Evolution of Internet Explorer | TechnoEnclave

Internet Explorer was introduced in 1995 by Microsoft and it has come a long way since then. It was initially released together with Windows 95 Plus Pack. I had browsed Internet using Internet Explorer 1.0 and I still remember the experience.

I had to dial a telephone number numerous times to establish connectivity. Once connected an icon will appear on the taskbar and I used to double click Internet Explorer 1.0. Internet Explorer’s roots dates back to a web browser developed in 1987 called Mosaic. It is the  first web browser to use a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Mosaic was eventually licensed to a company founded in 1990 called Spyglass.

In 1995, Spyglass licensed the completed source code for Mosaic to Microsoft. Internet Explorer was developed after this development and it has now become the most widely used web browser around the world.

Internet Explorer 1.0 to 7.0

Internet Explorer 1.0 was compatible with Windows 95 and the size of the installation package was around 1 MB. You can only surf the Internet as video or music files are not supported by Internet Explorer 1.0. Moreover, it was not possible to read newsgroups or even viewing graphics.

Internet Explorer 2.0 was released in 1995 and it was the first cross platform browser that supported both Windows 98 and Mac versions at that time. Microsoft introduced support for JavaScript, frames, cookies which facilitated the development of media rich websites.

Version 3.0 was introduced in 1996 and it shipped with Internet Mail, News and the ability to play audio files.

While IE 4.0 shipped with support for popup menus, dragging and Active desktop, Internet Explorer 5 included extra features for e-commerce transactions. Moreover, version 5 also shipped with support for bi-directional text, which is very important feature for international users who writes from right to left.

In 2001, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 6.0 with support for Images Toolbar, Auto Image Resize, Print Preview and Media Bar. Internet Explorer 7.0 arrived with more features such as Private browsing capability and increased security features.

In short, Internet Explorer is one of the most popular browsers used by nearly 90% of the web population.