Microsoft Internet Explorer 2 (IE2) is the second version of Internet Explorer (IE), a graphical web browser by Microsoft. It was unveiled in October 1995, and was released on November 27, 1995, for Microsoft Windows, and on April 23, 1996, for Apple Macintosh.
Version 2 launched with 12 languages, including English, but this would expand to 24, 20, and 9. It is the last version of Internet Explorer to run on Windows NT 3.1 before the operating system reached its end of life on December 31, 2000. It lacked many features that became common in later IE versions, including the blue 'e' logo, integration with Windows Explorer, and bundled programs. Its market share was also much lower than later versions. During its tenure, IE market share only went up to about roughly 3-9%.
Internet Explorer 2 is no longer supported, and is not available for download from Microsoft.
History IE replicated many of the quirks of Netscape Navigator, and allowed importing bookmarks from it. In May 1996, FTP Software announced it was providing Microsoft with various technology for Internet Explorer 2.0, including a PPP network, 16-bit email client, and other technology.
Availability Internet Explorer version 2 was released in beta in October 1995, only 2 months after version 1 came out in Microsoft Plus! for ‘95 that August. It was released for Microsoft Windows in November 1995. The Beta for Mac on PowerPC came out in January, and the finalized version in April for 68k and PowerPC. The Mac version was not released until January 1996 for PPC, and April for 68k. Version 2 was included in Microsoft's Internet Starter Kit in early 1996. It launched with twelve languages, including English, but this expanded to 24, 20, and 9 for Win 95, Win 3.1 and Mac respectively by April 1996. The 2.0i version supported double-byte character-sets for supporting Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters in web pages. Version 2.1 for the Mac came out in August 1996, the same month version 2 for Windows was superseded by Internet Explorer 3. There were 16-bit and 32-bit versions depending on the OS.
Mac version The Mac version, especially version 2.1, was praised for being economic with resources and for new features. Internet Explorer supported the embedding of a number of multimedia formats into web pages, including AVI and QuickTime formatted video and AIFF, MIDI and WAV formatted audio. The non-beta final version was released three months later on April 23, 1996. Version 2.1 fixed bugs and improving stability, but also added a few features such as support for the NPAPI (the first version of Internet Explorer on any platform to do so) and support for QuickTime VR. AOL 3.0 for Macintosh used the IE 2.1 rendering engine in its built-in web browser. The various 16 and 32 bit versions largely depended on the OS although NT-based systems would use the 16 bit versions.
Features IE2 introduced new or improved features for its time period. Many soon became ubiquitous (such as cookies) while others such as the integrated email client were removed in later versions due to being out of scope and better covered by dedicated software like Outlook. The features are:
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol HTTP cookies Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) Integrated email and news client Support for SMTP and POP protocols Support for newsgroups over NNTP protocol Spelling checker Automatic mail management (filter) MIME MAPI JavaScript (from Internet Explorer 2.5) HTML3 HTML tables HTML Frames element support Nonstandard tags, such as RSA PPP network stack Bookmark importer for Netscape
Versions + Windows versions Version Release date Significant changes Shipped with 2.0 Beta October 1995 Support of HTML tables and other elements 2.0 November 27, 1995 Final release. SSL, cookies, VRML, and Internet newsgroups. Windows 95 OSR1 Windows NT 4.0 Internet Starter Kit 2.01 April 30, 1996 Bug fix release. Last version for Windows NT 3.1. 2.1 August 14, 1996 Minor Update for Windows 3.1 and Windows NT 3.51.
+ Mac versions Version Release date Significant changes 2.0 Beta January 23, 1996 Beta for PPC only 2.0 April 23, 1996 PPC and 68k Supported 2.1 August 14, 1996 Bug fixes; NPAPI support
References
External links Internet Explorer 2 Emulator, Deja Vu Internet Explorer Architecture Internet Explorer Community — The official Microsoft Internet Explorer Community