TNW has been tracking the Internet Explorer Makeover Tour, our unofficial name for Microsoft’s attempts to answer past criticism of its browser and move it forward with a clean slate, carefully. This is not due to a sort of software fetish on our part, but is instead a careful viewing of how a previously dominant and tarnished market leader rebuilds from a tough branding position.

Microsoft’s plans for Internet Explorer, in our view, will have the browser running on every platform it builds, making it more than a piece of software; Microsoft wants Internet Explorer to be every person’s window into the web.

That in mind, the company is releasing successive advertisements that cast aspersion – fair notes, frankly – on several past iterations of Internet Explorer, coupled with a call to arms that the product is now better than ever, and worthy of your time.

This play can only work if two conditions are met: Internet Explorer must have improved, and the ads must be top-notch. The company has in fact managed to check both boxes. Internet Explorer 10, building on the leap that was Internet Explorer 9, is a capable product. And the ads have been good by any standard, and amazing by our usual Microsoft measuring stick.

This will probably be the last of these adverts that we bring you, as we don’t want to overmake the point. Still, it is important for you to understand Microsoft’s mind and how it intends to resuscitate this key brand:

The tagline “Browser You Love(d) to Hate” is almost brave. Microsoft, not usually a company to eat public crow, has decided the only way to move forward is to swallow its past in front of us all. Get your popcorn.

Top Image Credit: James Dennes

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