Windows Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview

[kcnychief]

FF is going to be in for a real battle

 

[Grandmaster]

FF is going to be in for a real battle

Let's be honest here. I don't think so.

IE 7 is going to be all catch up. Right now they are trying to match the features and security of Firefox. If they pull that off, great.

But as I pointed out before, Firefox seems to be getting killer new features because of it's open source nature every few months.

Last year I would have said I can't use a browser that doesn't have a built in RSS reader, tabs, and pop-up blocking. Hell I couldn't live without pop-up blocking even two years ago.

Then a couple months ago came new features: session saver, greasemonkey, and adblock. I don't want to even try out a new browser that doesn't have these.

Firefox has got more features than IE 7 already. And Firefox 2.0 is going to be out around June, with even more stuff that IE 7 won't have. Firefox 3.0 is supposed to be out in January next year!

It's going to be a long catch up game for MS. Although I'll be happy as long as they fix the compliancy issues. That's all I want

 

[NetRyder]

Not in the short term, perhaps, but don't forget how IE stuck the nails in Netscape's coffin back in the day. The better browser won. If the IE folks put in the same energy during the next couple of years as they did then, we're going to be in for a lot of fun. And the public mea culpa that came straight from BillG and Dean Hachamovich at MIX06 clearly indicates that they have no desire to sit quietly anymore.

Eric Meyer (if you don't know who he is, I suggest you look him up) has been posting a series of insightful posts about his thoughts on IE 7 during the last few days. Here's a quote that caught my attention:

The Redmond-haters will claim that this is just a lot of catch-up, played years late, and amounts to little more than aping what Mozilla and other browser makers have been doing—better standards support, a tabbed interface, open bug databases, and so on. It happens that they’re right, but what’s wrong with that? The IE team has looked over what happened while they were in hibernation and is emulating the best of it. That’s not lame, that’s smart. And it should have other browser makers a little bit worried. A lot of their success has been due to Microsoft’s complacency. They’re going to have to be a lot sharper and more nimble now that the 800 pound gorilla is actually awake and paying attention to its surroundings.

IE 7 doesn't matter too much. It's what's in the pipeline that does.

 

[kcnychief]

Well if that's all you want, then you should be happy

I never really used firefox on a wide-scale, perhaps on my new rig I'll try it out with IE7 as well. See which tickles my fancy more

 

[kcnychief]

Not in the short term, perhaps, but don't forget how IE stuck the nails in Netscape's coffin back in the day. The better browser won. If the IE folks put in the same energy during the next couple of years as they did then, we're going to be in for a lot of fun. And the public mea culpa that came straight from BillG and Dean Hachamovich at MIX06 clearly indicates that they have no desire to sit quietly anymore.

Eric Meyer (if you don't know who he is, I suggest you look him up) has been posting a series of insightful posts about his thoughts on IE 7 during the last few days. Here's a quote that caught my attention:

IE 7 doesn't matter too much. It's what in the pipeline that does.

Ha- 800 pound Gorilla

That is a unique and smart way of looking at it though, saying their success is partially based off of Microsoft's complacency. Of course, "Redmond-Haters" will disagree, but a lot of browsers market things that IE can't do.

Should be interesting to see how they develop

 

[Johnny]

Good, I'm glad you uninstalled it. I'd hate to see you happy for a change.

Yeah, I am happy for a change. I am happy to see that they are doing nothing in the way of making it more secure. It is still a major annoyance. It is nothing compared to firefox. It will never be as good, the way it looks right now is that it is trying to mimic it; actually, it looks more like a lite version of maxthon and Avant browser. The only thing I see that I like more about it is that it handles png files better. Other than that it is total crap. I will check out the next beta release, maybe it will be better.

 

[madmatt]

You can't compare a beta product to an RTM product. So stop.

Heck, IE7 B2 is a preview version and not even the BETA 2 release.

IE7 is much more secure than IE6 was. The popup blocker is much better. The interface takes some getting used to but it is much more convenient. You're not being fair.

Regardless, I'm glad you are happy. Now if you could only replace Windows you would be the happiest person alive.

 

[NetRyder]

Haha. I think we need to send Johnny up to Redmond to show them the way it's done.
Because apparently, you know, all of this work that's been going on there is "doing nothing in the way of making it more secure."

Go, Johnny, go!

 

[Grandmaster]

Some people were curious about running IE7 standalone.

http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2005/12/28/434132.aspx

I haven't personally tried it, but apparently it works.

 

[NetRyder]

Some people were curious about running IE7 standalone.

http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2005/12/28/434132.aspx

I haven't personally tried it, but apparently it works.

The SHLWAPI.DLL and IEXPLORE.exe.local trick was posted back when the first IE7 Beta 1 build was released for XP. It worked, but a number of features didn't actually work correctly. I wonder if the registry changes in that post fix those issues.

 

[Johnny]

Haha. I think we need to send Johnny up to Redmond to show them the way it's done.
Because apparently, you know, all of this work that's been going on there is "doing nothing in the way of making it more secure."

Go, Johnny, go!

They aren't moving fast enough ! I had the pop up blocker set to block all with this thing, it still had them. it don't catch all them. Firefox gets everyone. Take this site for example. I never knew it had popups till I used IE7, with the highest setting it didnt' catch them. Firefox never showed them.

Like I said when the next release comes out I will try it. Mostly when it is final I will be switching back to it. But, until they work the kinks and jinks out, I am staying with Firefox.

You know the funny thing in this is that people are starting to talk about IE7 the same way they talked about firefox when it first came out lol .. They are making it out to be the internet saver. reality is that it will probably still stink like IE 6 lol ..

That constant activate this has to go, or there has to be a way to shut it off. I can see security reasons for that. But if they would figure out how to control things they wouldn't need that ..

 

[madmatt]

The object activation isn't Microsoft's fault. It's the government's.

 

[NetRyder]

You know the funny thing in this is that people are starting to talk about IE7 the same way they talked about firefox when it first came out lol .. They are making it out to be the internet saver. reality is that it will probably still stink like IE 6 lol ..

That constant activate this has to go, or there has to be a way to shut it off. I can see security reasons for that. But if they would figure out how to control things they wouldn't need that ..

I don't think anybody is talking about IE 7 like it's the holy grail of browsers. It's the Firefox trolls that just can't control themselves. Believe it or not, there are still people who use IE 6. Lots of them the last time I checked. People are just happy to see the changes in IE 7 because it's a significant step up for them. They don't care about the fact that many of these features have been in alternative browsers for a while, because IE has been their browser of choice for a multitude of valid reasons. And people who use alternative browsers are also happy to see IE 7 because of the major changes made to the Trident rendering engine that'll make everyone's lives easier. That's all there is to it.

The click-to-activate thing is not a security feature, by the way. It was a forced change due to the Eolas patent issue.

 

[Johnny]

I am happy to see IE7, it shows they are trying. I am also hoping it is better with the final release. What I don't understand is the patent issue; if that is the case, why is it that all browser aren't doing it?

 

[NetRyder]

The public bug database that was hinted at a few days ago has officially been announced: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/03/24/560095.aspx

This is where you want to report rendering engine issues and any other bugs that you find.

 

[madmatt]

If you read the article you will see Microsoft is not the only one that is affected. Furthermore, web developers can update their code to work without the "activation".

 

[kcnychief]

I am proud to say that I still am an IE 6 user. I have never used FF for more than 5-10 minutes at a time, and it was only because I wanted to check it out sometimes. I, personally, have never had a problem that was "related to IE". I'm not saying that IE is better than FF, it's my preference. I don't have a reason to switch, plain and simple.

Also as Kunal said, I am excited about IE 7 because it does bring a lot of features to the browser that are great improvements. I have used Avant Browser for awhile, mostly because tabbed browsing is really nice. I'm excited to have that come to IE7, as it will be one less thing I will have to install.

They aren't moving fast enough ! I had the pop up blocker set to block all with this thing, it still had them. it don't catch all them. Firefox gets everyone. Take this site for example. I never knew it had popups till I used IE7, with the highest setting it didnt' catch them. Firefox never showed them.

Like I said when the next release comes out I will try it. Mostly when it is final I will be switching back to it. But, until they work the kinks and jinks out, I am staying with Firefox.

You know the funny thing in this is that people are starting to talk about IE7 the same way they talked about firefox when it first came out lol .. They are making it out to be the internet saver. reality is that it will probably still stink like IE 6 lol ..

That constant activate this has to go, or there has to be a way to shut it off. I can see security reasons for that. But if they would figure out how to control things they wouldn't need that ..

OK, first off, like madmatt said, stop comparing it to Firefox. Firefox is RTM, IE7 is not. That's like comparing apples to oranges. I also can't believe you are bitching and moaning about kinks and jinks. Incase you forgot, it's in beta. Last I checked, beta software is supposed to have kinks and jinks. If they were, for the majority, cleared up and gone, it would be final

 

[madmatt]

Furthermore it's not even to beta 2 stage. It's a preview of what's to come with beta 2.

I have NEVER used another browser, not even Netscape. IE baby!

 

[j79zlr]

Furthermore it's not even to beta 2 stage. It's a preview of what's to come with beta 2.

I have NEVER used another browser, not even Netscape. IE baby!

Good thing you evaluated your options first and made an informed decision.

 

[madmatt]

I don't need options. That's the point. I am happy with the product. It does every thing I need a web browser to do for me. Quite frankly I am not worried about security holes. I have common sense (something a lot of users don't have).