Rolling off the production floor in October of 1997, IE4 was designed to run on Windows 95, 98 and Windows NT. In the first week of availability, the browser was downloaded over 1 million times
Netscape wasn't the only one taking IE seriously either, it was in version 3.0 that the first major exploit was discovered that was called the Princeton Word Macro Virus Loophole this exploit even has its own Facebook page. While IE did not surpass Netscape for marketshare, it did climb from 3%-9% in 1996 to upwards of 30% by the end of 1997. Notably, it was version 3 of Internet Explorer that caused Netscape to sit up and take notice. Another notable feature was that the browser could handle streaming audio without a third party application and included support for ActiveX and Java applets. There were many new features in 3.0 that included partial CSS support, Internet Mail and News 1.0, Windows Address book, Microsoft NetMeeting, Windows Media Player and it could also display JPEG and GIF files too. The iconic blue e made its debut in this version and at the time of development, the business unit had approximately 100 employees working on the browser. The 3rd installment of IE came nearly a year after Internet Explorer 1.0 launched and became available on August 13, 1996. In about three month’s time, the browser had cemented its place in history and was nearing the top of the most used browser on the market. This version was also the first cross platform version of the browser that supported both Windows and Macintosh with the Macintosh version landing in January of 1996. The second iteration of Internet Explorer landed in November of 1995 and featured support for SSL and Internet Newsgroups. It was not long after the initial launch of Internet Explorer that version 2.0 hit the market.
#INTERNET EXPLORER VERSIONS SOFTWARE#
Back then, it was not uncommon to pay for a web browser as it was viewed as premium software much like how we view Office today. Internet Explorer entered a market that is far different from what we have today.
#INTERNET EXPLORER VERSIONS FULL#
The original intent of Internet Explorer 1.0 was to help users connect to the web the Internet Explorer team only had about 6 people working on the product full time when it was first deployed.