Internet Explorer 10 was first announced on 12 April 2011 at the MIX 11 conference in Las Vegas. In this conference, Microsoft showcased a demo version of Internet Explorer 10 along with a demo version of Windows 8. On the same day, a Platform Preview of Internet Explorer 10 was released on the Microsoft Internet Explorer Test Drive website. It only supports Windows 7; later platform previews only support Windows 8. Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview 1 supports CSS3 grid layout, CSS3 flexible box layout, CSS3 multi-column layout, CSS3 gradient, and full hardware acceleration.
Reviewers' responses to the release of Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview were varied; however, they noted how soon (29 days) after the release of Internet Explorer 9 is Microsoft talking about the next version. While Don Reisinger of eWeek listed his requested features for the next version, Michael Muchmore of PC Magazine tested Platform Preview 1's performance and HTML5 support with both Microsoft's and third-parties' test suites. In his test, Platform Preview 1 performed better than Internet Explorer 9 but not always better than the competing web browsers. On 13 September 2011, Microsoft released the developer preview of Windows 8 to general public, which came with Internet Explorer Developer Preview (the first full browser incarnation of Internet Explorer 10).
Although Internet Explorer is the last major web browser – among Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari – to support spell checking, it is the first desktop browser on Windows to support autocorrection. Internet Explorer 10 was released to manufacturing along with Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. The latter reached general availability on 4 September 2012 while the former reached general availability on 26 October 2012. A preview of Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 was released on 13 November 2012. It is not compatible with previous versions of Windows.
Release history
| Name | Version | Release date | Works on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview | 2.10.1000.16394 | 12 April 2011 | Windows 7 and later |
| Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview 2 | 2.10.1008.16421 | 29 June 2011 | Windows 7 and later |
| Internet Explorer 10 Developer Preview | 10.0.8102.0 | 13 September 2011 | Windows 8 Developer Preview |
| Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview 4 | 10.0.8103.0 | 29 November 2011 | Windows 8 Developer Preview |
| Internet Explorer 10 Consumer Preview[ | 10.0.8250.0 | 29 February 2012 | Windows 8 Consumer Preview |
| Internet Explorer 10 Release Preview | 10.0.8400.0 | 31 May 2012 | Windows 8 Release Preview |
| Internet Explorer 10 RTM | 10.0.9200.16384 | 4 September 2012 | Windows Server 2012 |
| 26 October 2012 | Windows 8 | ||
| Internet Explorer 10 Release Preview | 10.0.9200.16438 | 13 November 2012 | Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2SP1 |
New features
Adobe Flash integration
Internet Explorer 10 includes a built-in Adobe Flash Player. Microsoft and Adobe worked together to ensure that the version of Adobe Flash included with Internet Explorer 10 does not drain battery or impact performance in negative ways. In the "Metro" version of Internet Explorer, only some of the features of Adobe Flash will be included because of battery life, performance and security purposes. Also, some features that do not work well with touch have also been removed from the "Metro" version of Internet Explorer. However, not all websites can use Adobe Flash in the "Metro" version of Internet Explorer as Microsoft and Adobe maintain a list of approved websites that are reportedly video content and some games. In the desktop version of Internet Explorer 10, more advanced features of Adobe Flash, such as rollover support, are available, providing the complete set of features provided by Adobe Flash.
Flip Ahead
Internet Explorer 10 also introduces a new feature called Flip Ahead. This works in both Metro and desktop versions of Internet Explorer 10. It allows users to move through articles that span multiple pages as well as search results and other web pages with a "next page" or similar button. This feature is turned off by default as a user's browsing history is sent to Microsoft in order to provide the feature. According to the Windows SuperSite, Microsoft has said that some sites may need to be updated to ensure it will work as intended.
Implementation history
| Name | New features |
|---|---|
| Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview | Support for CSS3 multi-column layout, CSS3 grid layout, CSS3 flexible box layout, CSS3 gradients, ES5 strict mode, and a new user agent string. |
| Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview 2 | Support for Positioned Floats, CSS stylesheet limit lifted, CSSOM Floating Point Value support, Improved hit testing APIs, Media Query Listeners, HTML5: Support for async attribute on script elements, HTML5 Drag and Drop, HTML5 File API, HTML5 Sandbox, HTML5 Web Workers, and some Web Performance APIs. |
| Internet Explorer 10 Developer Preview | Support for Windows 8, CSS 3D Transforms, CSS Text shadow, SVG Filter Effects, Spellchecking, Autocorrection, local storage with IndexedDB and the HTML5 Application Cache, Web Sockets, HTML5 History, and InPrivate tabs. |
| Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview 4 | Cross-Origin Resource Sharing, File API Writer, JavaScript Typed Arrays (WebGL), CSS user select property, HTML5 Video Text Captioning, and Updated Quirks Mode. |
| Internet Explorer 10 Consumer Preview | Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) for XMLHttpRequest, CSS -ms-user-select property, CSS3 font-feature-settings property to access advanced OpenType® features, Document setting to enable floating point values in CSS-OM, HTML5 BlobBuilder API and new APIs to save or open files, HTML5 track element for HTML5 video captions, Interoperable HTML5 Quirks mode, JavaScript Typed Arrays, Meta tag to alert user that site requires ActiveX add-ons available only in desktop IE10, removal of legacy graphics features from IE10 standards mode, changes to support latest HTML5 WebSocket API, and Web Worker thread pooling. |
| Internet Explorer 10 Release Preview | Removal of app switch button, new UI for search results, integration of touch-friendly Adobe Flash Player, Flip Ahead, "Do not track"-flag set by default, removal of legacy DX filters from all of the document modes (can be re-enabled using the Internet Options dialog), and support for (CSS transitions, transforms, animations, gradients, and CSS Fonts’ font-feature-settings property, as well as platform APIs such as the Indexed Database API (IndexedDB) and requestAnimationFrame()) in their unprefixed forms, but still supports their prefixed forms. |
| Internet Explorer 10 RTM | None. Generally, there are no significant changes between a release candidate and release to manufacturing except bug fixes. |
Internet Explorer 10 no longer features or supports the following :
- Conditional comments
- DirectX-based filters and transitions (DX filters)
- Element behaviors and HTML components (HTCs)
- XML data islands
- Vector Markup Language (VML)
At the Windows Phone Developer Summit in June 2012, Joe Belfiore announced Windows Phone 8 due towards the end of 2012, which will include a mobile version of Internet Explorer 10 that offers four times faster JavaScript performance and two times more support for HTML 5 features. It includes Microsoft SmartScreen and supports touch in HTML5 apps.
User agent string
Internet Explorer 10 has a new user agent string which has the following general look :
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 10.0; Windows NT 6.2; [platform token] Trident/6.0; Touch)
Depending on the system, different parts of this user string may change. The last token, "Touch", only appears on systems equipped with a touchscreen. The platform token may be any of the following:
| Value | Condition |
|---|---|
| Nothing | Absence of the platform token indicates that Internet Explorer is running on a 32-bit version of Windows |
| WOW64; | Indicates that a 32-bit version of Internet Explorer is running on a 64-bit version of Windows |
| Win64; x64; | Indicates that a 64-bit version of Internet Explorer is running on 64-bit version of Windows |
| ARM; | Indicates that Internet Explorer 10 is running on Windows RT |
Notes
- A.^ Refers to the Internet Explorer (engine) version, not the Platform Preview version : First screenshot
- B.^ Platform Preview version is 2.10.1000.16394
- C.^ Platform Preview version is 2.10.1008.16421
- D.^ This version is only included as part of Windows 8 Developer Preview, and is a full version rather than a usual Platform Preview.
- E.^ Platform Preview version is 2.10.0.8103.0. Does not replace Internet Explorer Developer Preview included in Windows 8. This Platform Preview is compatible only with Windows Developer Preview.
