Product: Internet Explorer 6.0 (build 6.0.2600 final, SP1 update)
From: Microsoft
For: Windows 9x/NT/2000. (IE 6 is already built into Windows XP.) Minimum system requirements to run Internet Explorer 6: 486 /66 MHz processor, RAM and disk space requirements vary depending on operating system. Windows 98, for example, requires at least 16MB RAM and 25.8MB disk space.
Price: Free. Final version released Aug. 27, 2001 (available here.)
Pros: New "Media Bar" with integrated media player (a "Personal Bar" with search, news, media player and encyclopedia tabs was removed during the beta process); new language features in JScript and VBScript. Considerable improvements in standards compliance. Better privacy support, virus protection in Outlook Express. New image save/print/send/display functions, notably, automatic image size reduction, allowing large screenshots to fit in the IE6 display window or toggle for full-size display.
Cons: According to reports, upgrading directly to Internet Explorer 6 from IE 4 has a tendency to cause errors on older operating systems such as Windows 98. By first upgrading to IE 5.5, most problems are eliminated. Breaks QuickTime 5.0 - 5.02 (fixed via an Apple update). Known problems when you use Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 (SP1) to view a Web page that contains image files saved from Adobe Photoshop 7.0 on Macintosh OS X.
McAfee warns that users of its VirusScan software might experience major problems after upgrading to IE6. Not particularly stable under Windows 9x/Me, at least in our tests. In some cases, changes in standards compliance will cause HTML content to be displayed differently than in previous versions of Internet Explorer. The Media Bar is essentially a promotional vehicle for WindowsMedia.com and related properties.
Strongest Competitors: Netscape/Mozilla, Opera
Introduction
Why use Internet Explorer? In a word, marketshare. According to a July 2003 report by the Web analytics firm OneStat.com, all versions of IE combined have a total global usage share of more than 95%. That means that, for better or worse, a significant number of web developers will target IE users, and not be particularly worried about supporting the others. Indeed, there are a significant number of websites that don't work well with the main competitor to IE on the Macintosh platform, Safari. On the Windows side, IE is by far the dominant browser.
Microsoft released the first "public beta" preview of Internet Explorer 6.0 on March 26, 2001 and, leading up to the product's final release, refined the feature-set and swatted bugs and security glitches. In this review, we'll take a look at new features of the browser so you can decide whether you should bother upgrading. This review is based on build 2600 (the final release code) and subsequent updates, including the service pack 1 (SP1) update released in March 2003.
The key features we think you'll like are:
A feature of Internet Explorer 6.0 we haven't seen mentioned anywhere else is support for ATI-TV and other similar third-party Media Bar add-ons. Installing IE 6 onto a machine with a Radeon All-in-Wonder and then opening the browser presents a new TV icon in the toolbar at the top. (We tested this feature using ATI's Multimedia Center 7.1 and Win2K driver version 3124 under Windows 2000.) Clicking the TV opens the Media Bar and launches the ATI-TV as a sidebar of your browser. You can switch to full-screen or resize the sidebar to automatically resize the video as desired. By switching to composite input and then adding the new Media Bar setting to the browser, you can substitute other video inputs for the default TV player. If you have the Gemstar Guide Plus feature installed, this TV guide also appears in the sidebar. Very cool!
Other icons you might see appear in the IE toolbar include "MoneySide," an introductory help system for Microsoft's Money application, "Messenger," a shortcut to Windows Messenger, and various text editing icons for FrontPage, Notepad, Excel, Word and/or other editors.
Discontinued Features
Early Internet Explorer 6 betas included a so-called "Personal Bar" incorporating built-in links to various Windows Media website options, Encarta Enquire, MSN Search. MSN MoneyCentral, Slate and other Microsoft-owned properties. Fortunately, these links were customizable, so you didn't have to live in an all-Microsoft world (gulp!) unless you wanted to. Still, beta tester feedback was overwhelmingly negative (we found it annoying for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the Media Player's propensity to pop open in TV mode at inopportune times. Worse, the bar, unlike other toolbars, couldn't be disabled. Thankfully, it's gone in the final release.
In addition to these new Explorer Bars, the beta browser promises improved privacy support, (some) protection against macro viruses in Outlook Express (it's about time!) and new additions to the program's Internet options.
According to Microsoft, key features include:
For content developers, Internet Explorer 6 continues to enhance the platform with additional DHTML features to allow you to build powerful interactive applications for the browser:
Passing the mouse pointer over an image on a web page reveals another new feature: the program pops up a small toolbar with four icons, allowing you to "save this image, "print this image," "send this image in an email" and "open My Pictures folder."
Standards Compliance
It's no secret that Microsoft has in the past not been particularly careful to ensure that its Windows-based browsers were fully standards compliant. However, this version makes further progress in this area, and the results are mostly good news. See the list of features supported by the Mac version of IE 5 in the Browser Compatibility List at WebReview.com for an idea of where Microsoft is going with this release.
The Setup file, which downloads other components from the Internet, is 494 KB in size. The IE 6 installer is compatible with Windows 98, Me, Windows 2000, and NT. International versions of IE6 are also planned. Although earlier beta versions were not compatible with Microsoft's Windows Update feature, testers of build 2462 and beyond have reported no problems with this feature.
Compatibility Caveats
Conspiracy theorists will have a field day with a trio of notable glitches: Some functions -- including many advertisements -- of the website for Redmond rival America Online are broken for IE6 users. AOL it has faced numerous problems attempting to solve the issue, which it expects to resolve with the release of AOL 7.0, currently in beta and slated for release this fall.
In an earlier draft of this report, we noted that some (but not all) users have noted an apparent incompatibility between IE6 and Apple's QuickTime plug-in. Bizarrely, we did not encounter this problem with build 2530.1 running on Windows 2000 -- a machine on which we had installed the earlier IE6 Preview Release. However, every machine we've installed this build onto since then has suffered the problem, leading us to wonder how we managed to avoid it in our initial test on what was, admittedly, an already troublesome machine. Since then, we've encountered the problem while running the final build 2600 release of Internet Explorer 6 browser on both Windows XP and Windows Me. The glitch, which Microsoft is a side effect of its removal of support for Netscape-style plug-ins from IE6 (and IE5.5 SP2), has the effect of preventing QuickTime movies on Web pages from playing in IE. Apple on Aug. 21 released an ActiveX plugin that resolves the problem (Read more.)
And, if there are other Netscape style plug-ins that you feel you must run under IE6, the page at members.aol.com/axcel216 documents a way to restore Netscape plug-in support to IE6 or other versions in which it is disabled.
McAfee.com warns that it currently does not support its Online Applications using Internet Explorer version 6.0. Says the company, "in the event that you have tried IE 6.0 and are experiencing difficulties with our Online Applications, please see the following instructions for “I. Restoring the Original Windows Configuration...” then proceeds to list an insanely complicated procedure that involves editing the Registry, backing up the Registry, downgrading Internet Explorer, and so on. McAfee apparently won't resolve the issue, which users say breaks everything except the System Scan, until Windows XP is released. (That's lame, guys! What's the matter -- can't work on the problem until you have a new product to sell?)
Another glitch affects yet another major Microsoft competitor: Yahoo’s Pagebuilder software doesn't work with IE6 either.
Long-time Microsoft watchers may recall similar scenarios with one-time competitors Lotus 1-2-3 and Stac software, leading some to say, "Microsoft isn't done till the competition won't run."i
On the other hand, we've been receiving reports that suggest that Microsoft is starting to require the use of a browser complaint with the Platform for Privacy Preferences on some Passport-enabled sections of various websites. Thus, users of Hotmail and other Passport-protected accounts may have to use IE6 to ensure continued access.
The most bizarre compatibility problem occurs when you use Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 (SP1) to view a Web page that contains image files saved from Adobe Photoshop 7.0 on Macintosh OS X. The images do not appear on the Web page! Internet Explorer will no longer display images until you restart the program.
Microsoft is not offering a patch unless you call and ask for it. The company's line is that it will be addressed in the next service pack. According to MacInTouch, using Photoshop's "Save for Web" command should also avoid the issue, by eliminating the problematic metadata in the JPEG file.
Upgrade Perils
IE 6 can be uninstalled, reverting back to your previous browser, or repaired via its Add/Remove Programs control panel entry. However, in our tests of this feature on a dual-boot system running Windows 2000 and Windows Me, reverting back to IE5 had two unfortunate side effects. First, we noticed that our Adaptec SCSI card inexplicably stopped working. Then, more seriously, we discovered that Windows Me failed to boot at all. The best we could get was a blue screen of death, or a machine that only booted in safe mode. Windows Me's much-ballyhooed System Restore feature did no good to rectify these problems.
In subsequent testing, we found that IE6 didn't appear particularly stable on our test machine running Windows 98. Frequent "Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and must close" error messages and unusual memory consumption, coupled with the QuickTime incompatibility problem, led us to try the uninstaller one more time. Fortunately, this time it worked, returning us to IE5.5 (prior the release of Apple's fix, SP1 was the latest version that worked with QuickTime) with no apparent problems. Whether the instability and memory mismanagement of IE6 (and, come to think of it, Office XP, as noted in part 2 of our report on that title elsewhere on this site) under Windows Me is part of a heinous plot to encourage people to upgrade to Windows 2000 and/or Windows XP or just further evidence that Windows Me just isn't all that stable we leave as an exercise for the reader. At any rate, we do not recommend going directly from IE4 to IE6 upgrade if you are running Windows 98 or Me, unless you need to access a service that absolutely requires it. According to reports we've seen, jumping from IE4 to IE5.5 SP2 first is a less trouble-prine upgrade path. You should then be able to upgrade IE5.5 SP2 to IE6 without difficulties. You should, however, at least upgrade to IE5.5 SP2, as there are important security enhancements and bug fixes in this version and IE6. Braver users might want to install IE6 first and then, if it causes problems, uninstall it and try IE5.5 SP2 instead. Note, however, that IE5.5 SP2 is slated to be discontinued at the end of December 2003 and, as of this writing, the code has already been pulled from Microsoft's web site, so this may be your only option.
And speaking of security enhancements, there have already been numerous patches to IE 6, including one released in March 2003 characterized as "Critical." These critical patches are available from the Windows update website. See our Security alerts page or visit Microsoft's security page at www.microsoft.com/security for details.
What's Ahead
Version 6.1, released to beta testers in Nov. 2001 (and practically unheard of since then!), expands support for the proposed W3C recommendation of the SMIL 2.0 standard and introduces two new focus events. We'll publish updated information on this release after we've had a chance to test the product.
Conclusion
The main benefits to be had by upgrading from the 5.5 SP2 release to 6.0 are the new version's many security fixes -- several of which are serious enough that, if left unpatched, a machine (particularly, one running Windows NT/2000 or XP) may be at serious risk. In Dec. 2003, a serious flaw known as the "Control A exploit" emerged. This bug allows URLs to be effectively spoofed. It works due to a flaw in IE that does not display anything after the ASCII character %01, yet the URL is executed. Thus, all a user has to go is click on a redirect link that purports to go to a legitimate site, but in reality, leads to a fake site, which displays a URL that looks totally legitimate. A Slashdot page lists numerous examples, including this one, which provides a sample exploit purporting to be a Microsoft web page. A related bug can show false information in the status bar. By combining the two exploits, even expert users could be fooled.
Users of older IE releases should definitely upgrade (or switch to a different browser) to avoid even more serious security risks -- particularly with Outlook Express 5.0 -- that emerged during 2001. Be forewarned, however, that if your experience is anything like ours, you may encounter problems upgrading to 6.0 in a dual-boot or Windows 9x-based configuration. However, once installed, its improved support for picture downloading, printing and image management and the large number of security and privacy enhancements make it a worthwhile upgrade for users of Windows 2000 and older browsers. Those who need to develop standards-compliant web pages or other internet-based solutions will definitely benefit from the many programmatic enhancements to the world's most popular browser, despite the fact that a few other browsers (Mozilla/Firebird and Netscape being the primary examples) are somewhat more "standards compliant." Still, as the world's most popular browser, one can argue about standards all day long, but at the end of it all, a web page that works properly with IE is probably what matters most.
Those looking for a superior browsing experience, while maintaining full IE compatibility should look at MyIE2 -- it gets our vote as the best browser on the PC, bar none. It wraps an enhanced shell around the IE rendering engine that adds several desirable features, including a pop-up blocker, tabbed browsing interface, mouse gestures, options to disable flash-based content, enhanced translation and searching options and much more. It's free, from http://www.myie2.com/.
Download
IE6 is installed via a small "stub" less than 500k in size. The installer downloads other components (about 12.5MB for a typical installation) via the Internet connection when run. For more information on the program's new features, see Microsoft's Features overview page. English and International versions are available.
Microsoft also offers a collection of add on tools that work with IE 6.0 and IE5. Read more at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/previous/webaccess/ie5wa.asp
For Further Reading
IE Tip:
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