Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer is Microsoft's first venture into the web browser market. The initial version of the browser was incarnated from Spyglass Mosaic which Microsoft licensed for a modest quarterly fee and a share of the non-Windows product revenues. As Microsoft decided to distribute Internet Explorer "free of charge" with their Windows operating system, they were able to avoid most royalties.

Because of the browser's inclusion starting from the Windows 9x series and beyond, it sparked a three-year-long antitrust lawsuit that lasted until November 2001. The browser quickly overtook Netscape in the first browser war and retained ~95% of its market share until the early 2000s, when popular alternative browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome came to market, sparking the second browser war.

Internet Explorer was notorious for disobeying set web standards by the W3C until version 9, when Microsoft took a new commitment to HTML5 and web standards. It was eventually replaced by Microsoft Edge in 2015.

End-of-Life

On 17 August 2020, Microsoft announced that Microsoft 365 apps will no longer support Internet Explorer starting on 30 November 2020 with the Microsoft Teams Web App, followed by all other 365 apps on 17 August 2021.

Microsoft is set to discontinue Internet Explorer on 15 June 2024. As of Windows 10 build 21387, the browser's functionality has been disabled and attempting to open its executable will instead redirect the user to Microsoft Edge, though it is still possible to run Internet Explorer if ieframe.dll is replaced with a copy from older builds.

Versions

Version	Release date	Included in	Notes
1.0	1995	Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95	First version to be released publicly
1.5	1996		Internediate release for Windows 3.1x and Windows NT 3.51 to bridge the gap between IE 1 and 2
2.0	1995	Windows 95 OSR1 Windows NT 4.0 Nashville (alpha)	First version to be included with Windows First version for DEC Alpha, MIPS and PowerPC architectures
2.1	1996		Internediate release for Windows 3.1x and Windows NT 3.51 to bridge the gap between IE 2 and 3
3.0	1996	Windows 95 OSR2 (3.0) Windows 95 OSR2.1 (3.02)	Major UI changes First version to include Internet Mail and News Includes easter egg in Internet Mail and News Last version for MIPS and PowerPC architectures Introduces support for HTTP 1.1
4.0	1997	Windows 95 OSR2.5 (4.0) Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition (4.01, optional) Windows 98 (4.01 SP1) Windows 98 SP1 (4.01 SP2)	First version to include Windows Desktop Update Renames Internet Mail and News to Outlook Express New design for the About box, including an easter egg First version ported to the UNIX derivates HP-UX and Solaris, and as such, the first version for the SPARC and PA-RISC architectures Last version for m68k-based Macs Replaced the rendering engine from Spyglass to Trident on Windows
4.5	1999		For Mac OS
5.0	1999	Windows 98 SE (5.0) Windows 2000 (5.01) Neptune (5.01 pre-RTM, mixed with 5.5 beta)	Last 16-bit version designed for Windows 3.1x and Windows NT 3.51 Last UNIX version for HP-UX and Solaris Last version for DEC Alpha, PA-RISC and SPARC architectures
5.1	2000		Last version for classic Mac OS
5.2	2001		Only version for Mac OS X
5.5	2000	Windows Me	Last version for Windows 95 Updates cipher strength in Windows 9x to 128-bit
6	2001	Windows XP Windows Server 2003	Last version for Windows NT 4.0, 98 (SE), ME and 2000 Can be installed unofficially on Windows 95 with patches Last version with Windows Explorer integration First 64-bit version for the IA-64 and AMD64 architectures
7	2006	Windows Vista Windows Server 2008	Updates UI to a Vista-style Introduces Tab support Installation on Windows XP and Server 2003 requires a Windows Geniune Advantage (WGA) check
8	2009	Windows 7 Windows Server 2008 R2	Last version for Windows XP and Server 2003 Removed WGA check when installing on aforementioned OS Last version for the IA-64 architecture
9	2011		New simplier UI First version since 1.0 to no longer be included in any Windows version Improvements to HTML5 and JavaScript support, such as the introduction of the JavaScript engine Chakra Last version for Windows Vista and Server 2008
10	2012	Windows 8 Windows Server 2012	First Metro-based version for Windows 8
11	2013	Windows 8.1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows 10 Windows Server 2016 Windows Server 2019 Windows Server 2022	Released for Windows Embedded 8 and Server 2012 without the Metro-based edition in 2019 Not for Windows 8, but can be installed there unofficially
12	2022	Windows 11 Windows Server 2022	Last version to be released