According to Microsoft's Chris Holmes, the latest version of Windows 7, build 7048, will let users turn off Internet Explorer through a dialog box that will be labeled "Windows Features."
As Mozilla's competing browser Firefox has eroded Internet Explorer's market share, Microsoft's browser has had to directly compete with the web's No. 2 browser on more fronts.
An informal survey of adult industry professionals indicates that Firefox remains popular among adult webmasters for many reasons, chief among them its flexibility and its ease of use. Carl Borowitz, vice president of marketing for Big Sister Media, praised Firefox.
"It's more stable, less vulnerable to spyware and it had tabbed browsing before Microsoft [Internet Explorer]," he said.
Internet Explorer remains the dominant web browser mostly due to sheer ubiquity and some widespread user inexperience. Tech commentator Michael Horowitz of CNET News gathered data that indicates that as a computer user gains technical savvy, they become less and less likely to use Internet Explorer. Where do these tech-savvy users go? To Firefox.
But when it comes to accommodating the adult industry — or its fans, at least — Microsoft actually beat Mozilla to the punch by introducing a "porn mode" to Internet Explorer. In July 2008, the tech giant filed applications for two trademarks – one for a product that scrubs browser histories, the other for a gizmo that disables the history and cache capabilities of a web browser.
Apple's Safari web browser offered a "porn mode" before either of its larger competitors, but Safari commands a mere 8 percent of the marketplace.