The new Microsoft Internet Explorer version 7 is somehow trying to catch it's opponents - what should have been a reality years ago is now coming to life. The new RC1 version of the popular browser has become a more solid, faster, less buggy release than the previous one, with a real installation program and better RSS and CSS support. But is it worth installing? And more, is it any better than other already available browsers?

If you already have the beta 3 version installed, you won't immediately notice any changes. Microsoft has improved performance, stability, security, and application compatibility - all features that won't come out at first. The Redmond company has also added foreign-language support, and now provides an automatic removal of previous IE 7 builds.

That said, IE 7 RC1 still has that aftertaste of a program in development, which in the Zone-H's view won't disappear months after the final release, still expected sometime before the end of 2006.

Smooth install?
Although many other testers reported the install procedure went smoothly, that was not Zone-H's experience. OK, we followed the advice and closed all running programs and also turned-off the antivirus protection during the install, which is quite an unusual requirement for an Internet browser installation.

The first part went smoothly but after the reboot, which is also not common by other browser installations that are simply "download and use", the system returned an error that Windows Explorer could not start because Normaliz.dll couldn't be found?#! All we could see was the blue background of the desktop, with no start menu, no icons - nothing. Just the mouse cursor and keyboard functioned normally.  

After we figured out, that Task Manager also worked, we tried to run Explorer from there, but the same error appeared. The next move was to restart the system in Safe mode, but the problem couldn't be solved there - still the same error.

After some thinking and "Googling" (thank God we had Firefox installed) we found that by simply downloading the .dll file from the Internet and copying it in the system32 folder should solve the proble. And it did, so now we had a working system with IE 7 RC1 installed and ready for testing.

New (already seen) features
The clean and spare IE7 interface is essentially unchanged from the Beta 2 preview released in February. By efficiently mixing buttons and menus in a single command bar that shares a row with the tab bar, IE7's page layout provides a bit more room than IE6 or Firefox for viewing the contents of the current page.

The traditional top-level menu is hidden in a default installation (it reappears temporarily with a tap of the Alt key). The standard toolbar vanishes too, shrinking to a much smaller and more compact set of buttons.

One thing that might bother you is that you cannot move the Menu bar back to the top, like in IE6, but that's more a question of getting used to the new layout.

As for features, much has already been written about the tabbing capabilities within IE 7, and RC1 introduces nothing new here. IE 7 RC1 lets you move the tabs as you can within Firefox.

Microsoft has also added the ability to visually display all open tabs but in a separate page, not via a mouseover, as you can within Opera. One advantage of coming in late to the tabbed browsing party, as Internet Explorer has, is that you get to improve on the ideas of those who've gone before you.

IE7's controls for opening, closing, and managing tabbed windows are noticeably simpler than those in Firefox, with a button on the tab bar to open a new window and a red X to close the active Web page. If many tabs are open, IE7 provides a much easier way to manage them. By clicking the Quick Tabs button at the left of the tab bar you can see a thumbnail view of all open tabs. From this window, you can close any tab you no longer need to keep open and then switch to a new active tab with a single click. Out of the box, closing a Firefox tab is a potentially awkward two-click operation - one click to select the tab, and a second click on the red X at the far right of the tab bar. The process is so annoying that most Firefox experts quickly install a tab-browsing extension.

Another feature borrowed from Opera this time is zoom. You can wheel in or wheel out on a page just by using the CTRL key and the mouse wheel, which is perfect for those with weak eye vision, or you can use the button in the lower-right corner of the browser window, which zooms the entire page - graphics and text - from 10% to a maximum of 1000%.

The new Favorites Center in IE7 combines the Favorites menu and the Explorer Bar in a single drop-down list that can be pinned to the left side of the browser window and now also embeds the RSS Feeds and the History tab (see above picture).

Printing is smarter, shrinking pages to fit on a single sheet of paper and offering a useful preview. Now you won't lose the content on the far right side of the page. The text may be smaller, but complete. You also have the ability to print only a highlighted section of a Web page. A new feature within IE 7 adds an address bar to every pop-up window, allowing you to determine whether you want to view that content (advertising, for example).

And although, Firefox and Opera have offered the One Click Cleanup of cookies, browser cached items, and temporary files for years, Microsoft has finally made it easy for anyone to delete their browser history and personal information with single click.

Continuing within this release candidate is a complete Really Simple Syndication (RSS) substructure (hence, the reason for the reboot when you install the new IE 7 build). New RSS feeds automatically render as a fairly basic representation of all the current feeds for that page, plus any categorizing the site has done regarding specific topics. Firefox has offered the capability to turn RSS feeds into Live Bookmarks since version 1.0. Clicking a Live Bookmark icon from the Bookmarks menu displays a list of the headlines available from the selected feed. That's fine for a feed with punchy, descriptive headlines. It's a terribly inefficient way to read information-rich feeds, however, especially those that are packed with graphics and full text.

By contrast, IE7's implementation of RSS feeds is simple and elegant. When you click on a link that leads to an RSS feed, the feed's contents display in a specially formatted page within the browser. A box at the top of the page provides details about the feed and offers a link to subscribe to it. The box on the right side of the page lets you filter the list by entering search terms or clicking category names, which are automatically extracted from the feed.

Best of all, the RSS store is a system service that other applications can share. For instance, Outlook 2007, now in beta testing and scheduled for release with the rest of Office 2007 later this year, can share RSS subscriptions and downloaded items with IE7, so that you can subscribe to a feed in either program and view the same feed in a browser window or alongside e-mail messages. NewsGator, which sells RSS readers for virtually every operating system, has already announced its intention to support IE7's sync features.

Web standards - still an issue
Web developers have heaped scorn on IE6 over the years, and with good reason. Building a Web site that works well with modern browsers and IE6 requires memorizing an encyclopedia of hacks and workarounds. IE7 promises to fix many of the most critical bugs and do a better job at following Web standards. Well, if you just have a look at Zone-H page you see, that it still has some problems with rendering correctly the page. And you see it has some more problems runing the Acid2 Browser Test - where also Firefox fails (in a less critical way, but still).

Security
Since its introduction, the most powerful argument in favor of switching to Firefox has been the promise that it's more secure and less vulnerable than IE to infestations of spyware, viruses, and other forms of malware. Technically, at least, IE7 should level the playing field a bit.

IE7 has also raised its own security, with a default Medium-High setting on its security zone. If you ever need to lower the security zone settings, to maybe install a downloaded software, you'll see a golden bar across the top of the screen, reminding you that you are now surfing under less secure settings. You can use a one-click menu option to change the zone settings back. Microsoft has also neutered all but the most essential ActiveX Controls. If you need more, you'll be asked to activate them on one by one, depending on the need. This should limit hacker attacks within the browser.

IE7 upgrade is free for Windows XP and Windows 2003 Servers. By contrast, the new browser code is built into Windows Vista, which is due to be delivered to corporate customers at the end of this year and to the retail channel in January 2007. The Vista version of IE7 incorporates the same security improvements as its XP counterpart, but adds Protected Mode browsing, in which even trusted add-ons are quarantined and given write access only to a set of virtualized folders. This feature, combined with Windows Vista's strict User Account Control, should make it much tougher for malware to sneak onto a system. Despite that, with this release the browser still lacks imunity to Cross SIte Scripting, at least according to the test Zone-H ran on Scanit browser test site - which in our oppinion will be taken care of till the final version.

To increase security, Microsoft has signed an agreement with Digital Resolve to protect users from fraudulent phishing websites by providing data feeds from Digital Resolve’s Trusted ServerTM Technology. These new feeds will help provide real-time, front-line protection for consumers against phishing attacks. Microsoft's phishing filter will be available through the Windows Live Toolbar, Internet Explorer (IE) 7 for Windows XP Service Pack 2 and next generation operating system Windows Vista.

The new data feed supplied to Microsoft as part of this new agreement comes from Digital Resolve's Trusted Server Technology which provides consumers with real-time, positive assurance that they are at a valid website.  The technology utilizes patented data mining capabilities, which were developed in 1999 as the core building component of the company’s patented IP Intelligence technology, to crawl the Internet 24 x 7, verifying the authenticity of financial services and e-commerce websites.  This information is constantly monitored and updated within Trusted Server, which can be fed to web browsers and other desktop applications to safeguard consumers against rogue websites and protect the brand of legitimate online businesses.

Phishing attacks are now using more advanced social engineering techniques and three quarters of of them target users of PayPal and eBay, according to a late July study from anti-virus vendor Sophos.

Conclusions
Unlike many automatic updates, with IE 7, Microsoft decided to give users the choice whether or not to install the update. If you've held off upgrading, now may be the time to make your move, because this version seems solid enough to be usable for everyday needs. Despite the significant interface changes, this version of IE feels familiar, and it's easy to accomplish common tasks. All in all, it's a cleaner look than Firefox and easier to navigate for everyday tasks, but the difference is hardly enough to make it worth switching. On a straight, feature-for-feature comparison, IE7 stacks up well against Firefox. If its improved security model lives up to its design specs and malware distributors will find it much more difficult to make a dishonest living.

The biggest hurdle that Internet Explorer has to overcome, however, is its tattered reputation - especially when it comes to security - which has created an indelible negative impression among the users who've adopted Firefox so far. Even if the final release of IE7 improves mightily over the current RC1 release, regaining back users' confidence, will be a long, bumpy road.

Comments Index (Total Messages: 8)

Excellente review of the browser Written by Guest on 2006-09-14 17:22:39 Re: Excellente review of the browser Written by Guest on 2006-09-22 02:22:56 Disappointing Start Written by Guest on 2006-09-28 20:01:48 Don't Install IE7 Written by Guest on 2006-10-09 15:32:21 Re: Don Written by Guest on 2007-01-10 13:26:39 Closing a tab Written by bobysolo on 2007-02-20 11:36:52 Re: Closing a tab Written by Guest on 2007-09-27 12:42:47

lamerz Written by Guest on 2006-09-14 17:37:19

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