Internet Explorer (IE) -- sometimes referred to as Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) -- is the most widely used World Wide Web browser. It is bundled with the Microsoft Windows operating system and can also be downloaded from Microsoft's Web site.
IE competes with other Web browsers, notably Firefox, an open source browser developed using the code from
Netscape Navigator. Netscape was famously purchased by AOL.
Internet Explorer has gone through seven versions and many patches in responses to targeted attacks on flaws in the programming of the application since its initial release.
The next iteration, IE7, offers users many of the features of competing browsers, including tabbed browsing, support for cascading style sheets, RSS feeds and the promise of increased security against malwareFirefox, Apple Computer's Safari, Opera and Mosaic, developed in 1993 and the original code base for Netscape's browser, Lynx.