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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. will release a new version of Internet Explorer, the world's most widely used Internet browsing software, with new, built-in security features, Chairman Bill Gates said Tuesday.
"We have decided to do a new version of Internet Explorer, this is IE 7," Gates said at the RSA Security Conference being held in San Francisco.
The world's largest software maker had not previously indicated whether it planned to release a new version of IE.
Recently, however, Microsoft's browser has been facing competition for the first time in years from the Firefox browser, a free Web browser developed by a network of software programmers.
The new version of IE, which will be released for preliminary testing this summer, will have new protections against viruses, spyware and "phishing" scams, which fool users into entering sensitive information on Web pages that appear to be legitimate.
Gates said security remains the biggest threat to the "fantastic advances" happening in the world of technology, and that Microsoft was spending more than a third of its annual $6 billion in research and development spending on security.
The move comes three years after Microsoft, the world's biggest software company, launched a major initiative to improve the reliability and security of its software, which runs on about 90 percent of all personal computers.
Analysts have said that tech-savvy users are switching to Firefox because it offers better security as well as some features that are not available on IE.
Firefox usage: 5%
According to Web statistics tracking firm WebSideStory Inc., nearly 5 percent of Web surfers now use Firefox.
Internet Explorer held a 90.3-percent share of U.S. browser usage at the middle of January, compared with a 95.5-percent share in mid-2004.
Microsoft is also gearing up its other security efforts, and last month began offering a preliminary version of its free anti-spyware software, which prevents malicious programs from snooping for data on computers and recording a user's keystrokes.
Microsoft is also planning to release an anti-virus product, but Gates did not provide details in Tuesday's speech.
Firefox is based on the Mozilla browser, which itself is based on much of the underlying software code from Netscape, the Web browser that was instrumental in the Internet's growth in the 1990s.
Instead of a company, however, a network of programmers called the Mozilla Foundation jointly develops the Firefox browser, in order to create an alternative to the dominant browser platform.
Netscape was overtaken by Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the late 1990s, sparking the Justice Department's landmark antitrust case against Microsoft.
Shares of Microsoft (down $0.01 to $25.92, Research) were relatively unchanged in early afternoon trading.
"We have decided to do a new version of Internet Explorer, this is IE 7," Gates said at the RSA Security Conference being held in San Francisco.
The world's largest software maker had not previously indicated whether it planned to release a new version of IE.
Recently, however, Microsoft's browser has been facing competition for the first time in years from the Firefox browser, a free Web browser developed by a network of software programmers.
The new version of IE, which will be released for preliminary testing this summer, will have new protections against viruses, spyware and "phishing" scams, which fool users into entering sensitive information on Web pages that appear to be legitimate.
Gates said security remains the biggest threat to the "fantastic advances" happening in the world of technology, and that Microsoft was spending more than a third of its annual $6 billion in research and development spending on security.
The move comes three years after Microsoft, the world's biggest software company, launched a major initiative to improve the reliability and security of its software, which runs on about 90 percent of all personal computers.
Analysts have said that tech-savvy users are switching to Firefox because it offers better security as well as some features that are not available on IE.
Firefox usage: 5%
According to Web statistics tracking firm WebSideStory Inc., nearly 5 percent of Web surfers now use Firefox.
Internet Explorer held a 90.3-percent share of U.S. browser usage at the middle of January, compared with a 95.5-percent share in mid-2004.
Microsoft is also gearing up its other security efforts, and last month began offering a preliminary version of its free anti-spyware software, which prevents malicious programs from snooping for data on computers and recording a user's keystrokes.
Microsoft is also planning to release an anti-virus product, but Gates did not provide details in Tuesday's speech.
Firefox is based on the Mozilla browser, which itself is based on much of the underlying software code from Netscape, the Web browser that was instrumental in the Internet's growth in the 1990s.
Instead of a company, however, a network of programmers called the Mozilla Foundation jointly develops the Firefox browser, in order to create an alternative to the dominant browser platform.
Netscape was overtaken by Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the late 1990s, sparking the Justice Department's landmark antitrust case against Microsoft.
Shares of Microsoft (down $0.01 to $25.92, Research) were relatively unchanged in early afternoon trading.
