Internet Explorer 7: An improvement, but strangely familiar

Internet Explorer 7.0 was finally released recently, the first update of IE in almost four years! About time huh? The internet has changed a lot in recent years. So its about time Microsoft caught up with the “better browsers” that are frequently updated, such as Firefox and Opera. Speaking of which, one of the first things you’ll notice when you try Internet Explorer 7, is the ideas they got from these browsers when designing it. First thing you notice is the search engine box in the top right corner. Hmmm! Now where have we seen that before? Also tabbed browsing, both these features long present in Firefox and Opera.

Upon installing and running it for the first time, there’s a page with a couple of settings such as turning on the phishing filter (also available in the recent release of Firefox 2) and some other settings like setting your language and location, and joining the customer experience program.

I gotta admit, firefox is definitely my browser of choice, but i’m pleased to see they’ve finally given Internet Explorer this much needed update. Even though they seem to have lifted the main features from what a lot consider to be better browsers, as i mentioned before. So nothing too innovative here. They also have “add-ons” available, another idea from Firefox, although most of the IE ones aren’t free (or as useful as Firefoxes, who incidentally, now call their extensions “add-ons” too). It also has options for RSS feeds now, if thats your thing. Active X seems to be disabled by default, which is a good thing considering the IE security reputation in the past!

To sum it up, the new Internet Explorer is a step in the right direction, but i doubt they’ll be winning back any Firefox users, including me! : )

You can check it out here for more info or to download it (or just wait and windows update will install it anyway if it’s set to automatic updates)