Microsoft Internet Explorer 2 is a graphical
web browserA 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...
released on November 22, 1995 by
MicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is a multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices...
for
Windows 95Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
and
Windows NTWindows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was originally designed to be a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was...
and in April 1996 for Apple Macintosh (see
IE for MacInternet Explorer for Mac was a proprietary web browser developed by Microsoft for the Macintosh platform. Initial versions were developed from the same code base as Internet Explorer for Windows...
) and
Windows 3.1Windows 3.1x is a series of 16-bit operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers. The series began with Windows 3.1, which was first sold during March 1992 as a successor to Windows 3.0...
. Version 2.0 featured support for SSL,
cookiesIn computing, a cookie is a small piece of text stored on a user's computer by a web browser...
,
VRMLVRML is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind...
, and Internet
newsgroupA usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations. The term may be confusing to some, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on...
s.
Version 2 was also included in Microsoft's
Internet Starter Kit for Windows 95. In addition to being sold in the starter kit, Internet Explorer 2 was the first version to be included in OEM Service Release (OSR) versions of Windows; it was bundled with
Windows 95Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
OSR 1.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 2 is a graphical
web browserA 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...
released on November 22, 1995 by
MicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is a multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices...
for
Windows 95Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
and
Windows NTWindows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was originally designed to be a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was...
and in April 1996 for Apple Macintosh (see
IE for MacInternet Explorer for Mac was a proprietary web browser developed by Microsoft for the Macintosh platform. Initial versions were developed from the same code base as Internet Explorer for Windows...
) and
Windows 3.1Windows 3.1x is a series of 16-bit operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers. The series began with Windows 3.1, which was first sold during March 1992 as a successor to Windows 3.0...
. Version 2.0 featured support for SSL,
cookiesIn computing, a cookie is a small piece of text stored on a user's computer by a web browser...
,
VRMLVRML is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind...
, and Internet
newsgroupA usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations. The term may be confusing to some, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on...
s.
Version 2 was also included in Microsoft's
Internet Starter Kit for Windows 95. In addition to being sold in the starter kit, Internet Explorer 2 was the first version to be included in OEM Service Release (OSR) versions of Windows; it was bundled with
Windows 95Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
OSR 1. There were 16-bit and 32-bit versions depending on the OS. Version 2.1 came out for Macintosh in August 1996, the same month version 2 for Windows was superseded by Microsoft
Internet Explorer 3Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 is a graphical web browser released on August 13, 1996 by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and on January 8, 1997 for Apple Mac OS . It began serious competition against Netscape Navigator in the first Browser war...
, which was heavily changed from version 2.
Version 2 launched with twelve languages including English but this expanded to 24 for Windows 95, 20 for Windows 3.1, and 9 for the Macintosh by April 1996. The 2.0i version supported double-byte character-set. It lacked many features that became common in later IE versions, including the Blue 'e' logo, integration with
Windows ExplorerWindows Explorer is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file systems. It is also the component of the operating system that presents the user interface...
, and bundled programs. Its market share was also much lower than later versions. During its tenure, IE market share only went up to about roughly 3-9% by mid 1996, before IE3 came out.
History
Internet Explorer version 2 was released in beta in October 1995, only 2 months after version 1 came out in
Microsoft Plus!Microsoft Plus! was a commercial operating system enhancement product by Microsoft. The last edition is the Plus! SuperPack, which includes an assortment of screensavers, themes, and games, as well as multimedia applications...
for 95 that August. It was released for Windows 95 and
Windows NT 3.5Windows NT 3.5 is the second release of the Microsoft Windows NT operating system. It was released on 21 September 1994.One of the primary goals during Windows NT 3.5's development was to increase the speed of the operating system; as a result, the project was given the codename "Daytona" in...
in November 1995 and was bundled with
NT 4.0Windows 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...
in July 1996. The Beta for Mac on
PowerPCPowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM. Originally intended for personal computers, PowerPC CPUs have since become popular embedded and high-performance processors...
came out in January, and the finalized version in April for
68kThe Motorola 680x0/m68k/68k/68K is a family of 32-bit CISC microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and were the primary competitors of Intel's x86 microprocessors. Although no modern desktop computers are based on the 68k,...
and PowerPC. Version 2 featured support for SSL, cookies,
VRMLVRML is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind...
,
RSAIn cryptography, RSA is an algorithm for public-key cryptography. It is the first algorithm known to be suitable for signing as well as encryption, and one of the first great advances in public key cryptography...
, and
Internet newsgroupsUsenet, a portmanteau of "user" and "network" , is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It evolved from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name....
. Version 2 was also the first release for Windows 3.1 and Macintosh
System 7.0.1System 7 is the name of a Macintosh operating system introduced in 1991.System 7 may also refer to:* System 7 , a British dance/ambient band* System 7 , 1991 album* IBM System/7, a 1970s computer system...
(PPC or 68k), although the Mac version was not released until January 1996 for PPC, and April for 68k. Version 2.1 for the Mac came out in August of 1996. Version 2 was included in Windows 95 OSR 1 and Microsoft's
Internet Starter Kit for Windows 95 in early 1996, It launched with twelve languages including English but this expanded to 24, 20, and 9 for Win 95, Win 3.1 and Mac respectively by April 1996. The 2.0i version supported double-byte character-set.
The Mac version supported the embedding of a number of multimedia formats into web pages, including
AVIAvi may refer to:* Avi , the pen name of children's author Edward Irving WortisAVI may refer to:* Audio Video Interleave, a multimedia container format* Judged By Your Work Party* AVI Foodsystems, Inc., a foodservice company...
and
QuickTimeQuickTime is a multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, media clips, sound, text, animation, music, and interactive panoramic images. It is available for Mac OS classic , Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems...
formatted video and
AIFFAudio Interchange File Format is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data for personal computers and other electronic audio devices...
and
WAVWAV , short for Waveform audio format, also known as Audio for Windows, is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is an application of the RIFF bitstream format method for storing data in “chunks”, and thus is also close to the 8SVX and the AIFF...
formatted audio. The non-beta final version was released three months later on April 23 1996. Version 2.1 fixed bugs and improving stability, but also added a few features such as support for the
NPAPINetscape Plugin Application Programming Interface is a cross-platform plugin architecture used by many web browsers.It was first developed for the Netscape family of browsers starting with Netscape Navigator 2.0 but has subsequently been implemented in other browsers including Mozilla Application...
(the first version of Internet Explorer on any platform to do so) and support for
QuickTime VRQuickTime VR is a type of image file format supported by Apple's QuickTime. It allows the creation and viewing of photographically captured panoramas and the exploration of objects through images taken at multiple viewing angles...
.
AOLAmerica Online, LLC is an American global Internet services and media company operated by Time Warner. It is headquartered at 770 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City...
3.0 for Macintosh used the IE 2.1 rendering engine in its built-in web browser. The various 16 and 32 bit versions largely depended on the OS although Windows NT would use the 16 bit versions for Windows 3.1.
IE replicated many of the quirks of
Netscape NavigatorNetscape Navigator and Netscape are the names for the proprietary web browser popular in the 1990s, and the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corporation, and the dominant web browser in terms of usage share. Yet by 2002 its users had almost disappeared...
, and allowed importing bookmarks from it. In May 1996
FTP SoftwareFTP Software was a software company incorporated in 1986 by James van Bokkelen, John Romkey , Nancy Connor, Roxanne van Bokkelen , Dave Bridgham and several other founding shareholders. It was the first of many companies to name themselves after an Internet protocol...
announced it was providing Microsoft with various technology for
Internet ExplorerWindows 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...
2.0 for Windows 3.1, including a PPP network, 16-bit email client, and other technology.
Features
IE2 introduced new or improved features for its time period. Many soon became ubiquitous (such as cookies) while other features became obsolete.
- Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol
- HTTP cookies
- Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML)
- Internet newsgroups (NNTP
The Network News Transfer Protocol is an Internet application protocol used for transporting Usenet news articles between news servers and for reading and posting articles by end user client applications...
)
- JavaScript
JavaScript is an object-oriented scripting language used to enable programmatic access to objects within both the client application and other applications. It is primarily used in the form of client-side JavaScript, implemented as an integrated component of the web browser, allowing the...
support
- HTML Frames element support
Windows
| Major version |
Minor version |
Release date |
Significant changes |
Shipped with |
| Version 2 |
2.0 Beta |
October 1995 |
Support of HTML tables and other elements. |
|
| 2.0 |
November 22, 1995 |
SSL, cookies, VRML, and Internet newsgroups. |
Windows NT 4.0Windows 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 95 OSR1 Internet Starter Kit |
| 2.01 |
|
Bug fix release. |
|
Mac
| Major version |
Minor version |
Release date |
Significant changes |
| Version 2 |
Version 2.0 Beta |
January 23 1996 |
Beta for PPC only |
| Version 2.0 |
April 23 1996 |
PPC and 68k Supported |
| Version 2.1 |
August 1996 |
Bug fixes; NPAPI Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface is a cross-platform plugin architecture used by many web browsers.It was first developed for the Netscape family of browsers starting with Netscape Navigator 2.0 but has subsequently been implemented in other browsers including Mozilla Application...
support |
External links