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         Microsoft Internet Explorer

 abbreviated IE or MSIE, is a proprietary graphical web browser made by Microsoft and currently available as part of Microsoft Windows. Internet Explorer is the most widely used web browser today, although since 2004 it has been losing usage share to other browsers. As of October 2005, IE's usage share is about 85% (see the market adoption section).

Internet Explorer is an integrated component of all current versions of Microsoft Windows. Microsoft has shipped Internet Explorer as the default browser in all versions of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 OSR1. The last major upgrade to Internet Explorer was included in Windows XP Service Pack 2, but is not available for older versions of Windows. The beta version of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP SP2 has been available since July 27, 2005.
Internet Explorer is available as a separate download for many older versions of Windows. In the past it was also developed for several other operating systems: Internet Explorer for Mac and Internet Explorer for UNIX (the latter for use through the X Window System on Solaris and HP-UX). All of these versions have ceased active development, although Internet Explorer for Mac will still be available for download from Microsoft until January 31, 2006.
Internet Explorer is now known as Microsoft Internet Explorer, but the name will be slightly changed to Windows Internet Explorer in Windows Vista.
Features

Main articles:
 Features of Internet Explorer, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]
 The pop-up blocker included in Internet Explorer 6 SP 2Internet Explorer has been designed to view the broadest range of web pages and to provide certain features within the operating system, including Windows Update. During the heydays of the historic browser wars, Internet Explorer superseded Netscape by supporting many of the progressive features of the time.
Component architecture
The Component Object Model (COM) technology is used extensively in Internet Explorer. It allows third parties to add functionalities via Browser Helper Objects (BHO); and allows websites to offer rich content via ActiveX. As these objects have the same privileges as the browser itself (in certain situations), this raised concern over security. This issue was addressed in Internet Explorer 6.0 Service Pack 2, which provides an Add-on Manager for controlling ActiveX controls and Browser Helper Objects.

               Usability and  accessibility
 Tabbed Browsing(QuickTabs) in IE 7.0 Preview(Build 5270)Since it is tightly integrated with the operating system, Internet Explorer makes use of the accessibility framework provided in Windows. Internet Explorer is also a user interface for FTP, with operations similar to that of Windows Explorer.
The ability to block popup windows was introduced with Internet Explorer 6.0, Service Pack 2.
Tabbed browsing, while not natively supported, can be added to Internet Explorer 6 by installing Microsoft's MSN Search Toolbar. The browser supports Tabbed browsing in version 7.0. The beta 1 version includes tabbed browsing. It features QuickTabs in beta 2 version which is the thumbnail preview of opened tabs. With this new feature, user can find, open, close, and refresh opened tabs easily.Web feeds support is built in version 7.0. The feed reader is fully integrated with the browser ,so that user can read Web Feeds(RSS/Atom) without an RSS reader. It also discovers web feeds automatically.

                                               Security framework
Internet Explorer uses a zone-based security framework, which means that sites are grouped based upon certain conditions. It allows the restriction of broad areas of functionality, and also allows specific functions to be restricted.
Patches and updates to the browser are released periodically and made available through Windows Update website. Although security patches continue to be released for a range of platforms, most recent feature additions and security improvements are released for Windows XP only. A report in April 2005 showed that only 24% of corporate PCs had upgraded to XP SP2.
Standards support
Internet Explorer almost fully supports HTML 4.01, CSS Level 1, XML 1.0 and DOM Level 1, with minor implementation gaps. It partially supports CSS Level 2 and DOM Level 2, with some implementation gaps and conformance issues. It supports XHTML 1.0 to the extent that HTML 4.01 compatibility guidelines are followed. Internet Explorer uses DOCTYPE sniffing to choose between "quirks mode" (renders similarly to older versions of MSIE) and standards mode (renders closer to W3C's specifications) for HTML and CSS rendering. It fully supports XSLT 1.0 or the December 1998 Working Draft of XSL, depending on the version of MSXML (a dynamic link library) available. It also provides its own dialect of ECMAScript called JScript.
Internet Explorer supports a variety of graphics file formats, including GIF, JPEG and PNG. The long-waited support for PNG alpha channel was introduced in 7.0 Beta 1.Proprietary 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 can only be viewed properly using Internet Explorer. Many view this as an example of what is called "embrace, extend and extinguish" (EEE), a way to drive competitors out of business by forcing them to use proprietary technology that a company controls, resulting in vendor lock-in. Netscape Navigator up to version 4.7 was also responsible for massive proprietary extension of the core web standards, but was not criticized for it as much.

                                             Criticisms
Main articles: Criticisms of Internet Explorer, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]
Internet Explorer is subject to a relatively high volume of criticism. Much of this criticism is related to concerns about security: A notable portion of the widespread promulgation of spam, spyware, adware, and computer viruses across the Internet is known to be facilitated by exploitable bugs and flaws in the security architecture of Internet Explorer. Furthermore, a notable number of users and security experts have pointed out that Microsoft has not been sufficiently committed to fixing the browser's exploitable bugs in a timely manner, and has been ineffective in pushing those changes out to users. Several companies maintain databases of security vulnerabilities known to exist in Internet Explorer and for which no fixes have been published by Microsoft — as of June 2005, there were between 20 and 27 such vulnerabilities reported in Internet Explorer 6 for Windows XP SP2, and 146 in Internet Explorer 6 for Windows 2000 SP4.

Other criticisms, mostly coming from technically proficient users and developers of websites and browser-based software applications, concern Internet Explorer's support of open standards. Internet Explorer supports, to some degree, a number of standardized technologies, but has implementation gaps and conformance failures — some minor, some not — that have led to criticism from an increasing number of developers. The increase is attributable, in large part, to the fact that competing browsers that offer relatively thorough, standards-compliant implementations are becoming more widely used. Internet Explorer's ubiquity, in spite of its perceived inferiority in this area, frustrates developers who want to write standards-compliant, cross-browser code.

 

Criticisms
Main articles: Criticisms of Internet Explorer, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]
Internet Explorer is subject to a relatively high volume of criticism. Much of this criticism is related to concerns about security: A notable portion of the widespread promulgation of spam, spyware, adware, and computer viruses across the Internet is known to be facilitated by exploitable bugs and flaws in the security architecture of Internet Explorer. Furthermore, a notable number of users and security experts have pointed out that Microsoft has not been sufficiently committed to fixing the browser's exploitable bugs in a timely manner, and has been ineffective in pushing those changes out to users. Several companies maintain databases of security vulnerabilities known to exist in Internet Explorer and for which no fixes have been published by Microsoft — as of June 2005, there were between 20 and 27 such vulnerabilities reported in Internet Explorer 6 for Windows XP SP2, and 146 in Internet Explorer 6 for Windows 2000 SP4.

Other criticisms, mostly coming from technically proficient users and developers of websites and browser-based software applications, concern Internet Explorer's support of open standards. Internet Explorer supports, to some degree, a number of standardized technologies, but has implementation gaps and conformance failures — some minor, some not — that have led to criticism from an increasing number of developers. The increase is attributable, in large part, to the fact that competing browsers that offer relatively thorough, standards-compliant implementations are becoming more widely used. Internet Explorer's ubiquity, in spite of its perceived inferiority in this area, frustrates developers who want to write standards-compliant, cross-browser code.

See also: Criticism of Microsoft ,Market adoption,Usage share
Further information: Usage share of web browsers, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]
The adoption rate of Internet Explorer seems to be closely related to that of Microsoft Windows, as it is the default web browser that comes with Windows. Since the integration of Internet Explorer 3.0 with Windows 95 OSR 2 in late 1996, the adoption was greatly accelerated: from below 20% in 1996 to about 40% in 1998 and over 80% in 2000. This effect, however, has recently been dubbed the "Microsoft monoculture", by analogy to the problems associated with lack of biodiversity in an ecosystem. By 2002, Internet Explorer had almost completely superseded its main rival Netscape and dominated the market.
After having fought and won the browser wars of the late 1990s, Internet Explorer began to see its usage share shrink. Having attained a peak of about 96% in 2002, it has since been in a steady decline. Statistics indicate the current most significant competition comes from Gecko-based browsers, in particular Mozilla Firefox. Nevertheless, Internet Explorer remains the dominant web browser, with a usage share of around 85% (based on statistics reference).
Industry adoption
ActiveX is used by many public websites and web applications, including eBay. Similarly, BHOs are also used by many search engine companies and third parties for creating add-ons that access their services, for example, search engine toolbars. Because of the use of COM, it is possible to include web-browsing functionality in third-party applications. Hence, there are a number of Internet Explorer shells, and a number of applications like RealPlayer (a media player) also use Internet Explorer's web browsing module for viewing the World Wide Web within the applications.

  "Standalone"
              Internet Explorer
While it is not officially possible to keep multiple versions of Internet Explorer on the same machine, some hackers (Joe Maddalone, Ryan Parman, et al.) successfully separated several versions of Internet Explorer making them standalone applications. These were referred as "standalone" IEs and included versions 3.0 to 5.5 SP2.
Multiple IEs In Windows Web Design — The web developer Joe Maddalone who found the solution.
Skyzyx.com - Standalone Internet Explorer — The web developer Ryan Parman who made the customized browsers files available.
Multiple Explorers — Downloads of all the versions
Microsoft has discontinued standalone installers for Internet Explorer to the general public. However, a blogger/web developer/programmer named Liew Cheon Fong has posted a procedure for downloading the complete install package.

Version 7.0
For version 7.0 of Internet Explorer, set to ship with Windows Vista and as a separate download for Windows XP with Service Pack 2, large amounts of the architecture, including the security framework, have been completely overhauled. Partly as a result of these security enhancements,
 the browser will be a stand-alone application, rather than integrated with the Windows shell, and it will no longer be capable of acting as a file browser. The "beta 1" (build 5112) and "beta 2 preview" (build 5299) pre-releases both operate in this new stand-alone manner.

^  Memoirs From the Browser Wars, May 12, 2005.
^  Microsoft to abandon standalone IE, May 12, 2005.
^  Gates Highlights Progress on Security, Outlines Next Steps for Continued Innovation, May 12, 2005.
^  IE7 Platforms and Outlook Express, May 12, 2005.
^  U.S. v. Microsoft: Court's Findings of Fact, May 12, 2005.

  Mozilla Firefox
It is a free, cross-platform, graphical web browser developed by the Mozilla Corporation and
hundreds of volunteers.[1] The browser began as a fork of the Navigator component of the Mozilla Application Suite; Firefox has since become the foundation's
main development focus (along with its Thunderbird mail and news client), and has replaced the Mozilla Suite as their official main software release.
Before its 1.0 release, Firefox had already gained acclaim from numerous media outlets, including Forbes[2] and the Wall Street Journal.[3] With over 25 million downloads in the 99 days after the initial 1.0 release,
Firefox became one of the most downloaded free and open source applications, especially among home users.[4] On October 19, 2005, Firefox had its 100 millionth download, just 344 days after the release of version 1.0.[5] Firefox 1.5 was released on November 29, 2005, with more than 2 million downloads within the first 36 hours.
Firefox includes an integrated pop-up blocker, tabbed browsing, live bookmarks, support for open standards, and an extension mechanism for adding functionality. Although other
browsers have introduced these features, Firefox became the first such browser to achieve wide adoption.
Firefox has attracted attention as an alternative to other browsers such as
Microsoft Internet Explorer. As of November 2005, estimates suggest that Firefox's usage share is around 9.4% of overall browser usage (See market adoption below), with its highest usage in Finland (nearly 40% as of January 2006).

  Features
For more details on this topic, see Features of Mozilla Firefox.
The developers of Firefox aim to produce a browser that "just works" for most casual users. Those interested can add (as extensions and plugins) many features not packaged with Firefox.

Criticisms
Main articles: Criticisms of Internet Explorer, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]
Internet Explorer is subject to a relatively high volume of criticism. Much of this criticism is related to concerns about security: A notable portion of the widespread promulgation of spam, spyware, adware, and computer viruses across the Internet is known to be facilitated by exploitable bugs and flaws in the security architecture of Internet Explorer. Furthermore, a notable number of users and security experts have pointed out that Microsoft has not been sufficiently committed to fixing the browser's exploitable bugs in a timely manner, and has been ineffective in pushing those changes out to users. Several companies maintain databases of security vulnerabilities known to exist in Internet Explorer and for which no fixes have been published by Microsoft — as of June 2005, there were between 20 and 27 such vulnerabilities reported in Internet Explorer 6 for Windows XP SP2, and 146 in Internet Explorer 6 for Windows 2000 SP4.

Other criticisms, mostly coming from technically proficient users and developers of websites and browser-based software applications, concern Internet Explorer's support of open standards. Internet Explorer supports, to some degree, a number of standardized technologies, but has implementation gaps and conformance failures — some minor, some not — that have led to criticism from an increasing number of developers. The increase is attributable, in large part, to the fact that competing browsers that offer relatively thorough, standards-compliant implementations are becoming more widely used. Internet Explorer's ubiquity, in spite of its perceived inferiority in this area, frustrates developers who want to write standards-compliant, cross-browser code.