Internet Explorer 6 is the sixth major revision of Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
for Windows operating systems. It was released on August 27, 2001, shortly after the completion of Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005...
Windows NT 4.0 is a preemptive, graphical and business-oriented operating system designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor computers. It was the next release of Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on 31 July 1996...
Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid...
Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006....
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
. IE6 SP1 is the last version of Internet Explorer available for Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows Me, and Windows 2000. Although IE6 has now been superseded by newer versions of Internet Explorer, Microsoft still supports it in Windows XP SP3.
This version of Internet Explorer is widely criticized for its security issues and lack of support for modern web standards, making frequent appearances in "worst tech products of all time" lists, with some publications labeling it as the "least secure software on the planet." Because a substantial percentage of the web audience still uses the outdated browser, campaigns have been established to encourage users to upgrade to newer versions of Internet Explorer or switch to different browsers. Some websites have dropped support for IE6 entirely, most notable of which is Google dropping support in some of its services.
Over ten years after its release, it continues to receive patches for security vulnerabilities.
Overview
When Internet Explorer 6 was released, it included a number of enhancements over its predecessor, Internet Explorer 5.5
Internet Explorer 5
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 was a graphical web browser released in March 1999 by Microsoft, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but initially with versions available for Apple Macintosh, Sun Solaris, and HP-UX. It was one of the main participants of the first browser war...
A web browser engine, , is a software component that takes marked up content and formatting information and displays the formatted content on the screen. It "paints" on the content area of a window, which is displayed on a monitor or a printer...
Trident is the name of the layout engine for the Microsoft Windows version of Internet Explorer.It was first introduced with the release of Internet Explorer version 4.0 in October 1997; it has been steadily upgraded and remains in use today...
are required for many programs including Microsoft Encarta. IE6 improved support for Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
, adding support for a number of properties which previously had not been implemented and fixing bugs such as the Internet Explorer box model bug
Internet Explorer box model bug
The Internet Explorer box model bug refers to the way in which earlier versions of Internet Explorer handle the sizing of elements in a web page, which differs from the standard way recommended by the W3C for the Cascading Style Sheets language...
. In Windows XP, IE6 introduced a redesigned interface based on the operating system's default theme, Luna.
In addition, IE6 added DHTML enhancements, content restricted inline frames, and partial support of DOM
Document Object Model
The Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
SMIL , the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, is a W3C recommended XML markup language for describing multimedia presentations. It defines markup for timing, layout, animations, visual transitions, and media embedding, among other things...
Microsoft XML Core Services is a set of services that allow applications written in JScript, VBScript, and Microsoft development tools to build Windows-native XML-based applications...
Internet Explorer Administration Kit , was an add-on to Internet Explorer to let an organization customize IE for their needs, released by Microsoft. Knowledge of the IEAK is tested on for MCSE...
IExpress is a Microsoft utility bundled with various editions of Windows operating systems : Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7...
An INF file or Setup Information file, is a plain text file used by Microsoft Windows for installation of software and drivers. INF files are most commonly used for installing device drivers for hardware components. Windows includes IExpress.exe for the creation of INF-based installations...
Windows Messenger is a client by Microsoft that is included in the Windows XP operating system. Designed for use by corporate users as well as home users, it was originally created as a streamlined and integrated version of MSN Messenger...
integration, fault collection, automatic image resizing, and P3P
P3P
The Platform for Privacy Preferences Project, or P3P, is a protocol allowing websites to declare their intended use of information they collect about browsing users...
. Meanwhile, IE6 dropped support for XBM image files, and in 2002, the Gopher protocol was disabled.
The usage share of a web browser is the proportion, often expressed as a percentage, of users of all web browsers who use that particular browser. This figure can only be estimated, typically by determining the proportion of visitors to a group of websites that use a particular web browser...
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 was a graphical web browser released in March 1999 by Microsoft, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but initially with versions available for Apple Macintosh, Sun Solaris, and HP-UX. It was one of the main participants of the first browser war...
. At its peak in 2002 and 2003, IE6 attained a total market share of nearly 90%, with all versions of IE combined reaching 95%. There was little change in IE's market share for several years, until Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
was released and gradually began to gain popularity. Microsoft subsequently resumed development of Internet Explorer and released Internet Explorer 7
Internet Explorer 7
Windows Internet Explorer 7 is a web browser released by Microsoft in October 2006. Internet Explorer 7 is part of a long line of versions of Internet Explorer and was the first major update to the browser in more than 5 years...
, further reducing the number of IE6 users.
In a May 7, 2003 Microsoft online chat, Brian Countryman, Internet Explorer Program Manager, declared that Internet Explorer would cease to be distributed separately from Windows (IE 6 would be the last standalone version); it would, however, be continued as a part of the evolution of Windows, with updates coming only bundled in Windows upgrades. Thus, Internet Explorer and Windows itself would be kept more in sync. However, after one release in this fashion (IE6 SP2 in Windows XP SP2, in August 2004), Microsoft changed its plan and released Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1 in late 2006.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 was the last version of Internet Explorer to have "Microsoft" in the title: later versions changed branding to "Windows Internet Explorer", as a reaction to the findings of anti-competitive tying of Internet Explorer and Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
United States v. Microsoft was a set of civil actions filed against Microsoft Corporation pursuant to the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 Section 1 and 2 on May 8, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states. Joel I. Klein was the lead prosecutor...
and the European Union Microsoft competition case.
In March 2011, Microsoft urged web users to stop using IE6 in favor of newer versions of Internet Explorer.
Net Applications is a web analytics firm. The company is commonly known in the web browser development and technology news communities for its global market share statistics.-Net Applications History:...
An Internet Explorer shell is any computer software that uses the Trident rendering engine of the Internet Explorer web browser. Although the term "Trident shell" is probably more accurate for describing these applications , the term "Internet Explorer shell", or "IE shell", is in common parlance...
Windows Internet Explorer 7 is a web browser released by Microsoft in October 2006. Internet Explorer 7 is part of a long line of versions of Internet Explorer and was the first major update to the browser in more than 5 years...
Windows Internet Explorer 8 is a web browser developed by Microsoft in the Internet Explorer browser series. The browser was released on March 19, 2009 for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7. Both 32-bit and 64-bit builds are available...
Windows Internet Explorer 9 is the current version of the Internet Explorer web browser from Microsoft. It was released to the public on March 14, 2011 at 21:00 PDT. Internet Explorer 9 supports several CSS 3 properties, embedded ICC v2 or v4 color profiles support via Windows Color System, and...
Secunia is a Danish computer security service provider best known for tracking vulnerabilities in a large variety of software and operating systems.Numbers of "unpatched" vulnerabilities in popular applications are frequently quoted in software comparisons....
reported an outstanding 24 unpatched vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 6 as of February 9, 2010. These vulnerabilities, which include several "moderately critical" ratings, amount to 17% of the total 144 security risks listed on the website as of February 11, 2010.
Although security patches continue to be released for a range of platforms, most recent feature additions and security improvements were released for Windows XP only.
As of June 23, 2006, Secunia counted 20 unpatched security flaws for Internet Explorer 6, many more and older than for any other browser, even in each individual criticality-level, although some of these flaws only affect Internet Explorer when running on certain versions of Windows or when running in conjunction with certain other applications.
On June 23, 2004, an attacker used two previously undiscovered security holes in Internet Explorer to insert spam
E-mail spam
Email spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email , is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE...
-sending software on an unknown number of end-user computers. This malware
Malware
Malware, short for malicious software, consists of programming that is designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, or gain unauthorized access to system resources, or that otherwise exhibits abusive behavior...
In computing, Download.ject is a malware program for Microsoft Windows servers. When installed on an insecure website running on Microsoft Internet Information Services , it appends malicious JavaScript to all pages served by the site.Download.ject was the first noted case in which users of...
and it caused users to infect their computers with a back door and key logger
Keystroke logging
Keystroke logging is the action of tracking the keys struck on a keyboard, typically in a covert manner so that the person using the keyboard is unaware that their actions are being monitored...
merely by viewing a web page. Infected sites included several financial sites.
Probably the biggest generic security failing of Internet Explorer (and other web browsers too) is the fact that it runs with the same level of access as the logged in user, rather than adopting the principle of least user access. Consequently any malware executing in the Internet Explorer process
Process (computing)
In computing, a process is an instance of a computer program that is being executed. It contains the program code and its current activity. Depending on the operating system , a process may be made up of multiple threads of execution that execute instructions concurrently.A computer program is a...
In computer security, a vulnerability is a weakness which allows an attacker to reduce a system's information assurance.Vulnerability is the intersection of three elements: a system susceptibility or flaw, attacker access to the flaw, and attacker capability to exploit the flaw...
(e.g. Download.ject in the example above) has the same level of access as the user, something that has particular relevance when that user is an Administrator
System administrator
A system administrator, IT systems administrator, systems administrator, or sysadmin is a person employed to maintain and operate a computer system and/or network...
. Tools such as DropMyRights are able to address this issue by restricting the security token of the Internet Explorer process to that of a limited user. However this added level of security is not installed or available by default, and does not offer a simple way to elevate privileges
Privilege (Computing)
In computing, privilege is defined as the delegation of authority over a computer system. A privilege is a permission to perform an action. Examples of various privileges include the ability to create a file in a directory, or to read or delete a file, access a device, or have read or write...
ad-hoc when required (for example to access Microsoft Update).
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team is part of the National Cyber Security Division of the United States' Department of Homeland Security....
(US-CERT) noted in a vulnerability report that the design of Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 made it difficult to secure. He stated that:
There are a number of significant vulnerabilities in technologies relating to the IE domain/zone security model, local file system (Local Machine Zone) trust, the Dynamic HTML (DHTML) document object model (in particular, proprietary DHTML features), the HTML Help system, MIME type determination, the graphical user interface (GUI), and ActiveX. … IE is integrated into Windows to such an extent that vulnerabilities in IE frequently provide an attacker significant access to the operating system.
Manion later clarified that most of these concerns were addressed in 2004 with the release of Windows XP Service Pack 2, and other browsers have now begun to suffer the same vulnerabilities he identified in the above CERT report.
Many security analysts attribute Internet Explorer's frequency of exploitation in part to its ubiquity, since its market dominance makes it the most obvious target. However, some critics argue that this is not the full story, noting that Apache HTTP Server
Apache HTTP Server
The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million website milestone...
, for example, had a much larger market share than Microsoft IIS, yet Apache had traditionally had fewer (and generally less serious) security vulnerabilities than IIS, at the time.
As a result of its many problems, some security experts, including Bruce Schneier
Bruce Schneier
Bruce Schneier is an American cryptographer, computer security specialist, and writer. He is the author of several books on general security topics, computer security and cryptography, and is the founder and chief technology officer of BT Managed Security Solutions, formerly Counterpane Internet...
, recommend that users stop using Internet Explorer for normal browsing, and switch to a different browser instead.
Several notable technology columnists have suggested the same, including The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
's Walt Mossberg, and eWeek's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. On July 6, 2004, US-CERT released an exploit report in which the last of seven workarounds was to use a different browser, especially when visiting untrusted sites.
Market share
It was the most widely used web browser during its tenure (surpassing Internet Explorer 5.x
Internet Explorer 5
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 was a graphical web browser released in March 1999 by Microsoft, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but initially with versions available for Apple Macintosh, Sun Solaris, and HP-UX. It was one of the main participants of the first browser war...
), attaining a peak in usage share during 2002 and 2003 in the high 80s, and together with other versions up to 95%. It only slowly declined up to 2007, when it lost about half its market share to Windows Internet Explorer 7
Internet Explorer 7
Windows Internet Explorer 7 is a web browser released by Microsoft in October 2006. Internet Explorer 7 is part of a long line of versions of Internet Explorer and was the first major update to the browser in more than 5 years...
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
between late 2006 to 2008.
IE6 remained more popular than its successor in business use for more than a year after IE7 came out. A 2008 DailyTech article noted, "A Survey found 55.2% of companies still use IE 6 as of December 2007", while "IE 7 only has a 23.4 percent adoption rate".
Net Applications estimated IE6 market share at almost 39% for September, 2008. According to the same source, IE7 users migrate faster to IE8 than users of its predecessor IE6 does. This led to IE6 once again becoming the most widely used browser version. During the summer and fall of 2009 and 8 years after its introduction, IE6 once again held the top spot in terms of browser market share.
As of February 2010, estimates of IE6's global market share ranged from 10-20%. Nonetheless, IE6 continues to maintain a plurality or even majority presence in the browser market of certain countries, notably China and South Korea.
Google Apps is a service from Google providing independently customizable versions of several Google products under a custom domain name. It features several Web applications with similar functionality to traditional office suites, including: Gmail, Google Groups, Google Calendar, Talk, Docs and...
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
dropped support for IE6 in March 2010, followed by Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
chat in September.
Criticism
A common criticism of Internet Explorer is of the speed at which fixes are released after discovery of the security problems.
Microsoft attributes the perceived delays to rigorous testing. A posting to the Internet Explorer team blog on August 17, 2004 explained that there are, at minimum, 234 distinct releases of Internet Explorer that Microsoft supports (covering more than two dozen languages, and several different revisions of the operating system and browser level for each language), and that every combination is tested before a patch is released.
In May 2006, PC World
PC World (magazine)
PC World is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal-technology products and services...
rated Internet Explorer 6 the eighth worst tech product of all time. A certain degree of complacency has been alleged against Microsoft over IE6. With near 90% of the browser market the motive for innovation was not strongly present, resulting in the 5 year time between the IE6's introduction and its replacement with IE7. This was a contributing factor for the rapid rise of the free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
.
Unlike most other browsers currently in use, IE6 does not fully nor properly support CSS version 2, which makes it difficult for web developers to ensure compatibility with the browser without degrading the experience for users of more modern browsers. Developers often have to resort to strategies such as CSS hacks
CSS filter
A CSS filter is a coding technique used to hide or show CSS markup depending on the browser, version number, or capabilities. Browsers have different interpretations of CSS behavior and different levels of support for the W3C standards...
Browser sniffing is a technique used in websites and web applications in order to determine the web browser a visitor is using, and to serve browser-appropriate content to the visitor. This practice is sometimes utilized to circumvent incompatibilities between browsers in areas such as the...
to make their websites work in IE6.
Additionally, IE6 lacks support for alpha transparency in PNG images, instead of removing all transparency and displaying the image with a solid colour background (grey unless defined in a PNG bKGD chunk). There is a workaround by way of Microsoft's proprietary AlphaImageLoader, but it is more complicated to use and not wholly comparable in function.
Internet Explorer 6 has also been criticized due to its instability. For example, the following code on a website would cause a program crash in IE6:
or
The user could crash the browser with a single line of code in the address bar, causing a pointer overflow.
ms-its:%F0:
There are several campaigns aiming to rid Internet Explorer 6, which is still used by 9.22% of Internet surfers, from the browser market:
In July 2008, 37signals announced it would phase out support for IE6 beginning October 2008.
In February 2009, some Norwegian sites began hosting campaigns with the same aim.
In March 2009, a Danish anti-IE6 campaign was launched.
In January 2010, the German Government, and subsequently the French Government each advised their citizens to move away from IE6.
Also in January 2010, Google announced it would no longer support IE6.
In February 2010, British citizens began to petition their Government to stop using IE6., but this was rejected by the Government in July 2010.
In March 2010, in agreement with the EU, Microsoft began prompting users of Internet Explorer 6 in the EU with a ballot screen in which they are presented with a list of browsers in random order to select and upgrade to. The website is located at BrowserChoice.eu
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
; however, with large company IT support teams forcing staff to use IE6, it is unlikely Microsoft will completely remove support for the aging browser any time in the near future. Microsoft has themselves, despite admitting to some of its many flaws, stated that they will support IE6 until Windows XP SP3 support is removed, meaning IE6 will be officially supported until 2014, 13 years after its release. However they have now started their own campaign to encourage users to stop using IE6.
Security framework
Internet Explorer uses a zone-based security framework, which means that sites are grouped based upon certain conditions. IE allows the restriction of broad areas of functionality, and also allows specific functions to be restricted. The administration of Internet Explorer is accomplished through the Internet Properties control panel. This utility also administers the Internet Explorer framework as it is implemented by other applications.
Patches and updates to the browser are released periodically and made available through Windows Update
Windows Update
Windows Update is a service provided by Microsoft that provides updates for the Microsoft Windows operating system and its installed components, including Internet Explorer...
web site. Windows XP Service Pack 2 adds several important security features to Internet Explorer, including a popup blocker and additional security for ActiveX controls. ActiveX support remains in Internet Explorer although access to the "Local Machine Zone" is denied by default since Service Pack 2. However, once an ActiveX control runs and is authorized by the user, it can gain all the privileges of the user, instead of being granted limited privileges as Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
version of IE 7, which supported running the browser in a low-permission mode, making malware unable to run unless expressly granted permission by the user.
Quirks mode
Internet Explorer 6 dropped Compatibility Mode, which allowed Internet Explorer 4
Internet Explorer 4
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 is a graphical web browser released in September 1997 by Microsoft, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but also with versions available for Apple Mac OS, Solaris, and HP-UX and marketed as "The Web the Way You Want It".It was one of the main participants of the first...
to be run side by side with 5.x. Instead, IE6 introduced quirks mode, which causes it to emulate many behaviors of IE 5.5. Rather than being activated by the user, quirks mode is automatically and silently activated when viewing web pages that contain an old or invalid DOCTYPE (or none at all). This feature was later added to all other major browsers to maximize compatibility with old or poorly-coded web pages.
Windows NT 4.0 is a preemptive, graphical and business-oriented operating system designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor computers. It was the next release of Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on 31 July 1996...
Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid...
Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006....
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005...
. The Service Pack 1 update supports all of these versions, but Security Version 1 is only available as part Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and later service packs for those versions. Versions after Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
Windows Internet Explorer 7 is a web browser released by Microsoft in October 2006. Internet Explorer 7 is part of a long line of versions of Internet Explorer and was the first major update to the browser in more than 5 years...
and higher only.
Release history
Major version
Minor version
Release date
Significant changes
Shipped with
Version 6
6.0 Beta 1
March 22, 2001
More CSS changes and bug fixes to be more W3C-compliant.
Smart tags are an early selection-based search feature found in later versions of Microsoft Word, and beta versions of the Internet Explorer 6 web browser by which the application recognizes certain words or types of data and converts it to a hyperlink. Selection-based search allows a user to...
feature, which was introduced in the beta. Support ended on September 30, 2004.
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
6.0 SP1
September 9, 2002
Vulnerability patch. Last version supported on Windows NT 4.0 SP6a, 98, 2000 or Me. Support ended on October 10, 2006.
Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005...
6.0 SP2
August 25, 2004
Vulnerability patch. Popup/ActiveX blocker. Add-on manager. Support ended on July 13, 2010.
Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1
6.0 SP3
April 21, 2008
Latest updates included with XP SP3. Supported until April 8, 2014.
Windows XP SP3
System requirements
IE6 requires at least (with added requirements for XP by IE6 SP1):
Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid...
Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid...
Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006....
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006....
Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
The history of the Internet starts in the 1950s and 1960s with the development of computers. This began with point-to-point communication between mainframe computers and terminals, expanded to point-to-point connections between computers and then early research into packet switching...
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of web browsers. Please see the individual products' articles for further information.-Historical web browsers:...
A time line of web browsers from the early 1990s to the present. Prior to browsers, many technologies and systems existed for information viewing and transmission...
