IE and Xbox One: The Best Web on TV

On Nov. 22, we’re going to get our hands on Xbox One. Whether you’re lining up the night before or are on the fence about which console to buy this holiday, the team here at Internet Explorer is psyched to share with you more detail around the best browser for the big screen in your house – Internet Explorer for Xbox One.


So what’s the big deal? Three things. First, the sites you love on the web do more than
just work in Internet Explorer for Xbox One. Because we built Internet Explorer for Xbox One with support for modern web standards like HTML5 and CSS3, your favorite sites are going to look amazing on a television. Second, how you navigate the web is up to you. With Xbox One you can navigate the web with your voice, use gesture input with Kinect, grab an Xbox One controller, or pick up a companion device with the Xbox SmartGlass app. Finally, any pinned sites or favorites you saved in Internet Explorer on your Xbox 360 will be pulled forward to your Xbox One.

About a year ago we launched Internet Explorer for Xbox 360, and on Nov. 22 with the launch of Xbox One, we’re upping the ante. We increased support for modern web standards by over 200% from Xbox 360 to Xbox One. We’ve added browser features that you know and love from your Windows PC – website pinning, multiple tabs, inPrivate browsing, SmartScreen, Cookie blocking, and Do Not Track, and we’ve increased integration with Xbox SmartGlass so you can use your smartphone or tablet to not only navigate Internet Explorer on Xbox One, but be able to move websites back and forth from your television to your phone or tablet.

One of the things we’re most excited about is all the new possibilities available when you can multi-task with a full-feature browser on your television. Playing a video game and need a quick reference for how to get through a level? Snap Internet Explorer to the side of your screen and pull up a walkthrough on the web, voila – a
companion experience on the same screen! Plus, with the massive upgrade in system performance on Xbox One, you can now multitask between Internet Explorer and other applications and games in real-time, which means you never miss a moment.


Keep on top of Twitter feed while destroying an enemy.

Hands off
Xbox One features brand new support for gesture navigation, where you can use your hands to navigate with Kinect, as well as voice navigation support.

Just say “Xbox, Select” when Internet Explorer is running, and you’ll see a list of the different voice commands that are available.   Probably the most popular commands are “Browse to” and “Click On.” Internet Explorer uses the latest Kinect speech technology to let you browse to your favorite sites and click on any link on a page – all without lifting a finger.   Xbox recognizes the most-visited websites in your locale, plus all of your favorite sites.  So if you’re looking for the news, you can just say “Browse to New York Times.”

This list is tailored to you, and you can customize it as you’d like –even rename them to something more memorable.


Just say “Xbox, Select” to see a list of voice commands.

With “Click on,” you can activate any link on the page. Just say “Click on… <followed by whatever you want to click on>.”   For really long links, you can just say a few of the words.  Internet Explorer will still understand.  Plus, this is implemented in a web standards respectful way, so it will work with existing websites, with no extra work required by developers. Once on a page, you can use voice to scroll through the page, play back embedded media, view video full-screen, add to favorites and more.  Just say “Xbox, Select,” and you’ll see options as to what you can say.

Hands up
Gesture commands are pretty cool. They’re brand new for Internet Explorer on Xbox One.

Just reach out, and grab the page.  Then move your hand up or down to pan around the page.  You can also pull the page toward you to zoom in or push it away to zoom out. Move your open hand over a link and press it to click on it.  And if the links are too close together on a page, the page will automatically zoom in so you can more easily choose one to press.


Grab the page to scroll, pull it toward you to zoom in. Press to browse a link.

Whether it’s navigating with your voice, or with your hands, we think you’ll have a blast experiencing the web you know and love on Xbox One and Internet Explorer.

Are you in the U.S.? 
We’re giving away two (2) Xbox One consoles! READ ON
The Internet Explorer team here in Redmond is so excited for this launch, we want to hook you guys up and get you playing online. We’ve got two Xbox One consoles we want to give away. Sorry folks outside the U.S., we have to keep this to the fifty states for this giveaway.

Each Xbox One consoles comes with a one-year Xbox Live subscription. Here’s how to get in on this:

  1. Live in the United States
  2. With new Internet Explorer on Xbox One, your favorite websites just work. Send us a tweet that includes the @IE handle and the hashtag #IEonXboxOne telling us about what you’re excited to experience in Internet Explorer for Xbox One.
  3. We’ll announce the two lucky winners picked at random on the @IE twitter handle at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 21. And we’ll ship you your sweet prize within two weeks.


Game on!
Your Internet Explorer Team