Microsoft recently took the wraps off Internet Explorer 7, releasing the new "preview" version of its Web browser to the general public for testing.
Among other changes, the IE7 Beta 2 Preview will give thousands of Windows XP users their first look at IE7’s new tabbed-browsing features, which many observers believe helped propel Mozilla’s Firefox into the limelight.
The program, still a work in progress, is available for download from the Internet Explorer section of Microsoft’s corporate Web site, the company said. The company, which began limited testing in July, had promised to deliver a public beta by the end of March.
"The big update is that it’s public," said Margaret Cobb, group product manager for Internet Explorer at Microsoft. "All previous releases were limited."
The latest version works only with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and includes many of the features Microsoft has been touting for months. Among them are new security and privacy protection capabilities such as mechanisms designed to combat phishing attacks, spyware and other threats.
IE7 also supports automatic detection of available RSS feeds, previews of feeds in the browser window, the ability to subscribe to (or bookmark) feeds and notification when feeds are updated. You can also read RSS feeds directly in the browser and filter your view there with search terms.
Microsoft’s Gary Schare, Director of Marketing, Internet Platforms and Security, notes that a new feature called RSS Platform, which had previously been slated for Windows Vista only, is now being added to the Windows XP version as well. After an RSS feed is subscribed to in one application; that feed subscription is made available across the operating system to all other applications capable of interpreting the feed.
Another new feature lets users clear their browsing history more easily and thus wipe out passwords, form data and cookies in one click, the company said.
The new browser also includes tabbed browsing and a search box on a more streamlined toolbar, concepts that should be familiar to users of Firefox, a rival browser distributed by the Mozilla Foundation.
Microsoft said that the new Printing Enhancements and Shrink to Fit Printing features enable users to adjust margins, change the page layout, remove headers or footers, and increase or decrease the print space. And like the Opera browser, IE7 also offers full-page zoom, which can scale up or down the size of both text and graphics on any Web page.
Tabbed browsing lets users open multiple Web pages in a single browser window. Microsoft has tried to best Firefox with something called Quick Tabs. That feature provides an at-a-glance, thumbnail view of all open tabs in a single window.
Microsoft has also significantly improved the sidebar area of Internet Explorer, which has been renamed the Favorites Center and now includes Favorites, Tab Groups, Browsing History, and RSS Feed Subscriptions.
Microsoft is emphasizing security improvements in IE7, including anti-phishing features, address bar protection, ActiveX opt-in, a security status bar, the ability to delete various aspects of your browser history quickly and easily, and several other measures.
(The current version does not include two additional security features that will appear in the Windows Vista version of IE7, including protected mode, which isolates IE7 from other applications in the operating system, and a new user-configurable Parental Controls feature which lets parents set several restrictions on computer and Internet usage for their children.)
Microsoft has also added several new functionalities aimed at Web developers and enterprises, including CSS2.1 improvements, transparency in the PNG graphics file format, improved AJAX support, and group policy improvements.
In addition, the program is supposed to let users more easily subscribe to syndicated feeds from news and sports sites, blogs and stores. The browser detects feeds enabled by Real Simple Syndication, or RSS, technology, illuminating an icon on the toolbar. Users can preview, subscribe and scan syndicated headlines directly through the browser, Microsoft said.
Test It for Yourself
The publicly available Windows XP version of Internet Explorer 7 beta starts with an approximately 11.5MB download and requires Windows XP Service Pack 2. You can find the download at the Microsoft Web site, including Microsoft’s main Internet Explorer page and the Internet Explorer Downloads page. The download site will require you to validate the authenticity of your installed version of Windows XP SP2.
A Word of Caution!
Prospective testers will be interested to know that the Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview (along with the earlier betas) is the first version of Internet Explorer in several years that can be fully uninstalled from Windows. (Although Microsoft allowed this with some versions of IE, subsequent online updates sometimes took away your ability to uninstall — without informing you of that in advance.) As a result, the public beta of IE7 is a better trial version for less experienced users than the betas from IE 5.0 and IE 5.5 were (although, according to Microsoft, the current Preview version is meant primarily for developers and tech enthusiasts). Still, Microsoft’s Schare cautions that no public beta should be installed on user "production" systems. In other words, don’t install the IE7 Beta 2 Preview on your main (or only) computer.
In order to uninstall IE7 Beta 2, put a check in the box beside "Show Updates" in the Add or Remove Programs Control Panel. You will find the entry, "Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview," toward the end of the list of installed programs, in the Microsoft patches area.
Expected Ship Dates
The official word from Microsoft is that Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP will ship during the second half of this year, in the same timeframe as Office 12 and Windows Vista.
Experienced Microsoft observers speculate that Windows Vista will be released to manufacturing some time in late September or early October of this year.
Might Microsoft ship the XP version of IE7 earlier than Windows Vista? "No," says Schare. "We will not be setting up different times to ship the two versions of Internet Explorer 7. They will ship at the same time."