Internet Explorer Features

Internet Explorer has been designed to view a broad range of web pages and to
provide certain features within the operating system, including Microsoft
Update. During the heyday of the browser wars, Internet Explorer superseded
Netscape only when it caught up technologically to support the progressive
features of the time.

Standards support

Internet Explorer, using the Trident layout engine:

  • supports HTML 4.01, CSS Level 1, XML 1.0, and DOM Level 1, with minor
    implementation gaps.
  • fully supports XSLT 1.0 as well as an obsolete Microsoft dialect of XSLT
    often referred to as WD-xsl, which was loosely based on the December
    1998 W3C Working Draft of XSL. Support for XSLT 2.0 lies in the future:
    semi-official Microsoft bloggers have indicated that development is underway,
    but no dates have been announced.
  • partially supports CSS Level 2 and DOM Level 2, with major implementation
    gaps and conformance issues. Almost full conformance to CSS 2.1 has been added
    in the Internet Explorer 8 release.
  • supports XHTML in Internet Explorer 9 (Trident version 5.0). Prior
    versions can render XHTML documents authored with HTML compatibility
    principles and served with a text/html MIME-type.
  • supports a subset of SVG in Internet Explorer 9 (Trident version 5.0),
    excluding SMIL, SVG fonts and filters.

Internet Explorer uses DOCTYPE sniffing to choose between the standard mode and
a “quirks mode” in which deliberately imitates the old non-standard behavior
versions of MSIE to render HTML and CSS on the screen (always Internet Explorer
uses the standard mode for printing). It also provides its own dialect
ECMAScript called JScript.

Internet Explorer had been subjected to criticism by the W3C on its limited
support for SVG promoted by the W3C.
Non-standard Extensions

Internet Explorer has introduced a number of proprietary extensions to many
standards, including HTML, CSS and DOM. This has led to a
number of web pages that appear broken in standards-compliant web browser and
introduced the need for a “quirks mode” to allow rendering improper
elements of meaning in these other Internet Explorer browser.

Internet Explorer introduced a series of extensions that have JScript
been adopted by other browsers. These include the innerHTML property, which
returns the string of HTML code inside an element, the XMLHttpRequest object, which
allows you to send HTTP request and receiving the HTTP response, and
designMode contentDocument attribute of the object, which allows rich text
editing of HTML documents. Some of these features were not possible until
the introduction of the W3C DOM methods. Its extension to HTML character is Ruby
also accepted as a module in the W3C XHTML 1.1, although not in all
HTML versions of W3C.

Microsoft has made several other features of IE for review by W3C
for standardization. These include the ‘behavior’ CSS, which connects
HTML elements with JScript behaviors (known as HTML Components, HTC);
HTML + Time Profile, which adds timing and media synchronization support to HTML
documents (similar to the W3C XHTML + SMIL), and the VML vector graphics file
format. However, all were rejected, at least in their original forms. VML has been,
However, later combined with PGML (proposed by Adobe and Sun), resulting in
the W3C SVG-approved, currently one of the few vector image formats
used on the web, and that IE is now almost unique in not supporting.

Other non-standard behavior include: support for vertical text, but in a
different syntax from W3C CSS3 candidate, support for a variety
of image effects and page transitions, which are not found in the W3C’s CSS support
for obfuscated script code, in particular JScript.Encode (). Support
EOT fonts for embedding in web pages.
Favicon

The favicon (short for “favorites icon”) is introduced by Internet Explorer
expanded and now also supported in other browsers. It allows you to web pages
specify an image by 16-pixels-16 for use in bookmarks. In IE, the media was, and
is still provided only for the native Windows ICO format, other browsers will
has been extended to other types of images such as PNG and GIF.
Usability and accessibility

Internet Explorer uses the framework of accessibility provided
Windows. Internet Explorer is also a user interface for FTP, with operations
similar to that of Windows Explorer. Pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing have been
added respectively in Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7. Cards
Browsing can also be added to the previous versions with the installation of MSN Search Toolbar or
Yahoo Toolbar.
Cache

Internet Explorer cache browsing the content of Temporary Internet Files
folder to allow faster access (or access online) for previously visited pages.
The content is indexed in a database file, known as Index.dat. Multiple
Index.dat file content that there are different index and visited content, web feeds
URLs, cookies, etc.

Before IE7, empty the cache used to remove the index, but the files
themselves have not been reliably removed, posing a potential security and privacy
risk. In IE7 and later, when the cache is deleted, the cache files are
reliably removed, and the index.dat file is overwritten with zero bytes.
Group Policy

Internet Explorer is fully configurable using Group Policy. Administrators
Windows Server domains (for a domain computer) or the local computer can
implement and enforce a variety of settings on computers that are of interest to you
interface (such as menu items and disable individual configuration options),
as well as basic safety features such as downloading files, local
configuration settings for each site, the behavior of ActiveX controls and others. Policy
settings can be configured for each user and for each machine. Internet Explorer
also supports Integrated Windows authentication.

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