Internet Explorer 10

Internet Explorer 10 is a version of Internet Explorer. It ships as the default browser on Windows 8 and is available as an update for Windows 7. Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 was released on 2013-02-26.

System Requirements
Internet Explorer 10 only supports Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8. Previous releases of Windows (such as Windows XP, Vista, and earlier) are not supported.

Development history
Internet Explorer 10 was first announced on 2011-04-12 at the MIX 11 conference in Las Vegas. At the conference, Microsoft showcased a demo version of Internet Explorer 10 alongside a pre-release 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 preview releases only support Windows 8. IE 10 Platform Preview 1 includes support for CSS3's grid layout, flexible box layout, multi-column layout, gradients, and GPU hardware acceleration.

At the time of its release, Platform Preview 1 performed better than IE 9 but was still considered slow compared to other competitors.

On 2011-09-13, Microsoft released Windows 8 Developer Preview to the general public, which shipped with Internet Explorer Developer Preview (the first full browser incarnation of IE 10). IE 10 reached general availability on 2012-10-26, alongside Windows 8, and with Windows Server 2012, which shipped earlier on 2012-09-04. A preview of IE 10 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 was released on 2012-11-13.

Adobe Flash Player
Under Windows 8, Internet Explorer 10 includes a built-in copy of Adobe Flash Player. Microsoft worked with Adobe to develop a special build of Flash that would ensure improved battery life and performance. In the "Metro" version of Internet Explorer, Flash has further disabled features to meet those goals and to remain compatible with Metro's enhanced security. Certain mouse-centric features that do not work well with touch displays have also been removed.

Originally, not all websites could use the built-in Flash support under Metro. Microsoft and Adobe maintained a whitelist of approved domains that contained video content and games, unlike the desktop version. On 2013-03-12 Microsoft changed this behavior from allowing only sites from the whitelist to display flash content, to allow all sites to display Flash content except for those on a curated Compatibility View list (blacklist) maintained by Microsoft.

Flip Ahead
Internet Explorer 10 introduced a new feature called Flip Ahead, available under Desktop and Metro builds. Flip Ahead adds a touch gesture that can be used to flip back and forth on sites that use multiple pages, replacing the need to tap on small page controls. This feature is turned off by default as browsing history is sent to Microsoft in order to provide it. Microsoft stated that some sites would need to be updated to ensure the gesture would work as intended.

Metro UI
The Metro version of Internet Explorer 10 (available on Windows 8) includes a new UI, most of which is hidden so that the webpage being viewed takes up the entire screen. The UI can be revealed by a right click of the mouse or by a swipe from the top or bottom edges of a touchscreen. When the UI is shown, current tabs are listed on the top of the screen, with a small preview of the page on each tab. A button to add a new tab is placed in the top-right corner. At the bottom of the screen, the address bar and navigational buttons are shown. Navigational buttons include the Back button (to navigate to the previous page), the Refresh button (to reload the active page), the Pin button (which create a new shortcut tile for the active page on the Start screen), and a wrench-shaped icon, which opens the only menu under Metro. It contains options such as "View on Desktop", which opens the current webpage on the desktop version of IE 10, and "Find on page", which can find a text string (a word, phrase, or arbitrary set of letters) in the active page.

Discontinued features

 * Conditional comments in HTML (though JavaScript conditional comments still work).
 * DirectX-based filters and transitions (DX filters).
 * Element behaviors and HTML Components (HTCs).
 * XML data islands.
 * Vector Markup Language (VML).
 * Content Advisor (replaced by Windows Parental Controls or Microsoft Family Safety).

Releases

 * Platform Preview 1
 * Platform Preview 2
 * Developer Preview - included with Windows 8 build 8102
 * Platform Preview 3
 * Platform Preview 4
 * Consumer Preview - included with Windows 8 build 8250
 * Platform Preview 5
 * Release Preview - included with Windows 8 build 8400, later released for Windows 7.
 * RTM (Windows 8) August 2012
 * RTM (Windows 7) November 2012

Mobile IE10
A mobile version of IE10 was introduced for Windows Phone 8.