The Browser Den

Windows Internet Explorer 7.0, Microsoft Corporation
Browser Den rating: 7.5/10 (previous version IE6: 4/10)

Good: Tabbed browsing, full page zooming, quick tab view, improved security alerts.
Bad: Non-standard user interface, very limited customisation, very limited platform support

As a long time Firefox user I decided to spend a week using IE7 as much as possible to see if it could convince me to switch back to IE when using Windows. I usually use a number of platforms including Mac OS X, Ubuntu Linux, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. As IE7.0 is only available for Windows XP and above I've tried to restrict web usage to this platform wherever possible for this week.

Overall I consider IE7 a massive improvement over IE6, the tabbed browsing was the main feature missing from IE and now this is included it'll dampen the immediate urge to install Firefox when using someone elses Windows machine. The cynical side of me considers IE7 too little, too late as it has very little to convince those that have already switched browsers to go back. However, if they manage to have a better security record with IE7 then the extra features in this browser may do enough to reduce the numbers that do switch from IE in the first place. However, the non-standard (by XP standards) user interface of IE7 may confuse someone particularly if it's installed as a result of an automatic update. We're now in the situation where Firefox looks more like a native Windows XP app than IE does.

One of the biggest mistakes Microsoft made was dropping Windows 2000 support for IE so soon. IE7 will only be available on Windows XP and above, it is the default browser in Windows Vista. Firefox 2.0 will be released soon and it supports Windows 98 and above. There's still a significant home user population on Windows 98 (although as extended support has ended there's no more Microsoft patches for this platform) and many businesses on Windows 2000, this will now give Firefox a great advantage on these platforms.

So although this release is a vast improvement on IE6 it really does not give you any incentive to switch back to IE if you've made the switch to another browser. However, if you're running Windows XP or above it's worth upgrading to even if you use another browser primarily. If you're on an unsupported platform such as Windows 2000 then it gives you even more incentive to switch to an alternative like Firefox or Opera to get the features Microsoft didn't want to give you.

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