Microsoft Internet Explorer
The mid-1990s saw the Web take off. The first mainstream browsers appeared, and Microsoft decided to join the fray. On August 16, 1995, the Redmond company launched Internet Explorer 1.0. This marked the beginning of an adventure that would last more than twenty years and leave its mark on Internet history.
Internet Explorer was not born in Microsoft’s laboratories. The company took a shortcut by licensing the source code of Spyglass Mosaic, a browser developed by Spyglass. Other companies made the same choice at the time. Spyglass Mosaic was based on the work of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, which had created NCSA Mosaic, the first graphical browser to achieve widespread success.
Initially, the team assigned to the project was tiny: half a dozen developers at most. Microsoft distributed its browser in several ways. It was included in the Microsoft Plus! pack for Windows 95, a set of extensions and utilities sold separately. Computer manufacturers received an OEM version to preinstall on their machines. Users could install it via the Internet Jumpstart Kit provided with the Plus! pack. An interesting point: it ran on the original version of Windows 95, without any system updates.
A few months later, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 1.5 for Windows NT. This version added basic support for HTML tables, an element that was becoming essential for building Web pages.
Microsoft’s strategy evolved quickly. The company realized that the Internet was not a passing fad and changed its approach. In subsequent versions of Windows 95, the browser became increasingly integrated with the operating system. This growing integration would trigger controversies that would mark the browser’s history.
Microsoft’s internal documents reveal that the company had not planned to include a browser with Windows 95. In early 1994, the plans mentioned only the addition of basic elements for connecting to the Internet: the TCP/IP stack and support for PPP and SLIP protocols. Steven Sinofsky wrote in June 1994 that no client software like Mosaic or Cello was planned for Windows 95.
The change occurred in stages. In 1995, Microsoft was still hesitating. Should the browser be marketed in the "Plus!" pack or integrated directly into Windows? Internal discussions show questions about the relevance of this integration, particularly due to space constraints on installation diskettes.
Technically, Internet Explorer 1.0 reflected its era. The graphical interface remained simple, the features limited. Users navigated page by page, without tabs or ad blocking. But this matched the needs of 1995 users who were discovering the Web.
Computer manufacturers contributed to the browser’s distribution. Microsoft signed agreements with them to preinstall Internet Explorer on new machines. This approach ensured massive distribution of the software.
The software architecture laid the groundwork for future versions. The code inherited from Spyglass Mosaic was reworked to adapt to Windows. Developers modified the interface and optimized performance for Microsoft’s operating system. Documentation shows, however, that Microsoft considered Internet Explorer as a product distinct from Windows. Internal and external communications presented the browser as a standalone application, with no connection to the operating system.
This first version constituted a milestone in Web history. Microsoft entered a rapidly expanding field with a pragmatic approach: acquiring existing technology rather than developing everything in-house.