Reimagining the web with Internet Explorer - "a web you can touch and feel"

By Michael Archambault
published

Microsoft wants you to step onboard and reimagine the web with Internet Explorer 11. In a recently released video, the company revisits various interactive experiences from the past and asks you to imagine an internet that “did things you didn’t think were possible”. Along for the ride is Microsoft’s Surface Pro to really immerse users “in a web you can touch and feel”.

The first revisited experiment is “Everest: Rivers of Ice”, which allows users to get up close and personal with one of the most dangerous mountains in the world. Described as “a web so beautiful it’s transformative”, you can check out the site here.

The next highlight features “a web so immersive, there are no boundaries” with Red Bull’s Rampage interactive webpage. Follow a biker as he races down an insanely step hill – at the same time, adjust the camera and track his exact position. You can try that experience out here.

ATARI’s Arcade “takes what you know in the real world and brings it to life”, you can even relive Windows 95 and the cult classic game, Hover, with the latest version of Internet Explorer.

When you want to jump into modern day hits, Microsoft shows off the stunningly beautiful game – Contre Jour. If you are only going to check out one of the above experiences, this is by far the one to have a blast with.

Contre Jour Experience

Microsoft doesn’t have the upper hand with every one of their products. Words like Vista, Internet Explorer, Kin, and Zune still provide a negative image for many despite how good (Zune) or bad (Vista) the products actually were.

Microsoft’s Rethink Internet Explorer Campaign is another way the company is trying to improve brand image, and it sure is a beautiful advertising maneuver. To view every single Internet Explorer experiment, you can visit the new campaign website by clicking here (opens in new tab).

Do you use Internet Explorer or are you using a third party browser?

Source: Microsoft

Michael Archambault
Michael Archambault
80 Comments
  • IE 11 Here
  • IE11 and Firefox. Been Scroogle Chrome free for 6+ months and have not missed a single beat.
  • I find IE 11 fast but old websites sometimes don't work (more so than IE10) I don't have a single Google product or service anymore!
  • YouTube?
  • Nope, I don't really watch videos, and if I do its through Bing video (technically I know this is YouTube)
  • I prefer Opera personally, but use IE for Netflix since it does work with Silverlight better.
  • YEAAAAAAAAAAH!! Opera is the best!  
  • On my WP? IE. It works great. And other options like Maxthon or Xpress still can't convince me.
  • IME IE for WP7 was great WP8 not so great on my 920.  It's like the only thing that locks or reboots my phone.
  • I was excited about Xpress and it's potential for saving cellular data. Performance was disapointing though. IE for wp should have the same data saving features. IE for desktop admittedly crashes allot and lacks features. I'm not going anywhere but they ought to step up their game. The above video is just arketing BS.
  • Do you think we will get ie11 with wp8.1?
  • Probably not. We don't get much.
  • Sad, but true :(
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8MO7fkZc5o
  • Lol
  • Why not? W8 had IE10, WP8 had IE10. I don't see why WP8.1 wouldn't get IE11, especially as many of its new features are devices-specific (like the orientation and final versions of the new touch/pointer APIs).
  • On my WP, I use UC, for it's download manager, WiFi sharing, and dedicated back button. On my computer I use Maxthon Cloud Browser for it's speed.
  • maxthon and speed? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH maxthon has some few cool features but it sucks at browsing most of the time, th damn thing cant even open fast enough, sometimes not even a tab. sometimes it consumes more ram than IE, and it will not even close the task unless you force it on task manager. your comment its just funny! but well, at least im almost level 30 in maxthon.
  • With each consequent update Chrome becomes buggier and buggier. I gave up on it a long time ago. Actually, I keep it around for the sole purpose of visiting watchseries.lt because here in this dump of Croatia we have no Netflix or any other video-on-demand service so we must make do video host sites, etc. Chrome's AdBlock does a nice job at preventing popups, idiotic ads... But for EVERYTHING else I use IE., ever since v9.
  • Yes! I am an IE user but I use Chrome a lot for work (I'm a web dev). Chrome is getting so buggy, not just in the UI but also from a dev side. Out of all the browsers we support Chrome gives us the most rendering bugs, Firefox in the middle and IE9+ the least. Also what's up with Chrome and making all the fonts lightweight? They are actually ignoring the specific font weight specified on the website and making it look a little thinner, imposing their own design preferences on the entire internet.
  • I'm betting you're using Chrome on OSX. If so, clear your font caches: sudo atsutil databases -remove
    sudo atsutil server -shutdown
    sudo atsutil server -ping And how do you know which browser gives you rendering bugs? According to what standard?
  • Nope, later versions of Chrome on Windows. Since they forked Webkit to Blink. What standard? The W3 standard that all browsers are meant to adhere to. That other browsers get right but Chrome is getting less and less accurate at.
  • I use IE on my phone because it's integrated with the OS, but I use Chrome on my PC because it has extensions. I also use Chrync to sync Chrome with my WP.
  • You are better off sending you SSN and date if birth to Google than using Chrome! Use Firefox if you need extensions.
  • Download one of the browsers based off chromium. I am using Comodo Dragon. They stripped out all of scroogle data tracking.
  • Im using IceDragon, which is based off Firefox. Even better.
  • As far as the ad-superb. Love the artistry on the mural and the music and the showing of features was flawless. Everything looks good to me. Let's go Microsoft.
  • I use Firefox on my win7 install and opera on my Ubuntu partion unless someone can tell me how to speed up ie
  • I use Firefox on my laptop, but IE11 on my tablet for convenience. But when Firefox releases its Windows 8 version, I may stick to that.
    I don't dislike IE, but what is it about that browser that makes webpages look different. It's not even the presence of ads in the absence of ad block that gets me. Siliconera, for example, just doesn't look right on IE. vBulletin boards also occasionally have loading issues. Is it the site's coding? Is it IE?
  • It's the sites' coding, because many devs are lazy and can't be bothered woth IE. When it comes to newer IE versions, the issues arise because devs are trying to work around old-IE issues but applying those 'fixes' to IE9+ where they aren't needed. (I say this as a dev myself, but one of the not-lazy ones)
  • Not always true. Each new release of IE breaks things you didn't even realise could be broken. All the other browsers work great, but IE often throws a spanner in the works. I still have to support IE8 which is awful. I refuse to support IE6, and stopped supporting 7 last year.
  • What's broken in IE10 and 11 that was working in IE9? We don't support 6 or 7 here, and will consider dropping 8 come April unless the clients specifically request it.
  • A lof of AJAX & JQuery stuff, some form submissions, some parts of ASP.NET sites stopped working doing partial postbacks. We had to install server hotfixes, or do a few IE-specific hacks... in one case we had to treat all higher versions of IE as IE9 just so it would work with various components.
    The CSS side of things is much better though... I rarely have to do anything non-standard / hacky for IE. It used to be a nightmare, especially trying to support IE6!
  • That doesn't sound right. There was an issue with IE11 but as long as you're using jQuery 1.10.2 or higher, or 2.0.3 or higher you should be fine.
  • IE10 was the worst for me... I'm still waiting to discover all of the pain that IE11 has unleashed
  • "so it would work with various components" actually implies that your components' devs "are lazy" not that IE10 broke something...
  • The component devs would be Microsoft in many cases ;) No dev can predict the future - IE10+ simply changed the way it interacted with many things that worked perfectly in ALL other browsers for the past 8 years.
  • To be fair, IE10 was an overhaul that fixed most of the issues that were left over in IE9, and for the most commonly used features brought it into line with all other browsers (in some cases even ahead, for instance removing vendor prefixes). The fact that many components and libraries broke to start with is often because they detected IE to apply workarounds, and were/are still applying these workarounds to IE10 which doesn't need them. That's one of the reasons that Microsoft completely removed the branding from IE11's user agent, so most components and libraries that do detect browsers assume it's Firefox.
  • Yeah, that's all true. Unfortunately a lot of that detection is in Microsoft's own libraries... i.e. older websites using the .NET 2 framework, or even sites using .NET 4 framework but are still hosted on IIS6. I have many different clients in different situations so I can't insist everyone is on IIS7 or IIS8 hosting, and many of the sites were built a long time ago. MS did release some hotfixes for the servers (but they didn't always work), and some situations required forcing all IE browsers to be detected as IE9 - it works but it's not a great solution. Unfortunately it would be too expensive otherwise for the client to fix it properly (as it would require an overhaul of many areas).
  • Fair enough, I don't have that much experience on the web side of .NET (I'm PHP/jQuery/etc on the server side, C#.NET on the mobile/tablet/desktop side), so I don't often find myself using Microsoft modules for the web. Though on a different (but still Microsoft) note, TypeScript is very nice.
  • I love Microsoft, love IE11, hate those stupid MS adds. They allways talk in pictures.
  • That was not a good ad
  • I use chrome but I'm weaning myself off it. Internet explorer is great except it is not fully compatible with my personal forum and I thus have to use chrome or Firefox.
  • Get rid of chrome and get comodo dragon, chromium based with added security. No google tracking.
  • Apps
  • i'll use IE 11 over other browsers anytime i.e. metro is kinda buggy though , random freezes and stuff . I.e. 11 desktop mode is much more stable
  • When it comes to desktop touch IE runs circles around Chrome. I actually prefer IE Metro to the desktop version, which is hideous. Touch web is important to think about, especially when I'm considering a Windows 8.1 tablet.
  • Yeah, IE is doing touch really well. Microsoft even designed a new mouse/touch/pointer API which has just become a web standard, replacing the old one used in other browsers. The old one was not scalable as there was a different API for each input type, whereas the new one by MS will work with anything using the same code. So MS are really putting in good work to contribute to a modern internet.
  • I use IE11, but it needs many improvements on my Surface Pro 2. I hope IE12 does a lot.
  • Anything else except (let me steal all your personal data and I don't feel any shame to admit it) chrome
  • some websites not working well with IE... it sucks
  • At the moment I have to change to IE from Chrome everytime I want to see a Flash video. The one above being an example.
  • If only IE on WP8 worked so well with touch centric sites. Hopefuly with an update it will as it's a frustrating experience. When using chrome on a nexus 5 or safari on iphone 5 the same touch centric sites I that are hideous on my lumia work perfectly as intended on the other devices just like a built in application and not a web page. Microsoft really needs to overhaul IE for WP.
  • Often that's because the devs build for Webkit rather than using standards. That's not IE's fault.
  • Feels like a parallel universe in here sometimes.
    Chrome on Windows 7 desktop, Chrome on the iPad 2 (account synching is a must for me) and I rarely use browsers in my Lumia 1020, but it's either IE or UC Browser for lack of other choices.
  • IE11 on W8.1 supports full syncing too, but you'd need a Windows tablet and an OS upgrade obviously.
  • When all is integrated and ready, desktop, smartphones and tablets, I'll probably give it a shot once again. Will be replacing my iPad 2 for a hybrid like Lenovo Yoga, so it might happen sooner than later...
  • Yeah, phone isn't there yet, but I'm looking forward to IE11 on WP8.1 for all these new features like syncing, WebGL, etc.
  • I want to use internet explorer, but IE11 has been much crashier than IE10 so I've had to go back to using Chrome.
  • Scratch & sniff pR0n sites! WEWT
  • Firefox on my laptop, chrome on my tablet (hp touchpad running android 4.3), internet explorer on my Lumia 920.
  • I like chrome due to update's I wish ie wasn't OS intergraded.
  • At the risk of getting lynched by the fan boys, I must admit that IE sucks. Microsoft 's vision of a "plugin-less" internet is a step backwards into the internet of the 90's. And to this day, there is still no extension support. Google was able to make an entire operating system out of a browser and extensions, and yet I still can't have a simple adblocker on my Lumia? IE also doesn't work with my bank site (every other browser does), is slow, clunky, and just plain inferior to other browsers. As much as I hate Google, the fact remains there is nothing IE can do that Chrome can't. The reverse cannot be said however.
  • Even as a Microsoft fan myself, I have to agree with you. Sure, IE has certainly improved alot. But the fact remains that it is lagging behind severely in terms of feature set. With Chrome, you get extensions, apps, and account syncing on both mobile devices and desktop. Even with 8.1, Microsoft still failed in these areas.
  • Here's what doesn't work well about IE11. Mega.co.nz doesn't work without "Enhanced Protection Mode" enabled, and with EPM on my adblocker doesn't works properly. I have to set compatibility view to some websites or even add them to trusted list for them to work. No full HTML5 support. Period.
  • IE11 here. Haven't used anything but IE for the last decade I think... Don't really see why I would. It browses the web... Works for me
  • i use whatever browser comes with the OS, in this case IE everywhere cuz im a microsoft guy, but i currently have a laptop with a dead hdd and use it with a ubuntu live cd and find it quite good for non gaming use really, i have no problems with free software but i kind of prefer the microsoft way, what i hate is google's vision for "free" and all their practices i cant stand all their bs, just waiting for a youtube alternative jeez.
  • What I want are for devs to fix their sites so that hovering over menu works. So many drop down menus don't work correctly with touch and I would love to see that issue resolved.
  • Safari interacts well with iOS, and Chrome interacts well with Android, and IE interacts very well with WP8. For me why not, IE all the way on my Nokia Lumia 925 and on my Windows 8.1 Pro PC.
  • IE11 user here! :)
    anyone can play games smoothly on IE11 ;)
    well, seriously.
  • I use Firefox, Chrome, Chrome Canary, Safari, IE, and Opera... ranked from best to worst. I mainly use Firefox as it's super-stable, and let's me have 80-100 tabs open easily - plus Firebug and a few other developer extensions are awesome.
    Chrome is really good overall, but doesn't handle having as many tabs and doesn't have quite the same amount of extensions... Each day I'll have 80-100 FF tabs open and maybe 20 Chrome tabs open on separate monitors. Chrome Canary is just for testing new browsers features.
    Safari I just use for web testing - it's really good at rendering (as it's webkit) but there's nothing else interesting about it.
    IE often works well, but overall it's a pig to support... especially when using a lot of AJAX or jquery as you have to do some things arse-backwards or have special code just for IE. IE10 was probably the worst for breaking changes, not CSS related.
    Opera I just use this for testing - I did use it for a week exclusively as it has a few nice features, but it crashes if you open too many tabs and every now and then will forget all the tabs you had open... so you have to go through a recovery step to get them back. I would rank it higher than IE if it wasn't for all of the crashing / performance issues.
  • I use IE11 and Chrome. The only reason I keep Chrome is because everytime I start IE11 (first time), it stalls for about 30 seconds before loading the home page. Chrome is consistently faster on first start up. It takes Chrome approximatey 8 seconds before the home page loads. (Both home pages are set to IGN.COM). After that I consider them equally fast, but the initial startup time for IE11 is a hindrance. 
  • Wish favorites/ bookmarks could be reformatted to look like tabs and vice versa. Current format is too shaky!
  • Vista wasn't bad, just ahead of its time.
  • programs always become corrupted or invalid signatures in in IE browser
  • IE browser don't trust Microsoft site kept sayin reset your connection
  • Sweet idea.  Still trying to make the switch from Chrome.  Hard to get used to another new browser after using this for so long. 
  • I almost lost my hope since i can't install any programs in IE browser., i cried.
  • Running IE11 on a newly installed Win8.1 machine and when IE is working it works well...but it randomly stops working. Click on a link and all it says is "waiting for site xxxx" - that's it. The program hasn't crashed, but it doesn't do anything but wait...Chrome/FF can open the same site/link without issue. This doesn't happen only on a few sites either, happens to any site, at random. Only way to get it to do anything is to close it, re-open, and go back to the site, but it will eventually stop working again - very annoying and strange.
  • IE 10 and 11 have been pretty nice and have fixed a lot of what has always been wrong with previous versions of IE in speed, resource management, and the ability to block ads (though I still wish that they would add plugin support).
    However, on an average day I use 4 different devices to browse the web, and sometimes it can be much more than that. I am far too spoiled (and lazy) to be expected to log into every single service and website that I visit of 4 devices all of the time, or to keep my bookmarks on a USB stick, so I spend my time occasionally hopping between Chrome and FF as they have ways to manage that kind of stuff between devices (except for my phone of course).
    If IE makes a similar feature where I can sync things like this across all of the machines that I use then I would make the switch in a heartbeat. It would also be extremely helpful if I could send a web page from my phone to one of these devices as well.