New IE 7 Beta Available for Download
Posted by Erik Larkin | Thursday, June 29, 2006 5:02 PM PT
IE 7 beta 3 for XP hit the wires today. This version isn't a great leap forward from the last, but rather a measured step towards the final release planned towards the end of the year.
This upgrade is only for the Windows XP version.
Microsoft says the
last beta version was basically feature complete, so the changes in beta 3 are mostly polish and bug fixes. There are a few small but useful new features, though. You can now move tabs around, for one thing. And you'll get a horizontal scroll bar when you zoom in on a page and it consequently doesn't all fit on the screen.
There are a couple of minor RSS tweaks, also. You can choose to refresh all your feeds at once manually, and you can globally mark everything as read.
One thing gave me pause when I talked with a Microsoft spokesman last week. He said that about half of a batch of recently patched vulnerabilities in IE 6 carried over to IE 7. To be fair, he said a number of them were found during code analysis for IE 7, and it is normal to keep a large amount of code from previous versions when writing software upgrades.
But I'm still troubled, since a crucial element of IE 7 is supposed to be improved security. If IE 7 has even half the critical security holes of its aging predecessor, it will be one insecure app.
Still, there's no downside to grabbing Beta 3 if you've been using Beta 2. Except maybe that you'll need to take the slightly tedious step of manually uninstalling Beta 2 first. Microsoft says they are working on having the next install take care of the uninstall so that it will be a one-step process.
Speaking of the next upgrade, there will be at least one more before the final version. Look for an RC (release candidate) version around September.
IE is outdated. microsoft cant even make a decent browser... i mean come on!
"If IE 7 has even half the critical security holes of its aging predecessor, it will be one insecure app."
it probably will... and when those are patched more will come. microsoft is famous for insecurity.
"Speaking of the next upgrade, there will be at least one more before the final version. Look for an RC (release candidate) version around September."
no i dont think i will..
I love IE, it has the latest viruses.
Ie 7 beta 2 worked great initially, but I had great troubles with my system when I uninstalled it. It has taken a couple of days to get my system back to how I want it. I'm not sure I want to take a chance on trying beta 3.
Too little too late for an aging dinosaur trying to hold on for dear life once it KNOWS it has been made obsolete. Gates never cared about his crappy browser, especially when the competition was crushed. Why should the rest of us care now?
Getting and using IE for surfing these days is akin to going online without an a/v or f/w. Only the foolish are brave enough.
People seem to be thrilled to decry Microsoft in general and Internet Explorer in particular. Having used it since version 3, and used Netscape off and on as well as Firefox, I can say that I find IE the easiest to use, the most stable, and although there are numerous patches released regarding security, I have never, once, experienced any of the problems caused by the vulnerabilities because I keep my software up to date. It's not as if Netscape or Firefox or Opera are bug-free; they just get a lot less press
I have studied this IE7 and found it a bit too complicated ,specialy on the subject of installing updates after initial instalment.
I almost downloaded it, until I hit the Genuine Advantage validation wall. My copy's legal, but I have no interest in jumping through hoops just out of the morbid curiosity I have to see IE7b3.
I'm with you, Zach. Microsoft and Sony are too alike when it comes to not trusting their users.
I have no problem purchasing my software, and I know that the download STATES that no personal information is being taken, but I just don't buy it. If they don't trust me, I don't trust them. I'll stick with FireFox...Opera...etc.
I uninstalled IE7 b2 as instructed. When I installed IE7 b3 I got the warning that the install did not complete. I tried the troubleshooting suggestions, but they were not relevant. So, I am back to IE6. I will try calling MS next week, they are closed today according to the phone message.
@Zach - the "hoops of genuine advantage validation wall"?
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Click a button and 3 secs later it is done.
What a hoop...
i don't get it.. i installed ie7b2 on a pirate copy of winxp, thus using a patched ie7 (more risk of being unstable) and i got NO ERRORS.
using it is EASY, the UI is alot more solid than firefox and for me alot more intuitive.
i really dont understand how people get so many errors.. is it really IE fault??? or maybe, just maybe, can there be something else messing up your pc and you just choose to blame microsoft???
i dont say microsoft is the best, i just say that it maybe isnt that bad ...
IE 7 works pretty well for me so far. No problems with the software, though I have noticed some CSS rendering differences in certain cases. It's a good step forward but it says a lot when many of its new features are already standard in Firefox. I'm a fan of both browser, btw.
Losers complain... if you don't like it the get a Mac for your own good.
AHHH... competition...gives everyone a choice and seems to me everyone is or has made their choice. ..right ..wrong .. indifferent..or just plain biased...IE 7 is being judged as a try me program and compared to the in use three years Firefox or whatever..... unfair
Do you remember the oxymoron " Microsoft Works" ?
As long as I use Windows, i won't even try to get IE7, unless another fatal need appears...
I mean, on Mac OS9, IE 5.1 works pretty well, and it is not that deeply stuck to the system, comparing to windows...
I have windows xp SP2 installed but after I heard about IE7, I installed it, and restarted it and IE7 did not upgrade my Internet Explorer. I have windows XP Home Edition so can somebody here please email me step by step manual easy understanding instructions, so my internet explorer can upgrade to 7 beta. Thank You!
I prefer your activities in the one step IE7 upgrades. The automatically update for IE seems for me very positiv. IE7beta3 works perfect.
It's interesting that Microsoft is doing the same thing to Mozilla that they did to Apple in the 80's. . . Microsoft waits like a naughty little boy and cheats off of the best ideas of a fellow classmate.
Microsoft is basically ripping off the best features of Firefox inlcuding: tabbed browsing, RSS Support, and Search Plugins.
As a corporation, Microsoft was finally forced to give users a badly needed upgrade to a Browser, that because of its widespread use has become the bain of non-internet savvy users.
Uninformed users of IE 6, and maybe even IE 7 could open a webpage, have a drive-by download or accidentally click on a pop-up message and install one of those nefarious spyware laiden toolbars, not to mention users that have no clue what they are doing on the internet and wonder why there is spyware crawling all over their machine.
My final verdict. . . wait for a few months and see how many holes are exploited before going back to Internet Explorer.