7 Big Changes Coming in Internet Explorer 11

Microsoft thinks very highly of its homegrown web browser, Internet Explorer. IE has been intertwined with Windows itself for over a decade, and when Microsoft debuted Windows 8 last year, it also released a new version of the browser, Internet Explorer 10, that was created specifically for the full-screen, touch-first experience that Windows 8 emphasizes.

By its nature, IE10 was a big change, but it also had some strange limitations. Web content took up the whole screen unless you right-clicked — only then did you see your tabs or the URL bar. You couldn’t manage Favorites. You could only have 10 tabs open at once. To make the transition bearable, Microsoft kept a version of IE10 in the traditional desktop environment, although the same engine powers both.