ID:8312
 
So, Microsoft finally released it's beta of IE 7. So, lets take a look at it.

First, GUI:
Yuck
The GUI for IE 7 is ugly, it tries to remove the file menu up at the top, something I really like to have to keep things out of sight but easily accessible. Looking at it on the Acer 19" LCDs we have at work was just horrible. The lack of color as just ugly.

Second, 'We want to be FireFox':
You failed.
As most of you know, IE 7 has a tabbed interface. Sounds great, we all know how great FireFox's tabbed interface is. Well, the tabs are fine, but what they failed to include is a way of customizing the front-end interface in a reasonable way. One of the many great things about FireFox is that you can set it up however you want, almost limitlessly. IE does not include this ability, I guess they assume everyone is the same and enjoys the the exact same thing (Well, we know this is common belief of Microsoft).

Third, "More stable and secure":
Sorry, you failed again.
Within 10 minutes of installing IE 7, it crashed on me. I was simply reading a news site and then bam, "Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and must shutdown". Well, that doesn't cover security, but this does.

Fourth, On the bright side:
I'll add one when I find one.
Ok, so that is an overstatement, I have found a way that it is better than IE6, you can actually view what Browser Helper Objects and ActiveX controllers you have installed! Yes, this needed to come a long time ago, but it is just now hitting IE. For IE6, you where forced to use programs like SpyBot: S&D to fix malfunctioning ActiveX and BHOs. [edit] Come to find out, IE6 does have a way to view BHOs and ActiveX, it is just hidden. So that isn't an enhancement at all.[/edit]

As you can see, this is a shabby release. I understand that it is a beta release, so we won't be too hard on IE. However, I will say that FireFox was far more stable by the time it had it's first public beta. By public, I mean it was advertised on the Mozilla front-page like IE 7 is on the IE website.

Outside links:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/ie7/ie7betaredirect.mspx
searchsecurity.techtarget.com/...
news.google.com