Articles about Internet Explorer

Installed apps are becoming a thing of the past. Microsoft is just one of a raft of technology companies gradually moving to the cloud and the latest display of this is a new beta version of Skype for Web. The messaging tool has been designed to be used in a web browser without the need for plugins, extensions or other software. At least that is the aim. During the beta stages you'll still have to install a small plugin.

Work being carried out by the Internet Explorer developers should bring plugin-free Real-Time Communications (RTC) to browsers in the near future, and Skype for Web will be able to take advantage of this. The beta is not being made available to everyone straight away, so you'll need to check your account to see if you can try it out.

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Google's security team has discovered a vulnerability in SSL 3.0 which can be exploited to steal secure cookies and other data. The 15 year old technology is still used as a fallback when connection problems occur as it helps maintain backward compatibility, but the security problems mean that Google will start to phase out support. Details of the exploit have been published and Chrome has today been tweaked to disable SSL 3.0 fallback.

Bodo Möller from Google's security team points out that this move will "break some sites" and that they will need to be updated. This does present some compatibility issues, and the advice is to support TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV instead, at least for the time being.

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There has been more (big) trouble for Microsoft over in China, as the software giant is now facing scrutiny of its web browser (Internet Explorer) and Windows Media Player.

This is part of a Chinese antitrust investigation against Redmond, which apparently kicked off when Microsoft's offices in China were swooped on by officials from the State Administration for Industry & Commerce (SAIC) at the end of July.

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In a Reddit AMA yesterday, the Internet Explorer team discussed the negative reputation surrounding Microsoft’s browser and confirmed that internally they had considered changing the name.

Front-end Engineer Jonathan Sampson admitted, "I remember a particularly long email thread where numerous people were passionately debating it. Plenty of ideas get kicked around about how we can separate ourselves from negative perceptions that no longer reflect our product today".

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In the technology world, it is fashionable to bash Internet Explorer. There is that old joke that people only open IE once -- to download Chrome or Firefox. To some extent, that is true; however, Microsoft's web browser has been improving leaps and bounds. When I am on Windows, I enjoy using version eleven very much.

Unfortunately, the reason Internet Explorer got a bad reputation with some tech nerds, is that it was more susceptible to malware than other browsers. There was truth to this and I experienced it first-hand, when fixing and cleaning the computers of friends and family. Today, Microsoft announces that Internet Explorer is getting more secure by blocking outdated ActiveX controls.

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Bromium Labs today issued its "Endpoint Exploitation Trends" report that shows Internet Explorer set a record high for reported vulnerabilities in the first half of 2014, and also leads in publicly reported exploits.

According to Bromium, "Internet Explorer took the cap for historic high number of security patches in over a decade, and that feat was accomplished in the first six months of 2014!" It's not all bad news for users of Internet Explorer though. While the browser was easily the most exploited tool, Microsoft has been reacting much quicker to plug vulnerabilities. The company took more than 90 days to release its first patch for IE9, yet IE11’s first critical patch emerged just five days after the new browser was generally available.

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It’s Patch Tuesday, and Microsoft has issued six security bulletins including two which are rated "critical" and allow for Remote Code Execution (RCE), and three which are labeled "important" and allow for elevation of privilege inside Windows. The final patch is rated "moderate" and fixes a Denial of Service vulnerability in the Service Bus for Windows.

The patches affect all versions of Internet Explorer, as well as most versions of Windows. XP users are at risk from these vulnerabilities, but are not covered by the updates.

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Microsoft has unveiled Internet Explorer Developer Channel, a special preview version of the browser which includes upcoming developer-oriented features and extended standards support.

One major highlight of this release is that it’s packaged as an App-V application, which means it runs in a virtualized environment and won’t affect your existing Windows or Internet Explorer setup at all. There are none of the usual dangers of installing an unfinished IE build. You can run Internet Explorer Developer Channel alongside IE11 without any conflicts, and uninstall it cleanly at any time.

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Microsoft is promising at least four brand new features inside the next release of Internet Explorer and fans of the browser could be treated to even more than that when the final product reaches the market.

The Redmond-based firm confirmed that it would definitely include Web Audio, Media Capture, ES6 Promises and HTTP/2 in the new version plus there is likely to be other features revealed closer to the release date.

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It's now a month since support for Windows XP came to an end, and we've already had our first exciting little post-XP incident. When a security flaw was discovered in Internet Explorer, an out-of-band patch was released for XP users despite Microsoft's previous claims that no more such updates would be issued. A month on seems like a good time to assess the lay of the land for the operating system, and that's precisely what security firm Secunia has done.

Looking at the install base for Windows XP, Secunia found that there has been an extremely steady decline in usage from the beginning of the year. According to Secunia's numbers, XP could be found on 22 percent of US PCs between January and December of 2013, but this dropped to 18 percent in the period January to February this year. It is possible that this marked drop could be attributed to people finally coming to terms with the idea that XP was no longer being supported and deciding to move on. But things start to slide further as we move into April.

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Are you familiar with the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf? Basically, a shepherd boy watching over some sheep thought it would be funny to lie and shout "Wolf!", as a joke. Ultimately, when a wolf really does come, no one believes him and all of the sheep are slaughtered.

Apparently, Microsoft is not aware of this story. The company has been proclaiming Windows XP to be dead and no longer supported over and over again, in an attempt to get users to upgrade. Windows 8.1 has even seen an increase in usage lately, possibly as a result. Today, the company announces that it will issue an Internet Explorer security update for Windows XP. If Microsoft is crying wolf, are XP users the slaughtered sheep?

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In a security alert released over the weekend, Microsoft warns of a serious vulnerability in Internet Explorer that could allow hackers to remotely take over a computer.

The vulnerability makes it possible to execute code remotely and affects Internet Explorer 6 through 11, which is around a quarter of the web browser market. XP users, who no longer receive security updates from Microsoft, are going to be the most at risk from this flaw. If you know someone still on the aging OS, now is the time to give them another nudge to switch to a newer, and safer, choice.

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Deceiving the user into downloading and installing malicious software is one of the most common ways of attacking endpoint systems.

A good web browser can be an effective aid in blocking these social engineering attempts and the latest research from NSS Labs looks at the leading contenders plus three browsers from China to see how good they are at keeping you safe.

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You are reading this article thanks to the World Wide Web ("the web"). Also responsible is the Internet. No, the Internet and the web are not the same thing. In basic terms, the Internet is the entire network of servers and computers -- the infrastructure. The web is a way of accessing those networks -- by using a web browser.

Both are equally important, but today marks the 25th birthday of the web. Yes, this means we are all getting old. To celebrate the occasion, the inventor of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has shared a blog post with Google.

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Unbelievably it’s been a year since Microsoft launched modern.IE, a collection of free tools designed to help reduce the amount of time web developers spend on testing their creations. modern.IE offers over 90 virtual machines, a code scanner, three months of BrowserStack, tech teardowns of Microsoft’s Rethink experiences (including NORAD Tracks Santa, Hover, Contre Jour) and more.

To coincide with its first anniversary, Microsoft announces that it has saved developers over a million hours. In case you’re wondering how the tech giant arrived at this rather massive figure, Jason McConnell, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft, explains:

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