Internet Explorer 5 is the final version of Internet Explorer which supports Windows 3.1x, Windows NT 3.x and Windows 95.
However, archived versions of the software can be found on various websites. Internet Explorer 5 is no longer available for download from Microsoft. The rendering behavior of Internet Explorer 5.x lives on in other browsers' quirks modes.
Microsoft spent over US$100 million a year in the late 1990s, with over 1000 people working on IE by 1999 during the development of IE5. Market share of IE5 fell below 1% by the end of 2006, right when Internet Explorer 7 was released. In addition, Firefox 1.0 had overtaken it in market share by early 2005. 5.0x and 5.5 were surpassed by Internet Explorer 6.0, dropping it to the second most popular browser, with market share dropping to 34 percent by mid-2003. 5.x versions attained over 80% market share by the release of IE6 in August 2001. IE5 attained over 50% market share by early 2000, taking the lead over other browser versions including IE4 and Netscape. The new IE 5 trumps Netscape Communicator with smarter searching and accelerated browsing." The 1999 review in PC World noted, "Credit the never-ending game of browser one-upsmanship that Netscape and Microsoft play. However, support for many OSes quickly dropped off with later patches, and Windows XP and later Windows versions are not supported, because of inclusion of later IE versions. In addition, it was compatible with the largest range of OSes of all the IE versions. IE5 presided over a large market share increase over Netscape Navigator between 19, and offered many advanced features for its day.
Although Internet Explorer 5 ran only on Windows, its siblings Internet Explorer for Mac 5 and Internet Explorer for UNIX 5 supported Mac OS X, Solaris and HP-UX. Launched on March 18, 1999, it was the default browser in Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000 and Windows Me (later default was Internet Explorer 6) and can replace previous versions of Internet Explorer on Windows 3.1x, Windows NT 3.x, Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98 First Edition. Its distribution methods and Windows integration were involved in the United States v. Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 ( IE5) is a graphical web browser, the fifth version of Internet Explorer, the successor to Internet Explorer 4 and one of the main participants of the first browser war. Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000 and Windows ME