Internet Explorer 6 - Overview

Overview

When IE6 was released, it included a number of enhancements over its predecessor, Internet Explorer 5. It and its layout engine Trident are required for many programs including Microsoft Encarta. IE6 improved support for Cascading Style Sheets, adding support for a number of properties which previously had not been implemented and fixing bugs such as the Internet Explorer box model bug. 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 level 1 and SMIL 2.0. The MSXML engine was also updated to version 3.0. Other new features included a new version of the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) which introduced IExpress, a utility to create self-extracting INF-based installation packages, Media bar, Windows Messenger integration, fault collection, automatic image resizing, and P3P. Meanwhile, IE6 dropped support for XBM image files, and in 2002, the Gopher protocol was disabled.

IE6 was the most widely used web browser during its tenure, surpassing Internet Explorer 5.x. 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 was released and gradually began to gain popularity. Microsoft subsequently resumed development of Internet Explorer and released Internet Explorer 7, 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 raised in United States v. Microsoft and the European Union Microsoft competition case.

On March 4, 2011, Microsoft urged web users to stop using IE6 in favor of newer versions of Internet Explorer. They launched a new website called IE6 Countdown, which would show how much percentage of the world uses IE6 and aims to get people away from IE6 and upgrade.