Can Microsoft Get IE Back On Track?

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a popular and well-known brand, and Windows is a versatile and widely-used operating system, but that old Internet Explorer that comes on Windows computers hasn’t been such a hit in recent years. Now, Microsoft is working as hard as ever to turn that around.

Since Mozilla’s Firefox browser came out — followed by Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Chrome browser sometime after — Internet Explorer has often been seen as the slow, incapable ancestor to the newer generation of browsers, taking small steps while others take grand strides. People frequently talked about security issues with the browser as well.

On top of the browser’s poor technical reputation, it’s gotten a bad rap in legal institutions as well. A few years ago, Microsoft was slammed with $2.23 billion in fines from European Union antitrust probes, and afterward, it agreed to offer various Internet browsers to its user, not just Internet Explorer, which was always prepackaged with the operating system and often hated by tech-savvy computer users. Unfortunately, some 10 percent of Microsoft’s computers were found to not comply with the agreement last month, and could see the company fined as much as 10 percent of its yearly sales…