Can Internet Explorer be used as a class?

Hi all,

I'm trying to program a simple app that will go through user-specified websites and save all images on the pages to the local harddrive.
I'm guessing that the program will have to make use of a web browser, let's assume IE, but I'm lost as to how I can make my app "interact" with IE. How can I change the address of the website that IE is currently displaying? How can I know when the website is down? Questions like that.
I haven't programmed anything that "interacts" with another window program that I have not programmed, so I'm wondering how this is done. Can internet explorer be used as a class, with member functions and so on? Where would I find documentation for this?

In a more general sense, I guess I'm asking how to make programs that interact with other programs, like IE, Windows Explorer and so on..

Finally, how would I go about saving those pictures that my app has found on a given website? (If IE can be used as a class, then it might be trivial, but if it can't, then I might need some help)

Can anyone get me started? Thanks.