Screenshot Internet Explorer 11 in Windows 10 | |
Developer(s) | Microsoft |
---|---|
Initial release | October 17, 2013[1] |
Stable release | 11.0.220 (11.0.19043.1266)
/ September 30, 2021 |
Engine | MSHTML v8.0, Chakra |
Operating system | Windows 7 SP1 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Windows Server 2012 |
Platform | IA-32, x64, and ARM |
Included with | Windows 8.1 Windows 10 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2016 Windows Server 2019 |
Predecessor | Internet Explorer 10 (2012) |
Successor | Microsoft Edge (2015) |
Size | 28–53 MB |
License | Proprietary, requires a Windows license[2] |
Website | www |
Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) is the eleventh, final, and now deprecated version of the Internet Explorer web browser. It was released by Microsoft on October 17, 2013. IE11 was included with the release of Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 on October 17, 2013, and was released for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 on November 7, 2013. It is the successor to Internet Explorer 10, released the previous year, and was the default browser in Windows 8.1 (later default was Microsoft Edge) and Windows Server 2012 R2. Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and earlier are not supported. IE11 was also included with the release of Windows 10 on July 29, 2015, but Microsoft Edge is the default browser in this version of Windows, and there, Internet Explorer is configured to run websites based on legacy HTML technologies. It is also the default browser in Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019.
Since January 12, 2016, only the most recent version of Internet Explorer offered for installation on any given Windows operating system is supported with security updates, lasting until the end of the support lifecycle for that Windows operating system. On Windows 7 and 8.1, only Internet Explorer 11 received security updates until the end of those Windows versions' support lifecycles.[3] Support for Internet Explorer 11 is bound to the lifecycle of the Windows version it is installed on as it is considered an OS component, thus it is unsupported on Windows 7 due to the end of extended support on January 14, 2020. Internet Explorer 11 was made available for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Embedded 8 Standard, the only still supported edition of Windows 8 in April 2019. It is the only supported version of Internet Explorer on these operating systems since January 31, 2020.[4][5]
Internet Explorer 11 follows the OS component lifecycle,[6] which means it remains supported with technical and security fixes while operating systems including it as a component are shipped. This means that there is no date for end of support for Internet Explorer 11.[7] On August 17, 2020, Microsoft published a timeline indicating that the Microsoft Teams product would stop supporting Internet Explorer 11 on November 30, 2020, and Microsoft 365 products would end Internet Explorer 11 support on August 17, 2021.[8] In May 2021, Microsoft announced that support for Internet Explorer 11 on editions of Windows 10 that are not in the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) will end on June 15, 2022.[9] Internet Explorer 11 isn’t supported on any editions of Windows 11 or Windows Server 2022, as a separate application, but it is supported, as IE mode in Edge, including on Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022.[10] Microsoft is committed to support Internet Explorer that way to 2030 at least, with one year's notice before it is discontinued.[11] The IE mode "uses the Trident MSHTML engine",[12] i.e. the rendering code of Internet Explorer.
IE11 features redesigned developer tools,[13] support for WebGL,[14] enhanced scaling for high DPI screens,[15] prerender and prefetch.[16] After launch IE11 got support for HTTP/2.[17][18][19] In addition, IE11 supports Full Screen and Orientation APIs, CSS border image support, JavaScript enhancements, DOM mutation observers, Web Cryptography API, video text track support, encrypted media support and an improved HTML editor.[20] IE11 uses Transport Layer Security v1.2 as the default protocol for secure connections and deprecates RC4 cipher suite.[21]
Internet Explorer 11 for Windows RT does not support Java and other add-ons.[22]
document.all
, meaning that code that checks for its presence will not detect it, but code that actually uses it will continue to work.[23] Additionally, the attachEvent
proprietary API has been removed.[20]In a November 2013 review by SitePoint, IE11 scored better than Google Chrome 30 and Firefox 26 in WebKit's SunSpider test and Google's WebGL test. It tied with Chrome for fastest in Microsoft's "fish aquarium" benchmark for WebGL and came last in Google's V8 performance benchmark. As a result of the speed improvements, the reviewer said "if you switched to Chrome for speed alone, you're now using the wrong browser." IE11 was also observed to use less memory with multiple tabs open than contemporary versions of Chrome and Firefox.[20]
In August 2015, SitePoint again benchmarked IE11 in its review for Microsoft Edge, where Edge 12, Chrome 44 and Firefox 39 were also present. IE11 came last in Apple's JetStream test (which replaced SunSpider) and Google's Octane test (which replaces V8) but it came second in Microsoft's "fish aquarium" test, after Edge.[29]
Though an internal build of IE11 was leaked on March 25, 2013,[30] its first preview version was not formally released until June 2013, during the Build 2013 conference, along with the preview release of Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1.[31] On July 25, 2013, Microsoft released the developer preview of Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.[32][33]
Name | Version | Release date | Works on | New features |
---|---|---|---|---|
Developer Preview | [34] | 11.0.9431.0June 26, 2013[31] | Windows 8.1 | WebGL, CSS border image, improved JavaScript performance, major update to Internet Explorer Developer Tools,[33] hardware-accelerated JPEG decoding,[35] closed captioning, HTML5 full screen,[36] HTML5 prerender, HTML5 prefetch,
Windows 8.1 only: cryptography (WebCrypto),[33] adaptive bitrate streaming (Media Source Extensions),[37] Encrypted Media Extensions,[36] SPDY v3[18] |
July 25, 2013[34] | Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2[33] | |||
Release Preview | [38] | 11.0.9600.16384September 17, 2013[38] | Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2[39] | Performance improvements |
Internet Explorer 11 | [40] | 11.0.9600.20045October 17, 2013 | Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 | Update Versions: 11.0.240 (KB5003636)[40][41] |
Internet Explorer 11 | 11.0.10240.19060 | July 29, 2015 | Windows 10, Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019 | Released in Windows 10. Microsoft Edge is the default browser from Microsoft in this version of Windows. Internet Explorer is set up to run websites, based on legacy HTML technologies, which are not, or improperly, supported in Microsoft Edge. |
Internet Explorer 11 (Version 1803) | 11.0.17134.2208 | April 30, 2018 | Windows 10 (Spring Creators Update) | Update Version: 11.0.126 (KB4505050) |
Internet Explorer 11 (Version 1903) | 11.0.18362.1256 | May 21, 2019 | Windows 10 (May Update) | Released in Windows 10 update KB4516046[42] |
Internet Explorer 11 (Version 20H2) | 11.0.19042.1266 | October 20, 2020 | Windows 10 (October 2020 Update) | Released in Windows 10 update KB4586768[43] |
While there were no other releases of Internet Explorer, an update for Windows 7 and 8.1 was released on April 2, 2014 which added Enterprise Mode, improved developer tools, improved support for WebGL and ECMAScript 5.1.[44]
With the release of Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022,[45] Internet Explorer is no longer preinstalled on any new devices (the application that is, while its core component is). Microsoft Edge is the only preinstalled browser in the operating system. An Internet Explorer mode is however provided in Microsoft Edge to run legacy websites.[46]