Internet Explorer
Synonyms
IE
MSIE
(IE, MSIE) Microsoft's free World-Wide Web browser for Microsoft Windows, Windows 95, Windows NT, and Macintosh. Internet Explorer is the main rival to Netscape Navigator (which runs on many more platforms). Both support the same core features and offer incompatible extensions.
Microsoft combined later versions of IE with their file system browser, "Explorer" and bundled it with Windows 95 in an attempt to use their dominance of the desktop operating system market to force users to abandon Netscape's browser, which they perceived as a potential threat. This, and other dubious business moves, became the subject of a US Department of Justice antitrust trial in late 1998/early 1999.