Submitted by: kirkland on Tuesday February 15th, 2005 at 02:53 PM EST

Microsoft stated on Tuesday that it will ship a new version of it's Internet Explorer software for current versions of Windows XP this summer. Previously, Microsoft said they would not release a new version of Internet Explorer before the next version of Windows, code named "Longhorn" was released.

Analysts believe this change of policy for Microsoft is due to the increasing popularity of alternative browsers such as Mozilla Foundation's Firefox.

The new version of IE will contain better security and anti-spyware features according to Microsoft. It will be released for Windows XP SP2 users, with the possibility for support of Windows 2000.