IE 5 Releases Fix Bugs and Support New Content Types

Two new versions of Internet Explorer (IE) 5.0 have been released. IE 5.01 is a minor upgrade that rolls up bug fixes and improves security in both the browser and Outlook Express. IE 5.5, currently in public beta, adds a couple of features (such as print preview) and supports several new Web content formats.

Internet Explorer is Microsoft’s bundle of client applications for the Internet. The core application is its Web browser, but IE also includes the Outlook Express (OE) mail client and the NetMeeting conferencing client. IE competes with Netscape’s Communicator suite, which includes the Navigator browser that led the market until recently.

Ahead, But Not Quitting

Now IE has taken the lead. According to a Nov. 1999 Zona Research survey, 64% of users rely on IE, versus 36% on Netscape. Zona’s survey found that among companies that mandate a particular browser, 69% chose IE. By comparison, IE held only 2% of users and 1% of companies in Zona’s Jan. 1996 survey. Netscape’s Navigator browser now lags behind IE in support for some content standards (such as HTML 4.0 and XML 1.0). The volunteer developers working on “Mozilla,” the source code release of Navigator, haven’t closed these gaps.