Articles about Internet Explorer

Wow. You don’t mess with the EU antitrust regulators. This is something Microsoft has discovered to its cost after being landed with a 561 million euros ($731 million) fine for failing to promote a range of other browsers to Windows users in the European Union (EU).

As part of a settlement that followed an EU antitrust investigation back in 2009, Microsoft agreed to offer a Browser Choice Screen pop-up to European customers which would allow them to choose which browser they wanted to use -- rather than simply just forcing Internet Explorer on them. This followed an investigation triggered when Norwegian browser maker Opera complained that by bundling IE with Windows Microsoft was effectively killing the competition.

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Yesterday Microsoft, at long last, rolled out Internet Explorer version 10 for Windows 7 -- a browser that had been available to Windows 8 users since launch back on October 26, 2012. Today the software giant followed up with language packs for that new software release.

Each language pack comes as a separate download and is, of course, completely free. There are countless ones available from Afrikaans to Marathi and all the way through to isiZulu.

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Microsoft has released the first stable version of Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 (32-bit) and Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 (64-bit). The latest version of the browser -- which comes pre-installed in Windows 8 -- promises improved performance, better privacy and supports the latest web standards, plus adds integrated spell-checking and auto-correct tools.

Internet Explorer 10 in itself isn’t new -- it was bundled with Windows 8 on its release on October 26. However, it’s only now that Windows 7 users have been able to install a stable version of the software, although a Release Preview has been available since mid-November. Just as Internet Explorer 9 dropped support for Windows XP, so IE10 drops support for Windows Vista.

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Although it's Tuesday, it's not "Patch Tuesday", which means we shouldn't expect any updates from Microsoft, but the software giant is rolling out patches none-the-less. The updates are across a broad spectrum of platforms too -- Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server, and even Windows RT are included in this update.

Curiously, many of the Windows updates are listed as "non-security". The company generally only pushes out-of-cycle updates when there is a major security flaw that cannot wait for the next month. In the case of today's patches, many are listed as a fix for "issues in Windows".

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No, I did not say that Internet Explorer is the walking dead. However, Microsoft's web browser is partnered with the show's creator, Robert Kirkman, to bring the original comic book series, "Thief of Thieves", to life on your computer. In other words geek nirvana -- a comic book and a computer. This ranks up there with the Lego Android from last week.

Microsoft's Steve lake says this will be "an interactive online game based on the comic book series from Robert Kirkman and Skybound, his imprint at Image Comics. The site is a showcase of the new features in Internet Explorer 10, including full multi-touch capabilities and HTML5 support".

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Opera's decision to change rendering engines means three of the top five browsers will use Webkit. Internet Explorer stands alone, and that is the wrong place to be. In September 2009 post "Microsoft should dig deep into Webkit to keep Google from Framing IE", I suggested radical change, which unsurprisingly was ignored. Since, Chrome usage share grew from 2.9 percent in August 2009 to 17.84 percent in January 2013, according to Net Applications. Meanwhile, IE share fell from 66.97 percent to 55.14 percent.

But the real battleground, and where upstarts gobble up territory, is mobile -- yeah smartphones and tablets. While the category accounted for just 11.8 percent browser usage share in January, the majority is Webkit -- 61.02 percent just for Safari. Internet Explorer: 1.34 percent, or less than Chrome (2.02 percent). Android browser is 21.46 percent. As I expressed three-and-a-half years ago: "Microsoft should answer WebKit for WebKit, by releasing a new browser based on a new rendering engine; put on the IE brand and ship it for desktop and mobile". There's still time, but fast running out.

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Coming from Android or iOS, Windows Phone 8 is an eye-opening smartphone operating system. It sets the bar pretty high when it comes to looks and performance -- the design is simply beautiful and refreshing, and the software responsive and fluid -- but it never really manages to outshine its main rivals. After living with the HTC Windows Phone 8X for a while, I can't help but notice glaring oversights in an otherwise solid proposition. The package is not complete.

You see, being pretty and going fast does not cut it among the fierce world of Android and iOS. Microsoft needs to take a good look around and take charge by solving the shortcomings of Windows Phone 8. Fact is, it's easy to pick faults with the immature app selection, like many journalists do, but that's more of a chicken and egg problem. What the software giant has to do is build on the current platform by offering better basic functionality, functionality that's necessary for a greater user experience.

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Microsoft has started paying much closer attention to Internet Explorer recently. The company pushed out both IE9 and IE10 in fast succession and has been trying to entice back past users with its retro ad and The Browser You Loved To Hate campaign.

Now it wants to try and lure developers to the platform and has rolled out modern.ie, a new service to help make sure websites display as they should. The .ie extension, in case you are wondering, is Ireland's top-level domain.

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I remember clearly where I was the day Internet Explorer launched. It was 16 August 1995 and I was sitting in a room full of tech writers watching Bill Gates show off Microsoft’s new browser. And I recall thinking, "why would anyone want to use anything other than Netscape Navigator?"

I remember clearly, some years later, wondering why anyone would want to use a browser that wasn’t Internet Explorer when I first heard about Firebird (which later became Firefox), and then wondering a few years after that why anyone would want to use a browser that wasn’t Firefox when Chrome launched. Times, loyalties and browsers all change, and Microsoft is hoping to use nostalgia to persuade people who "grew up" with IE to give the browser another chance.

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Even though the perennial platform has passed its peak and is slowly replaced by more modern standards, Microsoft actively supports Flash in Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 8/RT. The browser can display Flash content, albeit on a limited number of websites. For those people who wish to enable it in non-supported locations, the Windows RT Flash Player Tool comes to the rescue without having to manually edit the whitelist.

Windows RT Flash Player Tool is designed for the Modern UI version of Internet Explorer 10 found in Windows 8 and Windows RT as well as the desktop variant for the tablet operating system. The tool, a BAT file with the necessary commands to automate the process on behalf of the user, goes about its business of enabling Flash support on non-supported websites by modifying the included whitelist that comprises of only Microsoft-approved entries by default.

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Patch Tuesday came and went last week without Microsoft addressing a glaring error -- a zero-day flaw in Internet Explorer versions 6 through 8 that attackers use to gain control of a computer. The defect did not affect IE versions 9 and 10, which have been called more secure by some experts.

Now the company is rolling out an uncharacteristic out-of-cycle patch to fix the bug. This follows a manual fix the company released earlier to help users of these legacy browsers protect themselves from attack.

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To Microsoft's credit, it knows it has to be constantly vigilant with its public image. Internet Explorer has been raked across the coals for years, and no matter what Microsoft does, people seem to be unhappy. This is not to say the browser hasn't earned a lot of this criticism with security vulnerabilities and web standards problems, but sometimes the relentless onslaught of negativity in web comment sections is too much to handle.

Microsoft's latest video shows that sometimes the best a company can hope for is for people to hate them less.

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When Microsoft first announced that Internet Explorer 10 would be part of Windows 8 most users assumed that this would also mean a release of the browser for the version 7 operating system. The first version of Internet Explorer 10 was released publicly with Windows 8's Developer Preview back in 2011, and then updated whenever new versions of preview builds released. Microsoft at that time was tight lipped about the future of IE10 for Windows 7

October 2012 came and brought along Windows 8's launch. It was in the week prior to the release of Windows 8 that the company shed some light on the future of IE10 for Windows 7. A blog post indicated that Microsoft had plans to release a  preview version for Windows 7 in November 2012.

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Microsoft has announced the availability of Internet Explorer 10 as a Release Preview edition, in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors, for Windows 7. (And yes, only Windows 7 users with SP1 installed need apply. Windows Vista and XP are left out of this one.) Changes are mostly under the hood, but the upgrade does deliver some major performance improvements which you may like to try.

In our first tests, the new Release Preview installed much like any other Windows update. It downloads a few files, and whirs for a while before demanding a reboot. Which takes a little longer than usual as various core files are replaced.

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Windows 8 ships with two versions of Internet Explorer 10. First, the regular version that runs on the desktop and packs all the features one would expect from a browser, and then the Start screen version of IE10, which is a plug-in free version that is limited in what you can do with it on the Internet and locally.

Microsoft has integrated Adobe's Flash Player natively into Internet Explorer 10, but there are again differences in the implementation between the desktop and start screen version of the browser.

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