Blog FeedVermy Reviews IE7
I recently had the chance to get some serious hands on time with the latest version of Internet Explorer, the long awaited big update which was supposed to steal Firefox’s thunder. Well this is clearly the best version of IE yet and way more functional than IE6 but it still has some serious work to do compared with Firefox. I’m not sure they’ll be able to catch up in terms of smoothing out the rough edges but if they do this will make things from a functionality standpoint a dead heat in my book. That said I’m not much of a securities expert but most of the people I’ve talked to who purported to know about security tell me that the Mozilla Foundation is light years ahead of Redmond in terms of fixing problems in a hurry and not having problems develop. So, does IE 7 deliver the goods? The answer is definitely maybe.
First a bit of background on me, I quit using IE some time ago, it just wasn’t functional enough and I didn’t care much for the addon approach that people like the developer of Avant and others took to fixing the problem. First i used Opera, then Mozilla and now Firefox. Microsoft was feeling it slip away from them little by little bit by bit as the other browser introduced feature after feature that they just couldn’t match and offering flexibility and security advances over IE 5 and 6. Now I’m on a trip, and i need to use IE because i left my Ipod Charger in another state so the best way for me to listen to music is via Launchcast on Yahoo which is only functional these days in IE. So, I thought to myself let’s give IE 7 a try since i need to use IE.
Well let us start with the good news for Redmond and IE partisans; Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1 is a good deal more functional than Internet Explorer 5&6. It’s got my two favorite features from alternative browsers–tabbed browsing and a search box. Further the new interface is an improvement on IE6 for the most part. Gone are the days of 87 buttons across the top of the screen which to a Firefox User just seemed ungainly. A simple switch of some options and these go away for good or you can keep them. The search bar is also fairly functional, type in what you want and you’ll get results in all likelihood. Tabbed browsing is also amazing and once you get used to tabs you feel weird not having them so having them in there is a nice touch. I also liked how their is a really easy way to get a new tab with one click on the tabs bar. Their is also the Phishing protection. I decided to enable it to automatically check to make sure websites aren’t phishing me but I’ve never had a real problem with this in my time on the net. This may be more popular with corporate clients but as a home user it doesn’t really seem like a big deal to me.
But it’s not all wine and roses for Redmond. The Interface is a bit weird. The basic options–file, edit etc, appear under each individual tab. I prefer the Mozilla approach to this myself putting those options at the top and Tabs dealt with separately. It could be argued that for some this might grant a bit more flexibility to be able to adjust options separately for each tab but i found it just cumbersome and ugly to look at. A lot of the buttons will come back for each individual tab. For instance the top line by the URL only has Forward back and Refresh now but all the other buttons are now tied to each tab unless you turn them all off. Also annoying is the inability of the system to import bookmarks as i already have a well setup and organized folder of bookmarks in Firefox particuarily Links on the hot-bar. Furthermore For some reason they decided that no matter how much text was in a link it would all be the same size. Hence if youv’e got one long and a short titled link they’ll all be the length of the long titled site leaving room for like 4 links without careful editing. After about 6 hours of using it i’d gotten all my favorite sites linked for quick use. I also found it galling that the search bar was underpowered. For one thing it couldn’t remember my search preference for Google over MSN Search, perhaps i should cue the conspiratorial music for monopolistic practices, but in all seriousness it’s sort of a pain. Furthermore some of the very useful ones which come standard with Mozilla for Dictionary.com amazon and Ebay are conspicuously absent. Those make shopping and word checking a good deal easier and I miss them. While it does have a neat add-on manager that lets you see all your helper programs, I doubt this will be as useful as it is in Firefox since IE is propriatary and therefore not going to have the kind of crazy add-on community like you see with Firefox thanks to it being OSS. Stuff like media player controls and ad blockers have been big pluses for Mozilla and Firefox but I doubt we’ll see a lot of stuff like that for IE7.
I guess their are two ways of looking at this first showing of IE7. On one hand it’s a big improvement over IE 6. On the other hand it still has significant catching up to do before it’s really going to be the most functional browser on the block. If you’re still using IE 6 then this is a nice improvement. If you’re using Firefox you’ve got the best browser on the block.
31st July | Reply
What you havent mentioned is that this is still a very early beta version so some of those points you riase may well change in later issues. Interesting about the options under each tab - but I suppose they have to make somethingn unique/different from firefox.
31st July | Reply
I called it beta 1 a few times. I know it’s a first beta. At the same time i want to review what’s there and I can always write up an update later on. And you’ve got an awesome name btw. People named Andrew are awesome especially when they represent themselves with Alcohol.
31st July | Reply
I’ve been reading on the MSDN blog that many of the CSS issues that were still not fixed for IE7 Beta 1 have now been fixed, and will be evident in Beta 2 - so I’m very much looking forward to that. It appears as though it now finally supports CSS1 fully. How IE7 interprets code is of most interest to me, as no matter what improvements they make elsewhere (such as the GUI), I’ll still never use IE for anything more than a tool for testing compatibility for my websites.
The screenshots I’ve seen and reports on how the tabs function irks me, and seems somewhat unintuitive. But I’ll be reserving judgement for Beta 2. Still, it’s promising to see that even an early beta (which really, should be considered an alpha) still has so many improvements over IE6.
31st July | Reply
Well, let’s be clear here. I’m not against IE because its made by Microsoft and, as a Mac user I’m supposed to be against anything from Redmond. I do think that Windows is in need of some serious upgrades and that OS X whups its ass at the moment, but I still like Microsoft’s hardware a lot and Office, for all its annoyances, still can’t really be touched. I am, however against IE for 2 major reasons:
1. It’s not available for all operating systems.
2. A lot of web sites actually need it in order to function.
Chris has already noted that its implementation of standards in past versions are bodged such that a designer must either a) implement different versions of code for different browsers, or b) decide that IE is going to be the only browser supported (”Hey, it’s the most popular, so you should use it too and here’s a handy link so that you can download it”) and everyone else can get stuffed. It’s Option B that grates on me and if only all browsers properly implemented the standards that are written (yes, IE isn’t the only one to mess things up) then the World Wide Web could truely be what it is supposed to be: a heterogenous environment where your OS and browser choices don’t prevent you from accessing sites.
Given the above the only reason that I’d “support” IE is if it implemented the standards and web sites stopped implementing IE-only functionality. This, as far as I am concerned, is a better option than implementing IE for other operating systems.
To be honest, Firefox isn’t my favourite browser at the moment (I’m addicted to Safari’s RSS reader at the moment and its Bookmark management I find easier) but it is the browser that I’d support while Safari isn’t available on other OSs, although I extend support to Mozilla and Opera as well since you can get them for Mac and Linux as well. The sooner Firefox gets into businesses fully (the likes of the Gartner research company recommends its use, where possible) and gains something like 30% of the browser market, then the sooner web sites will have to do away with IE-only functionality and we can all enjoy the same experience.
To be honest, the suspicious person in me feels that Microsoft deliberately made IE deviate from the W3C standards in order to tie people to Windows. Hopefully that link will be severed in the near future…
1st August | Reply
Almost everyone is already tied to Windows anyway, and those that aren’t, Microsoft can’t really touch. I think that if Microsoft deviated IE’s code deliberately, it would be to tie Windows users to IE, not to Windows itself. Making sure as many people as possible use IE makes it much easier for Microsoft to play around with online update software, etc… which they don’t want other browsers being able to do.
With IE7 not supporting anything older than WinXP, I think it is virtually a declaration from MS that they will soon cease support for those older platforms.
2nd August | Reply
Well Cyrris that’s a good point but they’ve been trying to do that for some time now but a lot of corporations don’t want to spend millions rennovating their IT departments that still use Windows NT 4 or Windows 9x. IF MS can find a way to force these cusxtomers to upgrade it’ll be a huge boon for them so in that regards it’s a good Hardball Move.
3rd August | Reply
I just received a link to the following CNet article reporting that MS expects IE7 will fail the Web Standards Project’s Acid2 test. While initially negative sounding the article does at least show that MS is trying to conform to the W3C standards, although they expect to release IE7 without full compliance. Ultimately, better than nothing but still somewhat irritating that, during the time of IE6, MS hasn’t been able to embrace the same standards as everyone else.
It is noted at the end of the article that other browser manufactures, such as Opera, Mozilla and Apple all expect to pass the test.
3rd August | Reply
That’s typical of Microsoft though. While the other browser manufacturers are always looking to implement future standards in their browsers (so things are easier for everyone when the standards are made official down the track), Microsoft just makes sure they implement what is official at the time, and right now the Acid2 test doesn’t fall into that category.
It’s that sort of attitude which really ticks me off, as new web standards are developed faster than Microsoft pumps out new versions of IE, it seems. Not that that means new standards come out particularly often, it’s just that IE updates are that scarce. It’s the reason IE6 became outdated so quickly, and it’s the reason IE7 won’t be regarded as having good standards support for very long if at all.
3rd August | Reply
I have been learning Cascading Style Sheets off and on for a couple months and I cannot tell you how dissappointing it is when you fully realize IE’s faults. As an end user I can see why many say “Why firefox?” especially if tabbed browsing isn’t important to them. No one really cares about security until they get an attack as well.
However, from the design side IE is just a villian that makes things very difficult and just discouraging. The usual process in trying to get something fresh and original onto the web:
1. Come up with an idea
2. Research what you need to make it happen
3. Find out the PERFECT way to do it
4. Find out that it requires CSS2
5. Find out that IE supports maybe 1 or 2 things from CSS2 and probably does it incorrectly
6. Try hacks, work arounds, and other mind bending attempts at making the code display what you want “on accident” in IE
7. Give up and use a simplified version of the idea or scrap it all together
I have a book listing some of the more promising commands of CSS2. Following almost all of them is “not supported by IE”.
If IE7 fully supported CSS2 I would be thrilled.
3rd August | Reply
Welcome to the development process of every site I’ve made so far this year.
5th August | Reply
I agree that the way the tabs are going to work in IE7 is cumbersome compared to Firefox.
Having finally got round to changing to Firefox a few months back I can’t really be bothered going back to IE and about the only thing that will make me do so is more informed people than my self (such as everyone who has commented on this before me) think that it is a good idea.
I’m putting my trust in those who seem more in the know - it worked with Firefox so I trust their opinions.