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Tuesday, January 31, 2006 9:00 AM PT Posted by Harry McCracken
Hands On With Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 Beta
At first, Microsoft seemed to think that Windows XP users didn't need a better Internet Explorer, despite IE 6's security holes and lack of browsing ameneties--and despite the growing popularity of Firefox. Then, almost a year ago, the behemoth of Redmond declared that there would be an Internet Explorer 7 for XP and Win 2K.IE 7 in its final form is still not here--Microsoft says it's now shooting for it to arrive at roughly the same time that Windows Vista does. (Which will be, in theory. late this year.) But I've been playing with a prerelease version for a few days (as has my colleague Erik Larkin--here's his take). And today, Microsoft has made a beta version of the browser available at its IE site--the first time one's been available to anyone who wanted to take it for a spin.
Microsoft says that this preview version is aimed at developers and tech enthusiasts; another prerelease version meant for the masses will come later. In my browsing over the past few days, IE 7 has crashed a couple of times, but has mostly behaved itself--so if you're dying to try it, and not adverse to a little risk of things going awry, I say go for it.
But overall, IE 7 is just not that big a whoop. Mostly, it brings an increasingly antiquated browser up to rough parity with Firefox and Opera, two products which have improved by leaps and bounds during the years that IE has mostly stood still. It does have a few nice features that its rivals don't, but none of them are life-changing experiences. And for me, at least, it it retains some old annoyances--and introduces at least one new one.
That new annoyance is IE 7's weird attitude towards menus. One of the few Windows elements that's remained constant since Windows 1.0--in almost every signficant applications--is that menus appear directly beneath the title bar. In IE 7, they don't. Actually, they don't appear at all by default; you can turn them on, but even then, they appear below the URL field, not above it.
How come? Microsoft says that for most common tasks, you won't need menus at all. And that's probably true...once you find where the tasks have moved in IE's newly-rearranged interface. But why Microsoft seems to think that millions of people who already know how to use menus would want to stop using them, I'm not sure.
And truth to tell, Microsoft hasn't really managed to make an IE that doesn't rely on menus: Click on some of version 7's snazzy toolbar buttons and you get...menus. Menus that offer some options that aren't in the old-fashioned menus, and vice versa.
As for why the menus appear below the URL field when they appear at all...well, I asked a Microsoft representative that question during a recent meeting here at PC World, and he said he wasn't sure. (I also wasn't able to get any insight from Microsoft's official IE blog.) For me, at least, it makes them hard to find; my mousing hand has many years of practice swooping up to a particular spot to use menus, and moving them on me means I need to pause for a split-second every time I need them.
This isn't just an IE 7 thing. The impending updates for multiple Microsoft products--IE, Office, and Windows Vista--all reflect the company's jihad against the menu. But each one does away with them in a different fashion, thereby eliminating a meaningful point of consistency from the Windows interface. (So far, Office 12 seems to come the closest to eliminating old-style menus in a coherent fashion.)
It's a little as if General Motors was simultaneously showing off new Chevys that put the brake to the right of the accelerator and new Pontiacs that put it on top...and it didn't have an explanation as to why the brake needed to move at all, beyond the fact that learning how to stop a car isn't a cakewalk.
I wouldn't be griping about this if IE 7 had an option that put menus back in the spot where every prior version of the browser--and every browser--has placed them. But it doesn't, at least not in this beta. End of rant.
As for other notable changes to the IE interface, the biggest one is probably tabbed browsing--a feature which every other major browser in the known universe has offered for quite awhile. Microsoft's take on tabs is pretty standard: You can add a tab with one click and bookmark a group of them at one fell swoop. You can't drag-and-drop tabs around as far as I can tell--not a tragic loss--but a feature called Quick Tabs, which lets you view thumbnails of every open window at once, is about the only striking addition to IE 7 that's not in Firefox or Opera. (It is, however, reminiscent of Mac OS X's Expose.) It's a handy way to bop between pages.
As with tabbed browsing, Firefox and Opera already let you read RSS feeds, and IE 7 is just catching up. This is one place where each of the big three of browsing take a distinctly different path: Firefox's Live Bookmarks turn feeds into menu items, while Opera's RSS uses an e-mail-like interface.
IE 7 takes yet another approach. If a site that offers RSS feeds is set up properly, IE 7 will notice and its Feed icon will light up; click it, and you can add a feed to your Favorites. (Embarassing full discloure: PC World offers RSS feeds aplenty, but our site doesn't alert browsers when you show up at our home page; you've got to navigate to a feed to bookmark it.)
IE 7 turns feeds into simple Web pages, somewhat like Apple's Safari does; it won't replace a full-blown reader for hardcore RSS fans, but it's simple and effective, and it's something Firefox doesn't do.
Firefox stores your feeds in the Bookmarks menu, a clever, efficient way to put them at your fingertips without them taking up space. IE 7, on the other hand, only lets you navigate them in a sizable window that pops up to the left of the Web-page window. Which approach you prefer is going to be a matter of taste.
If you install IE 7, Microsoft's RSS engine--also to be built into Windows Vista--gets installed in Windows; Microsoft hopes that other developers will use it to build RSS capabilities into applications of all sorts. If they do, great; stay tuned.
One IE 7 advantage over Firefox and Opera is kind of hidden at the moment: It supports OpenSearch, a standard (spearheaded by Amazon's wonderful A9) that lets any search engine send results to any application that supports the standard. IE 7 uses OpenSearch to power its new built-in search field, which sits in the upper right-hand corner a la the Firefox search field. But IE 7 seems to provide easy access to only a tiny fraction of the engines that support OpenSearch. If they were all a click or two away, this would be a boon to serious search fanatics; maybe they will be by the time IE 7 is finalized.
Other significant new stuff in IE 7? It's got a nice print-preview feature that lets you turn off headers and footers with a click, drag margins around, and print part of a Web page by selecting it; overall, these are probably the best printing features in any of the major browsers.
It also has a smart zoom feature, similar to one in Opera but missing in Firefox: When you zoom in or out on a page, the graphics grow or shrink along with the text, so the whole page scales appropriately.
Oh yeah, one other thing--security. The widespread abuse of Microsoft's ActiveX technology to launch hacker attacks is one big reason why a lot of folks have switched to Firefox or Opera. Among IE 7's new security features is the fact that it essentially doesn't trust ActiveX; when sites use it, you'll generally get a heads-up and will need to give your OK. (When Microsoft demoed IE 7 to us, it showed how a site that was able to dump spyware on a PC via IE 6 couldn't do so through IE 7.) Also new in this version is a phishing filter. We'll see what happens when lots of copies of IE 7 are out there and bad guys begin to bang on them; at the very least, IE 7 users should be safer than anyone who sticks with IE 6.
One other way in which IE remains annoying, at least to me: Its "Internet Options" preference dialog remains a surging sea of confusing configuration possibilities. Firefox and Opera both let you find tweakable settings a lot more quickly. And I wish that IE put its field for searching a Web page's text at the bottom of the page, like Firefox does: It still lives in a dialog that's prone to cover up the text you're trying to find.
So what's the bottom line here? In most ways that matter, IE 7 is a better browser than IE 6. It's no great leap forward for either IE or browsing in general, though, and (warning! rant relapse!) the fact that it treats menus in a nonstandard, inconsistent manner--and doesn't let you opt for the old way--is a completely unneccesary drawback.
I can't imagine many folks who have already dumped IE for Firefox or Opera feeling the need to go back. And with a preview version of Opera 9 already out and Firefox 2.0 in the works, it's possible that the alernative browsers will evolve further before IE 7 is finally out of beta. But once IE 7 is the default Windows browser, it's possible that fewer people will find it necessary to flee IE for an alternative. We'll see.
If you try the IE 7 preview out, have fun--and come back here to let us know what you think.
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"...but a feature called Quick Tabs, which lets you view thumbnails of every open window at once, is about the only striking addition to IE 7 that's not in Firefox or Opera."
While this is not in the core functionality of Firefox 1.5, it is, however, available as an extension.
For those folks who make a living hacking CSS to make it work with pre-IE 7 Beta releases, their lives are about to become more complicated as there will be a whole new batch of hacks and workarounds that will have to be discovered. It's practically guaranteed job security for them! :)
Good job Microsoft, it took you two years to copy Safari.
I hate the way the menu takes up an entire line... In Firefox you can keep the menu and the address bar in the same line, with the tabs below, for a total of 2 lines of "stuff" at the top of the screen. But in IE7 you have 3 lines; the address bar, the menu, and the tabs... and the tabs are HUGE. It's annoying that you can't customize as much as Firefox allows.
The look and customization options in Firefox are definitely better
I found internet explorer slow to minimize and maximize also i tried opening up msn.com on both firefox and IE and it seems firefox is better if not much better.
they basically copied everything from other browsers and takes them so bloody long to just copy.
One thing i noticed is the fonts seem to be different more rounded and clearer prahaps this is just my tired eyes. Overall this is not the big change i was expecting and seems just like IE is trying to imitate firefox and opera except for two of the new features. Opera i think is better for RSS, Firefox is better in general and by the time it is released firefox will probably got better again. The one thing for me that is very interesting is the Open Search this could be very interesting but i'm sure the other will soon add this feature.
IE survives because Windows does. Would anyone download and use IE regardless of version if Windows and Windows-specific network apps didn't oblige them to?
Apple's market share can't grow because virtually no I.T. manager will deploy proprietary, single-sourced hardware on corporate desktops. This dissuades many software companies from writing for Apple's self-capping market.
Linux remains an unassembled log cabin kit. Most business users have no desire, let alone ability, to try editing three disparate text files in the hopes that they didn't misplace a comma somewhere that will prevent their desktop computer from functioning properly.
Firefox is great, but virtually every user of it has suffered at least once at the hands of an amateurishly written extensions that either didn't work or broke the browser completely. Better than IE for sure, but still sub-optimal...
It's what others don't do that makes IE a subject of conversation. If the others did it right, IE couldn't, figuratively speaking, get kissed at an orgy...
I agree with Riley's comments, however, IE will continue to dominate the market and I will continue to target IE as the primary browser given its huge market share. Evebn if FireFox and Opera are a little better than IE (which may well be the case), most users won't bother downloading it. They'd have to be miles ahead of IE, and frankly I don't think they are.
Seriously, Maxthon is completely capable of blowing all of the above away (opera, firefox, and IE6 or IE7). Why? Because it doesn't compromise. In fact, it combines the best of everything. Extensions? Got em! Ad-Blocking and Anti-spyware settings? Got-em! Speed? Got it! Tabbed browsing? Absolutely. There is so much to this browser that its kind of confusing on why its not more popular than a memory-hogging Firefox or a UI overwhelming Opera. I guess that's because its considered an IE-clone. Oh well, it runs on the engine, but even that can be changed, to run on a Gecko Engine now. In any case, if you haven't looked into Maxthon, and want the best of all worlds for browsing, I suggest you check it out.
Riley,
Absolutely one of the most poignant and brilliant posts I have ever read...
Well versed and obviously a long time user...Though I disagree with the assessment of FireFox and extensions crashes...(having deployed it to 2,000 users with full blown extension use and less than 1% crash), your point(s) are well received...
Good job and Thank you!
I believe that this is an improvement by Microsoft...finally!
There needs to be some serious competition for Microsoft's Windows Operating System. It's the only reason all of these products are surviving.
Though I am impressed as this product may finally have a chance at equaling Mozilla Firefox, though Mozilla Firefox is improving quicker and Internet Explorer will soon be left in the dust.
I am impressed with Quick Tabs, & I did not know there was an extension for it in Firefox. Thanks!
I have used Firefox for over a year now, exclusively. Other than downloading of themes, IE 7 seems to do just as good. In fact I like the fact you can see all open tabs in page(icons) and the print function is better than Firefox. I think this article, along with most Mozilla fans, is they attack Microsoft for not being the competetion, regardless of who that might be.
IE 7 addresses the issues I had with 6, and will cause me to leave my comfort of Firefox 1.5.
IE 7 turns feeds into simple Web pages, somewhat like Apple's Safari does; it won't replace a full-blown reader for hardcore RSS fans, but it's simple and effective, and it's something Firefox doesn't do.
Firefox does it, try using the Sage RSS feedreader.
I'd be really curious if they got their JavaScript, CSS, DHTML, and XHTML functionality finally up to standard. That's the big question for web developers!
Even considering its shortcomings, Firefox has what is in my (unlearned) opinion a decisive advantage over any flavor of IE: it's open source. Don't like the extensions available for Firefox? Bone up on your XUL and write your own. Try something like that with IE7. Firefox still seems to me to be the most forward-looking browser out there.
Looks like Microsoft got tired of waiting for Apple to port Safari to Windows so they did it themselves.
I appreciate two things of IE7, one is real ease of opening a new tab. Just click on a small square, its ctrl+t for firefox or a right click. Another major achievement of IE7 is text looks miraculously clear. Even an inhuman font size of 6 pt looks amazingly clear. Text looks well rounded and neat. You will love reading web pages.
One thing that has already been discussed in this forum is that IE consumes three rows to show its stuff. Thats real horrible. Browser window must be as big as it can be made without losing functionality.
Overall, I am very impressed about the tremendous improvement in text display. This may not be an improvement for some, but for a graduate student like me would definitely applaud MS and its IE team.
The print preview certainly is nice and IE7 looks pretty good besides the menu bar. Still, it is only in its early beta, so I would wait and see first. But I don't think anyone cares. The world is about bashing IE and exalting FF, (even though Opera is the best browser out there ;) ). It's the cool thing. The in thing.
The one thing I did notice about IE7 is that it is much quicker in Launching. Firefox takes longer to launch than IE7. Hopefully it stays this way...
"my mousing hand has many years of practice swooping up to a particular spot to use menus, and moving them on me means I need to pause for a split-second every time I need them"
This isn't really an issue, provided you can still use shortcuts keys (i.e. alt + a + a to add to favourites).
IE7 loads with the OS, regardless if it's your browser of choice. Why would you want a program to take up RAM if you don't want to use it?
Firefox is a pig... routinely eats up 150+MB of memory on my machines for about 8 to 10 tabs.
Tools, toolbars, classic menus you bonehead.
Does it bothe you that the blogs do a better job reviewing than "professional journalists"?
the menus work find for the keyboard types and just take up too much room.
what are the odds that the next relese of Outlook WON'T use the Windows RSS platform. who else are you waiting for?
I think the only thing Microsoft has innovated in the IE 7 is the thumbnail feature that lets you preview all your tabs. Other than that there is nothing new ! Not a big deviation from MS startegy to copy what they find in the market
Firefox only takes longer to load then Explorer because explorer is always loaded on the system during start. Its what you use to browse the files on your computer. So in reality if it takes slightly longer for IE to open the internet instance then thats a long time for a program thats already loaded.
personally I think firefox is better. it feels faster and i got use to it since i dropped ie long ago. I tested IE7 and it doesnt offer anything more that i want. Tabs look annoying and not quick to respond to opening and closing. IE7 is better then IE6 no question, but its not really anything that firefox or opera users will go back to.
Even if Microsoft *has* developed any new features in IE, I wouldn't be surprised to see them released in competing browsers before the final version of IE 7 even releases.
Okay, I just opened 10 tabs with different sites (in Firefox). Took less than 48K in memory. Also writing this email at the same time.
Maybe you should clear your cache from time to time, Anonymous.
48K? haha...you wish.
You obviously misread something there. I mean, come on...Notepad takes over 1000K.
Peace.
Ahhhk
I think an important question is:
Anyone using Firefox now, planning on using any version of IE in the future?
I use Firefox now, and as long as the developers support it, I cannot see a future where I'd use any version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. ( for anything other than Microsoft proprietry websites )
Based on the modular "open" design of Firefox, any significant advancement within IE is likely to be replicated quickly, thoroughly and better with a 3rd party plugin for Firefox.
And I would think MS knows this about me and my demographic. Which in turns means, they will need to protect any significant achievement with patents and copyright. Unfortunately I doubt patent and copyright law is properly prepared to deal with such an issue. And as such MS lawyers will spend gross amounts of money literally defining laws in favor of their plantiff.
Microsoft's era of innovation is over, their single role in the current dynamic is to lie in wait, and then attack, consume and destroy any capable predator that approaches their domain. With their significant finacial resources they need not be first, they need not be second, they need to be the last and the with-out-a-doubt defining force on any technology. Innovation be damned.
I'd consider switching to IE if the source code was included with the product, but until that day arrives, no thanks.
Congratulations, Microsoft. You just reached where Firefox was in November 2004.
I guess there will be a few more years before you adopt technologies like SVG.
give em a break, they at least improved greatly on the interface. (small buttons fianlly!) remember that those 3 toolbars probably equal the 2 in ie6. it's really not that bad.
Another genuine microsoft innovation.... that is released well after everyone else has copied it? I downloaded the beta, but then figured, "why bother, they're releasing what I've had on FireFox and Safari for YEARS. Maybe vista will have a nifty RSS screenscaver and call that an innovation.... or a new search feature.... or translucent windows.....
Good article. I agree with a lot of posters.. Microsoft has been exhibiting a growing (and disturbing) tendancy to use up massive amounts of screen real-estate needlessly.
Firefox has serious memory leak issues that I really wish they would fix.
I am completely with u Al re: Maxthon. It has an incredible amount of extensions, great development team that listen to user comments and much easier to use than Firefox and Opera. After many years of suing different types of technology and in this case Maxthon, it certainly the browser of choice. The fact that it sits on IE has not given me any problems.
I also agree with Al. Maxthon is fast,secure and uses less memory then Firefox. If you haven't tried it, you should. Steve Bass of PC World has written a few articles on Maxthon. I suggest you read them!
AK
How come nobody talks about the speed and acceleration enhancements in IE7!? Just look how fast it is! Compare the load times with firefox, and also compare the page load times with firefox and opera. It much more optimized now. It also dosen't take over your computer any more. If firefox is your default browser, and you type in a link in My Computer, it opens in firefox now, I think this is great!
"... at the very least, IE 7 users should be safer than anyone who sticks with IE 6. "
So we are going to see more dinosaurs -- now working on the old and useless IE 6 ?
I love the way MS ridicules its existing customers who have paid megabucks to buy software they thought was the latest and the best at that time.
I am a web developer serving a number of serious small business blue-chip clients -- and I have their ear when it comes to matters of the internet. Currently, I (we) do not endorse the use of IE at any level for a great number of reasons. That said, over 90% of my clients have made the shift from IE dependancy to alternatives -- mainly Firefox. This 'beta' of IE7 is dismal for none of the reasons it was released. Security. But if that is all that it was released for, it may not have turned out so bad. The user interface (GUI) is completely non-standard to the Windows interface elsewhere. (Not to mention that the 'browser chrome' looks like a rank amateur framing job by standing out more than the page content.) In the current state of XP etc, this will cause user confusion. If this is a preview of Vista, MS is going to have a hard time selling it to anyone other than 'fanboy' IT Departments. MS should realize that critical interface changes need to be gradual -- not sudden. We have to remember that the vast majority of people who HAVE to use this stuff day to day DON'T like change and they don't regard the digital world as their reason to get up in the morning! It is for that very reason you don't see people in droves jumping ship to the much superior Mac OS. Getting enough time to see their kids at the end of the day is usually their priority. And why not. Since the early/mid ninties these folks have already spent too much time getting used to what has been foisted on them by self-absorbed IT departments. Personally, I think the volunteer take-up rate on this browser (if this beta is reflective of a final release with NO changes) will be dismal. Naturally, those who are FORCED at work to use it or to timid to change it at home, will use whatever they are given and endure, regardless of the functionality. All in all, we here in my firm stand by our recommendation. Firefox for Windows and Safari for Mac. Our clients who switched over would agree too.
I downloaded the beta, and when I rebooted my computer, it wouldn't let me access the internet. It kept throwing dialogue boxes up asking me to connect, but as soon as I would try, up would come another box, until my screen was covered with them. It also disabled system restore, a neat trick I thought once it had screwed up my system. I had to reboot in safe mode, and jump through several hoops before I could finally get to system restore and rid it off my computer. My experience was a nightmare.
It seems like the address bar is attached to the title bar because if you right click on that address bar (except in the text fields) it brings up the window menu with Move and Close.
Question: is this installable as a standalone version, ie, leaving my current IE 6 the fuck alone, or is it going to update?
This is a critical question for me, because as a developer, I really need both versions to be sure that the web platforms I work on can be properly viewed by either IE 6 or IE 7 (or FF, or safari, or Opera) and hence I want to have both of them.
I don't suppose Microsoft would make my life easy in that respect of course, but I can't seem to find a definitive answer...?
The IE7 Preview will install over it. It can be easily uninstalled by going to add/remove programs, check show updates and scroll to the bottom. Then your copy of IE6 will be back.
All I want to know is... Can I finally make a div tagged up webiste with nice clean CSS for all the text and menus theat EVEN IE users can see in its full glory?
Oh, right. So for testing purposes, when I'm making sure things work on both 6 and 7: install uninstall install uninstall install uninstall install uninstall install uninstall...???
Why? Why? Why?
You fools who use explorer are bound to the train tracks, the train of disaster closing in fast... run!!
anyway... save yourselves lots of trouble and go buy an iMac, your computing life will be much better.
OS X FOREVER!!!!
seriously though, consider changing your ways
---------------------------------
Why? Why? Why?
You fools who use explorer are bound to the train tracks, the train of disaster closing in fast... run!!
anyway... save yourselves lots of trouble and go buy an iMac, your computing life will be much better.
OS X FOREVER!!!!
seriously though, consider changing your ways
-----------------------------------------
Care to elaborate why? I'm looking for a detailed, in-depth and technical reason. Don't give me the "because windows has more viruses" explanation my three year old brother tells me because he's heard all Mac people chant the same verse. I would really like your technical expertise on the subject, so please explain...
"Care to elaborate why? I'm looking for a detailed, in-depth and technical reason. I would really like your technical expertise on the subject, so please explain..."
--------------
Read a book . . . don't expect everyone to do your work for you.
About that quicktabs in IE7, there is a similar feature in Opera 8.5 (the one I'm using now). In Opera, there's an option to tile all opened tabs vertically or horizontally (Windows taskbar-style).
I tried beta 2 out yesterday, and noticed right when it started up it was using 110 MB of ram. For those of you who say firefox is a ram hog... well it looks like IE 7 is as well.
As far as the RSS, you can download an extension for firefox called feedview, that will do just what IE 7 does. It will turn the RSS feed into a nice looking webpage, that you can even customize to a certain extent.
Overall, I am going to stick with firefox, just because of the countless number of extensions I have that make my browsing experience so much better.
I just finished reading all your comments, I enjoyed it and thought that, why are you all trying to force your opinions, tell me what you think of your favorite browser and why, and leave it at that, if you have to shoot down one or the other to make your point, you've lost the debate already.
I also just finished reading all these post's. I am a technician/business owner and have been in this field WAY to long, LoL. Now dont fall down BUT i am an IE user. I will continue to use IE6 until god, or bill gates, makes me change. I have lots of customers that use FF & Opera. I dont care what they want to use as long as they pay the bill. If some one where to ask me what i recomend I would say "Why do you want to load a secondary program on your machine to eat up more of your system resources." So here we are again back at IE6.
Just like all M.S. programs DONT LOAD THE FIRST VERSION. Wait till they finish reverse engineering the other programs and put there logo on it before you download any of it. I will be playing with it this weekend on my home machine BUT will not refer ANY of my customers to it untill after it comes out of Beta.
Thanxs,
Wally
What happened to mine when I began using 7.0 is that my mcafee antivirus program will not work, as it comes up as a blank page. Mcafee will not support 7.0 until it comes out of Beta. Just thought I would let everyone know.
What happened to mine when I began using 7.0 is that my mcafee antivirus program will not work, as it comes up as a blank page. Mcafee will not support 7.0 until it comes out of Beta. Just thought I would let everyone know.
It is a step back in browsing, what is with microsoft and this new style of GUI design with the menu layout. Regardless if it ends up better or worse, consistancy is the key.
Pages are slow to load, some of the tab items do not work correctly at times, and instead open small windows....
Internet options suck even more then normal.
As for the quick tabs thing that ie7 has, firefox has a pluging that does the same (not as well mind you). If having a feature is all it takes then both browsers are nearly right, but if quality is a concern ie7 fails to impress.
I find it a little inconveniant that Outlook Express can't be opened from IE-7
After installing IE-7, McAfee security would not work properly. I had to uninstall IE 7. Anyone experienced this problem?
It's been great reading all of these comments! This reinforces my reasoning for switching from IE to Maxthon. I tried using Firefox, but didn't like it as much. As far as having to download every program to test it's functionality. I'd rather read the pro's and con's written by folks like you who have already tested out the product. This saves me time and headaches. Keep the forum going!
Oh! I forgot to mention, why are you folks still using Outlook? I have been using Thunderbird for quite some time now and it blows Outlook out of the water. At least I have some level of protection now! Try it, you may just like it!
LOL if you NEED to hate IE and are going to stick to Firefox or Mozilla regardless, why bother installing IE 7 Beta?
So far I'm only impressed with the Print Preview functionality (it really rocks!), and the Cleartext fonts in IE. I'm too dependant on Firefox extensions, especially Mouse Gestures, so for now, IE 7 is not for me.
If IE 7 Beta proved to be a better program that I am currently using, I would use it. From what I have read so far, it isn't. Ease of use, minimal problems and functionality are the key ingredients to a good program. So far, MS is only copying what has already been in use in a number of programs for some time now. I'll take another look at IE 7 when they sort out the kinks.
I'll still only use IE for sites that FORCE me to use IE.I wish more would lighten up and start writing for other browsers.I'm 2 years with OPERA and life's good.IE 7 does nothing to change my opinion.Opera 9 also has the hover over tab,thumbnail feature.
In I.E.6 there is an icon to click to open up your mail program, Outlook Express in my case.
Is it possible to do this in I.E.7 ? I can't find a way to bring up the icon.
IE 7 is no biggie. I found that it is a marginal browser compared to FF and Opera. There is no real need for it. Being a Beta version, I found that it crashed frequently and it caused my computer to lock whenever I dragged an icon on my desktop. Sounds weird, but when I uninstalled IE7 the locking drag issue went away too. Stick with FF or Opera. They are inovative, easy to add plug ins, and safe. MS needs to step up to the plate if they want to gain market share again in the browser war.
In trying IE7 beta 2 I cannot get my title bar to load the titles!!! All I come up with are a bunch of blank squares--no letters at all. Its the same down in ky task bar. Any answers?
When using the tabs, internet explorer uses up a lot of memory.
IE7 looks okay. But still beta. Not yet.
I have never understood the advantage of tabs. I use Windows 2000 and the task bar is my bar of tabs. Why would I want tabs in two different places? I would rather stick with new windows, so that I can see the "tabs" even when in other programs.
If the internet windows/tabs are in a bar in the explorer then if I am copy pasting into Word I will need two clicks to get to the tab - one to open a browser window, one to click the tab. If they are in the task bar then I can see them whichever program I am using.
Also FF seems to open new windows at google or some Firefox homepage, rather than on the page you are currently on, complete with the history. I think that there is a setting to allow new tabs to open at the current page, but (I hate tabs) how about new windows? And even if it is opened at the current page, is the history cloned too? Often I want to go forward and backwards from a page. I open a new window, go backwards from it, and go forwards on the new window when it is loaded. Not sure that FF can do that.
All the developer add ons for FF are good, but that is about the only reason why I use it.
I came here because on one of my computers IE uses loads of memory. This was a result of a "'Internet explorer uses' memory" search. IE keeps hogging memory the longer the computer is switched on until it is use up 150 MB or more with just a couple of windows. Then the screen starts flickering like someone is playing snap with the windows.
I was hoping that FF might use less memory but I read here that it is a hog too. I often want to open 20 windows at once.
Maxthon?
While IE may not be earth shattering, it does display css2 properly,
And that is a big step in the right direction.
We made a comment on our web site, that we are NOT going to do all the hacks for IE6
If people want a better exp. then they will have to upgrade.
I dont mind if that is to FF, or Opera, either.
I dont see the point of coding for the lowest common denominator. If you do that what your web site looks like.
I do urge people to upgrade, as i said its not earth shattering but it will give you a better exp.
As a developer to me it is all about security. This is why I recommend that people NOT use Office/Outlook, and why I recommend that people use a browser OTHER than IE. Doesn't really matter which one.
It seems absolutely obsurd that an entire industry has been created (Anti-Spyware) because of IE and guess who didn't pioneer anti-spyware programs. You guessed is MSFT. How many times have we all been notified about a new virus that only affects computers with MSFT Office and/or IE. My anti-spyware program protects me against something like 140k traces. Most of which can only be exploited if my PC has IE / Office installed. My company and I are 2 programs away from abandoning MSFT operating systems/applications alltogether which should happen next year.
Got off topic back to IE7. Here we are in version 7 of IE and it is still not W3C compliant. That in itself is pretty lame. Time to get off the MSFT crack, wake up and smell the security.
I am simply an everyday user of ie. I feel I am being treated as too thick to make my own changes by microsoft!! I now have to have 3 lines of space taken away from my browser instead of 2 and I am not ALLOWED to change this! Why do I need a HUGE address bar, why do I need tabs when I already have them at the bottom of the screen, why do the menu items come below the URL bar if I want to use them???? All of these things are fine if we are allowed to alter them to our own preferences, but we are not. IE7 takes away an awful lot of user configuration - WHY??? I really am clever enough to decide where I WANT to place the buttons and menus on my own bar and I am clever enough to make the address bar smaller if I want to. REALLY!!!!!