Internet Explorer; The Past & The Future
67.5% of all people using the Internet are using Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Some time over the next year, Microsoft will finally unveil the brand new IE7 which promises to fix many of the nightmares it's predecessors give us.
Brief History
Like many of Microsoft's flagship products, IE was originally written by another company. NCSA developed Spyglass Mosaic way back in 1992. After Netscape launched it's browser in 1994, Microsoft decided to enter the ring and brought a licence from NCSA to use Spyglass as a basis for their own browser. In 1995 IE v1.0 was released along with an Internet pack for Windows 95. After that moment things rolled on fairly smoothly (ignoring the odd law-suit) to reach the application that is IE 6.0. However, during IE's development many items that are part of the W3C's specifications on web brewers were ignored by Microsoft. Instead they concentrated on developing their own more 'superior' functions of IE. This has caused web developers headaches beyond anything you can imagine. To make site confirm to accessibility guidelines, good practice guidelines and getting it to look good would often force the designers to break the golden rules of HTML. There are thousands of websites designed for the sole purpose of giving developers code that gets around the problems that IE has. Why did Microsoft decide not to conform to all the web standards created by W3C and followed by the other browsers? No one knows.
IE 7
The first version of IE 7 was released over the summer. It gave a select number of developers the chance to use the new interface. There are a vast list of fixes the IE development team claim to have fixed. They have actually sat up and started listening to the people who have to use their products every day and this can only be a good thing. They have also massively expanded IE's support for new users and vastly improved the security that it currently provides it's users.
- Dynamic security protection through a simplified architecture that defends against malware, and new dynamic ways to protect against personal data theft from fraudulent Web sites (a practice known as "phishing").
- Improved design to make everyday tasks easier and faster, with better navigation through tabbed browsing; inline search right from the toolbar; shrink-to-fit Web page printing; and a streamlined, redesigned user interface (currently in its early stages in Beta 1).
- New tools to take you directly to the information you want through support for Web feeds (RSS) that includes automatic discovery of web feeds (RSS) on Web pages, basic Web Feed (RSS) reading capabilities, and basic support for saving Web feeds (RSS) as a new kind of favourite.
- Platform enhancements for developers to improve compatibility and manageability, including improved support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) as well as transparent PNG support.
- Tabbed browsing
- RSS integration
- Full alpha transparency PNG support
- CSS bug fixes and enhancements
- Protected Mode (formerly known as Low Rights IE)
- Anti-phishing features
- Inline search box
- Support for XP SP2 and newer versions of Windows, including Vista. Not compatible with versions lower than XP SP2
- Printing improvements
