music and film festival in Austin, Texas, on March 14, 2011.

Internet Explorer 9 is only supported on Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008. 

It supports several CSS 3 properties (including border-radius, box-shadow, etc.), embedded ICC v2 or v4 color profiles support via Windows Color System. 

The 32-bit version has faster JavaScript performance, this being due to a new JavaScript engine called "Chakra". 

It also features hardware accelerated graphics rendering using Direct2D, hardware-accelerated text rendering using DirectWrite, hardware-accelerated video rendering using Media Foundation, imaging support provided by Windows Imaging Component, and high fidelity printing powered by the XPS print pipeline. 

IE9 also supports the HTML5 video and audio tags and the Web Open Font Format. 

Internet Explorer 9 initially scored 95/100 on the Acid3 test, but has passed 100/100 since the test was updated in September 2011.

Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer 8 was released on March 19, 2009. It had been in development since August 2007 at the latest. 

On March 5, 2008, the first public beta (Beta 1) was released to the general public. 

On August 27, 2008, the second public beta (Beta 2) was released. It is supported in Windows XP SP2 and SP3, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 on both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.

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. 

It includes much stricter compliance with web standards, including a planned full Cascading Style Sheets 2.1 compliance for the release version. All of these changes allowed Internet Explorer 8 to pass the Acid2 test. 

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, although it still does not pass the Acid3 test, with version 8.0 scoring 20/100. 

It includes support for accelerators, which allow supported web applications to be invoked without explicitly navigating to them; and WebSlices, which allows portions of a page to be subscribed to and monitored from a redesigned Favorites Bar. 

Other features include InPrivate privacy features and a SmartScreen phishing filter.

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 an anti-phishing filter. 

With IE7, Internet Explorer has been decoupled from the Windows Shell—unlike previous versions, the Internet Explorer ActiveX control is not hosted in the Windows Explorer process, but rather runs in a separate Internet Explorer process. 

It is included with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, and is available for Windows XP Service Pack 2 and later, and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and later. 

The original release of Internet Explorer 7 required the computer to pass a Windows Genuine Advantage validation check prior to installing, but on October 5, 2007, Microsoft removed this requirement. 

As some statistics show, by mid-2008, Internet Explorer 7 market share exceeded that of Internet Explorer 6 in a number of regions.

Windows Internet Explorer 7 (abbreviated as IE7) is a web browser released by Microsoft in October 2006. 

Internet Explorer 7 is part of a long line of versions of Internet Explorer and was the first major update to the browser in more than 5 years. 

It ships as the default browser in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 and is offered as a replacement for Internet Explorer 6 for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. 

Starting from this version, the new Internet Explorer versions do not work with Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000 and Windows Me. As of January 2011, estimates of IE7's global market share were 9-11%.

Some portions of the underlying architecture, including the rendering engine and security framework, have been improved. 

New features include tabbed browsing, page zooming, an integrated search box, a feed reader, better internationalization, and improved support for web standards, although it does not pass the Acid2 or Acid3 tests. Security enhancements include a phishing filter, stronger encryption on Windows Vista (256-bit from 128-bit in XP), and a "Delete browsing history" button to easily clear private data.

IE7 was superseded by Internet Explorer 8 in March 2009.

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, 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 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, the Gopher protocol was disabled, and support for it was dropped in Internet Explorer 7. 

Internet Explorer 6.0 SV1 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 3D look. 

Microsoft now considers IE6 to be an obsolete product and recommends that users upgrade to Internet Explorer 8. 

Some 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.

Its usage is 8.3% percent globally in December 2011, and depending to the country the usage differs heavily: while the usage in Norway is 0.2%, it's 27.9% in the Peoples Republic of China. 

On January 3, 2012, Microsoft announced that usage of IE6 in the United States had dropped below 1%.

Trident Layout Engine

Trident (also known as MSHTML) is the name of the layout engine for the Microsoft Windows version of Internet Explorer.

It was first introduced with the release of Internet Explorer version 4.0 in October 1997; it has been steadily upgraded and remains in use today. For versions 7 and 8 of Internet Explorer, Microsoft made significant changes to the Trident layout engine to improve compliance with web standards and add support for new technologies. 

With version 9 of Internet Explorer, Microsoft intends to comply with many modern web standards, and also intends to significantly update the layout engine to be more competitive and modern compared to other current layout engines.

Trident was designed as a software component to allow software developers to easily add web browsing functionality to their own applications. It presents a COM interface for accessing and editing web pages in any COM-supported environment, like C++ and .NET. 

For instance, a web browser control can be added to a C++ program and Trident can then be used to access the page currently displayed in the web browser and retrieve element values. Events from the web browser control can also be captured. Trident functionality becomes available by linking the file mshtml.dll to the software project.

Trident-based applications

All versions of Internet Explorer for Windows from 4.0 onwards use Trident, and it is also used by various other web browsers and software components (see Internet Explorer shells). In Windows 98, Windows Me, and Windows 2000, it is also used for the Windows file manager/shell, Windows Explorer. 

The Add/Remove Programs tool in Windows 2000 uses Trident to render the list of installed programs, and in Windows XP it is also used for the User Accounts Control Panel, which is an HTML Application. Trident however was not used by the Internet Explorer for Mac (which uses Tasman), nor by the early versions of Internet Explorer Mobile.

Some other Trident-based applications include:

    AOL Explorer, a web browser
    AOL Instant Messenger 6.x, which uses Trident to render conversation and profile windows, and advertisement panels
    Avant Browser
    Bento Browser (built into Winamp)
    EA Link, incompatible with Trident as of Internet Explorer 7 RC2
    Enigma, a web browser
    Google Talk, which uses Trident to render chat windows and profile cards
    GreenBrowser, which is also presented at the BrowserChoice.eu page
    IE Tab, a Firefox and Google Chrome add-on used to render pages with Trident within the Firefox or Chrome user interface.
    iTVmediaPlayer, a free premium TV desktop app, developed by BitMar Networks
    Impulse (content delivery), uses Trident to render "Explore" page, as well as several of the "Community" pages
    iRider, a web browser
    LimeWire, which renders the page 'New@Lime'
    Lunascape, developed by Lunascape Corporation
    Maxthon, which uses the Trident engine while adding features not built into IE7
    MediaBrowser, customized browsers, especially for Nintendo
    MenuBox, a web browser
    Microsoft Compiled HTML Help
    Microsoft Encarta and related products
    Microsoft InfoPath
    Microsoft Outlook which uses Trident to render HTML Messages (prior to Outlook 2007) and the "Outlook Today" screen
    Microsoft Outlook Express, which uses Trident to render HTML Messages
    Microsoft Visual InterDev 6 uses Trident in editing mode as visual HTML designer
    Microsoft Visual Studio 2002-2005 use Trident in editing mode to provide visual ASP.NET/HTML designer
    MSN Messenger, which uses it to produce Flash-based "winks" and games, and for all advertisements shown in the advertisement banner
    NeoPlanet, a web browser
    NetCaptor, a web browser
    Netscape Browser (Netscape 8), which used Trident to render web pages in IE mode
    Pyjamas, a python Widget set Toolkit. Embedding IWebBrowser2 as an Active-X component and accessing the COM interface, Pyjamas uses Trident for the Desktop version, through the python win32 "comtypes" library.
    RealNetworks
    Sleipnir, a web browser
    SlimBrowser, a web browser
    Skype, a VoIP software renders HTML data with Trident.
    TheWorld Browser, a web browser
    TomeRaider, an ebook reader
    Tencent Traveler, a web browser
    ThreeTeeth Browser, a lightweight web browser.
    UltraBrowser, a web browser
    Valve's Steam client, previous versions of which used Trident to render the "Store", "Update News" and "Community" sections as well as the Steam in-game browser and MOTD screens in Valve games. The Steam client was recently updated to use WebKit instead of Trident for these features.
    WebbIE, a web browser
    Windows Live Writer, which uses Trident for its editor.
    Windows Media Player, which uses Trident to render the "Media Information" pages.

Internet Explorer Shell

An Internet Explorer shell is any computer software that uses the Trident rendering engine of the Internet Explorer web browser. Although the term "Trident shell" is probably more accurate for describing these applications (including Internet Explorer itself), the term "Internet Explorer shell", or "IE shell", is in common parlance. 

This means that these software products are not actually full-fledged web browsers in their own right but are simply an alternate interface for Internet Explorer; they share the same limitations of the Trident engine, typically contain the same bugs as IE browsers based on the same version of Trident, and any security vulnerabilities found in IE will generally apply to these browsers as well. 

Strictly speaking, programs that use Tasman (layout engine), used in Internet Explorer 5 for Apple Mac, are also IE shells, but, because Internet Explorer for Mac was discontinued in 2003, and Tasman was further developed independent of IE, it tends to be thought of as a separate layout engine.

IE shells

These applications supplement some of Internet Explorer's usual user interface components for browsing, adding features such as popup blocking and tabbed browsing. 

For example, MSN Explorer can be considered an Internet Explorer shell, in that it is essentially an expansion of IE with added MSN-related functionality. A more complete list of Trident-based browsers can be found under the list of web browsers.

    AOL Explorer 

    Avant Browser
    Deepnet Explorer
    Enigma Browser
    GreenBrowser
    IE Tab 

    iTVmediaPlayer
    Lunascape
    Maxthon

    MenuBox
    MSN Explorer
    NeoPlanet 

    NetCaptor

    Netscape Browser 8.x (used both Trident and Gecko)
    Sleipnir
    SlimBrowser
    Tencent Traveler
    TomeRaider
    UltraBrowser
    WebbIE
    Yahoo! Browser.

Internet Explorer 1 - 5 Versions

Internet Explorer 1

The first version of Internet Explorer (later referred to as 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. 

It came with Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 and the OEM release of Windows 95, and was installed as part of the Internet Jumpstart Kit in Plus!.[ The Internet Explorer team began with about six people in early development. 

Internet Explorer 1.5 was released several months later for Windows NT and added support for basic table rendering. By including it free of charge on their OS, they did not have to pay royalties to Spyglass Inc., resulting in a lawsuit and a multi-million USD settlement.

Internet Explorer 2

Internet Explorer 2 was released for Windows 95, Windows NT 3.5, and NT 4.0 on November 22, 1995 . It featured support for SSL, cookies, VRML, RSA, and Internet newsgroups. Version 2 was also the first release for Windows 3.1 and Macintosh System 7.0.1 , although the Mac version was not released until January 1996 for PPC, and April for 68k. 

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. 

It launched with twelve languages, including English, but by April 1996, this expanded to 24, 20, and 9 for Win 95, Win 3.1, and Mac, respectively. The 2.0i version supported double-byte character-set. 

Internet Explorer 3

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, bringing 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. The Internet Explorer team consisted of roughly 100 people during the development of three months. 

The first major IE security hole, the Princeton Word Macro Virus Loophole, was discovered on August 22, 1996 in IE3. Backwards compatibility was handled by allowing users who upgraded to IE3 to still use the last IE, because the installation converted the previous version to a separate directory. 

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. 

Internet Mail and News was replaced with Outlook Express, and Microsoft Chat and an improved NetMeeting were also included. This version was also included with Windows 98. New features that allowed users to save and retrieve posts in comment forms were added, but they are not 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.

Internet Explorer 5

Internet Explorer 5, launched on March 18, 1999, and subsequently included with Windows 98 Second Edition and bundled with Office 2000, was another significant release that supported bi-directional text, ruby characters, XML, XSLT, and the ability to save web pages in MHTML format. IE5 was bundled with Outlook Express 5. 

Also, with the release of Internet Explorer 5.0, Microsoft released the first version of XMLHttpRequest, giving birth to Ajax . It was the last with a 16-bit version. Internet Explorer 5.01, a bug fix version included in Windows 2000, was released in December 1999. 

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 have Compatibility Mode, which allowed Internet Explorer 4 to be run side by side with the 5.x. The IE team consisted of over 1,000 people by 1999, with funding on the order of US$100 million per year.

Internet Explorer

Windows Internet Explorer formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated 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 add-on 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.

Internet Explorer has been the most widely used web browser since 1999, attaining a peak of about 95% usage share during 2002 and 2003 with Internet Explorer 5 and Internet Explorer 6. 

Since its peak of popularity, its usage share has been declining in the face of renewed competition from other web browsers, and is 34.27% as of January 2012. 

It had been slightly higher, 43.55% as of February 2011, just prior to the release of the current version. Microsoft spent over US$100 million per year on Internet Explorer in the late 1990s, with over 1000 people working on it by 1999.

Since its first release, Microsoft has added features and technologies such as basic table display (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 of Spyglass Mosaic, used without royalty in early versions) and security and privacy vulnerabilities, and both the United States and the European Union have alleged that integration of Internet Explorer with Windows has been to the detriment of other browsers.

The latest stable release is Internet Explorer 9, which is available as a free update for Windows 7, Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2. 

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

Versions of Internet Explorer for other operating systems have also been produced, including an embedded OEM version called Pocket Internet Explorer, later rebranded Internet Explorer Mobile, which is currently based on Internet Explorer 9 and made for Windows Phone, Windows CE, and previously, based on Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Mobile. 

It remains in development alongside the desktop versions. Internet Explorer for Mac and Internet Explorer for UNIX (Solaris and HP-UX) have been discontinued.

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.

Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs). 

Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer market, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984.

The most recent client version of Windows is Windows 7; the most recent server version is Windows Server 2008 R2; the most recent mobile version is Windows Phone 7.

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, United States that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions. 

Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800, Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems.