What is Internet Explorer....

here are some info i have search, i hope this will help Windows Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer) is a series of proprietary graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems starting in 1995. After the first release for Windows 95, additional versions of Internet Explorer were developed for 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). Only the Windows version remains in active development; the Mac OS X version is no longer supported. It has been the most widely used web browser since 1999, peaking at nearly 90% market share with IE6 in the early 2000s—corresponding to over 900 million users worldwide by 2006.[1][2] Though released in 1995 as part of the initial OEM release of Windows 95, Internet Explorer was not included in the first retail, or shrink-wrap, release of Windows 95. The most recent release is version 7.0, which is available as a free update for Windows XP with Service Pack 2, and Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1, and is included with Windows Vista. Versions of Internet Explorer prior to 6.0 SP2 are also available as a separate download for versions of Windows prior to Windows XP. An embedded OEM version called Internet Explorer for Windows CE (IE CE) is also available for WinCE based platforms and is currently based on IE6. Another Windows CE/ Windows Mobile browser known as Pocket Internet Explorer is from a different codebase and should not be confused with desktop versions of the browser. [edit] Internet Explorer 7 Main article: Internet Explorer 7 On February 15, 2005, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced that the new version of its browser would be released at the RSA Conference 2005 in San Francisco.[7] The decision to update the browser occurred in the wake of declining market share due to the spread of the Mozilla Firefox browser. Microsoft also stated that Internet Explorer 7 is available only for Windows XP SP2 and later, including Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows Vista. The first beta version of the browser was released on July 27, 2005 for technical testing, and a first public preview version of Internet Explorer 7 (Beta 2 preview: Pre-Beta 2 version) was released on January 31, 2006. The final public version was released on October 18, 2006. Version 7 is intended to defend users from phishing as well as deceptive or malicious software, and it also features full user control of ActiveX and better security framework, including not being integrated as much with Windows[8] as previous versions, thereby increasing security. It also includes important bug fixes, enhancements to support the web standards, improvements in HTML 4.01/CSS 2, Tabbed Browsing with Tab preview and management, a multiple engine search box, a web feeds reader, Internationalized Domain Name support (IDN), and Antiphishing filter. The new version also blocks applets such as Flash movies and Java. Features Main article: Features of Internet Explorer Internet Explorer has been designed to view the broadest range of web pages and to provide certain features within the operating system, including Microsoft Update. During the heydays of the historic browser wars, Internet Explorer superseded Netscape by supporting many of the progressive features of the time[citation needed]. [edit] Component architecture The Component Object Model (COM) technology is used extensively in Internet Explorer. It allows third parties to add functionality via Browser Helper Objects (BHO); and allows websites to offer rich content via ActiveX. As these objects can have the same privileges as the browser itself (in certain situations), there is a concern over security. Recent versions of Internet Explorer provide an Add-on Manager for controlling ActiveX controls and Browser Helper Objects and a "No Add-Ons" version (Under Programs/Accessories/System Tools). [edit] Usability and accessibility 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 (although this feature requires a shell window to be opened in recent versions of the browser, rather than natively within the browser). VBA is not supported, but available via extension (iMacros). Recent versions feature pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing. Tabbed browsing can also be added to older versions by installing Microsoft's MSN Search Toolbar. [edit] 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 the Windows Update service, as well as through Automatic Updates. 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. Recent versions of Internet Explorer provide Download Monitoring and Install Monitoring allowing users the choice of whether or not to download and install executables, in two stages. This helps to prevent installation of malware. Executable files downloaded using Internet Explorer are marked by the operating system as being potentially unsafe, and will prompt the user to confirm they want to run the executable every time, until the user confirms the file is "safe". [edit] Group Policy Internet Explorer is fully configurable using Group Policy. Administrators of Windows Server domains can apply and enforce a variety of settings that affect the user interface (such as disabling menu items and individual configuration options), as well as underlying security features such as downloading of files, zone configuration, per-site settings, ActiveX control behavior, and others. Policy settings can be configured on a per-user and per-machine basis. [edit] Standards support Internet Explorer, using the Trident layout engine, 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. XML support brings with it support for XHTML, however Microsoft has buried this support since IE 5.0 making it difficult to access. Like other browsers it can consume XHTML when served as MIME type “text/html”. It can also consume XHTML as XML when served as MIME types “application/xml” and “text/xml”, however this requires a small XSLT measure[9] to re-enable the XHTML as XML support. It pretends to not comprehend XHTML when vended in the preferred type as “application/xhtml+xml” and instead treats it as an unfamiliar file type for download. 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 on screen (for printing Internet Explorer always uses standards mode). 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. [edit] 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

It's hard to believe somebody doesn't what Internet Explorer is. =) Anyways, it is Microsoft's flagship internet browser. Most people use it. But I don't. And by the way, that image is of Firefox, not Internet Explorer. =/