Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser turned 15 years old this week, and after a decade and a half, it still has plenty of friends to party with, more so than any other browser on the planet.
Despite losing some ground to Firefox and relative newcomer Chrome, IE still claims a dominating 60.74 percent of the market. The latest version, as well as the upcoming IE9 release, are also light years ahead of where IE first started way back in 1995. Consider that the first official release checked in at just over 1MB and was based on Mosaic. Just three months later (November 1995), Microsoft would release Internet Explorer 2, the first cross-platform browser to support both Windows and Mac.
The big question mark is where will IE stand in another 15 years? Microsoft has been able to gain back some ground in recent months, but the overall trend in the past year or so has the competition gaining on IE, perhaps not swiftly, but steadily. It will be interesting to see how long IE can maintain its market share dominance.
On a related note, for a look back at browser development through the years, check out our “Surfing Since 1991: The Evolution of Web Browsers” feature.
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