IE 7 is on the way, mircrosoft has released a public beta, but is this browser going to be less naff (my opinion) than the current offering?
So whats new? Well Mircosoft have obviously been taking notice of the users, and other browsers, and has actually inctroduced some pretty nifty features.
The good news
The best news is that IE7 is finally going to take more notice of the web standards, thankyou microsoft. This is going to make web development a hell of a lot simpler, not saying we should neglect people with old browsers, just saying that the hassle with current browsers will be lessened.
What microsoft say..
A New look
This offering of IE has reduced the clutter of its interface, and maximised the web site viewing area. It actually looks quite nice, and is a pleasent change from the cluttered, bulk of IE6.
Tabs
About time too. Tabbed browsing allows you to have multiple sites open in the same window, reducing screen clutter.
Other features
- Rss integration
- Integrated search box (at last)
- Better printing support and preview
- Improved Security - Hopefully this is more than just talk this time
My review
Well first off, the beta installer was a pain. It refused to install on my machine. Eventually after going through the troubleshooting I found it was because 1 registry key had incorrect settings. What a bad installer… anyway.
I noticed they have changed the name to “Windows Internet explorer”, most probabaly trying to make it seem more… essential.
Upon launching, first impressions not bad. The layout is definatly cleaner, however I wasent too keen on the new icons, but that is a minor issue. The tabs look like those of Opera, and have the close button on the tab itself.
The new tab button next to the tabs is a nice feature.
I did notice that IE7 anti-alises the pages it renders. Im not too big on this as it makes my eyes hurt. Annoyingly the option for disabling this (clear type) wasent working, so my eyes had to suffer for the duration of this review.
The rendering of layouts has improved, and at last the boffins at Microsoft have fixed the rendering of dotted lines. Still there are some weird render bugs, I notice little dashes inbetween images and texts on my floats. I dont know why they are there.
IE now has built in RSS support, which allows you to subscribe to feeds within the browser, I like this feature.
Page and browser loading times seem to have increased, and rendering time has been improved.
My conclusion
A step in the right direction, Microsoft have certinly been listening to the public and have added features accrordingly. They may have ‘borrowed’ features from other browsers, but it has definatly improved usability.
Keep an eye on this one, but personally Im still using opera and firefox for now.
Make your own decision
Download IE7 - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie
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