I think IE would get a lot more use if it had "skins"/"themes". It seems nice to change the drab look of a brouser from time to time.

IE7 is impressive and i'm glad Microsoft is making it a high priority update, because most people wouldn't know themselves to upgrade. And with that said, I can draw up a couple scenarios after the launch of IE7.

1: Grandma, Grandpa see two buttons...back/forth and the 'other buttons' on the right side. They live happily ever after.

2. Uncle Johnboy stops wondering why his credit card company keeps calling him mysteriously after a frustrating incident in which he attempted to buy a $5 XBox360 on funky pay-pal screen.

3. Internet Explorer starts actually being used by Microsoft employees.

4. The Geek Squad dies a horrible death since malware cleaning is 90% of their business. The world celebrates.

I don't like IE7. It's ugly, buggy and slow. Yes, i know it's a beta right now, but i don't think it's going to be any better as it is today... Have also noticed that some older games stopped working with IE7 installed. So, never IE7 on my computers !

Yeah. IE3!!! IE3!!! IE3!!! I'm rooting for Lynx to make a comeback also. :)

mosaic ftw!11

my self ,i have it in the new vista and wish there were an uninstall with it
i like ie 6 alot better and it much beter to deal wiyh
if you are looking for a tabbed broswer then slim broswer is better from flash peak

dose anyone know of a uninstall for ie 7

Ah it's all balls. The reason why it's being pushed out is not because of security but I suspect fears of losing market share. IE may still have over 83% of market share but it was 95% two years ago. You figure out whether it's security or market share that's the main concern but I know what I think.

First of all, we're not human beings. We're just electrons floating around along wires. 2nd, I do hope that with the final release of IE7 that the compatibility issue with office 2007 beta is resolved. Specifically Oulook fails to find the folders when using the current beta version of both at the same time. MS's response was to use one or the other but not both. I know these are betas but it would be nice if the department that is handling the office beta would at least work a little bit with the team handling the IE7. I, personally, find it strange that a company putting out two betas can't get them to work together so my attitude towards MS has gone down a little.

I'm actually looking forward to this. I've found most of those complaining about this news are those that also complain about IE6, so they're talking out of both sides of their shriveled mouth. IE7 may not be a perfect browser (what is a perfect browser... there ISN'T one), but at least it's a step forward for MS. I've found that popups/ads that manage to get around the built-in blocker are taken out by the Google Toolbar, which also works fine in IE7. Bring on the new!

OK, let's go...go...go

"Microsoft: IE7 a 'High-Priority' Update"

PHEW!

This is the most responsible action they could have taken concerning IE6.

I applaud them for this.

clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap

It's high priority because IE6 is so old and crusty it's shameful and embarrassing to Microsoft.

Since their best customers are the ones too clueless to change programs, or any default settings, Microsoft knows they need to lift up their unwashed brethren.

Another forced download from Microspud (I know you can turn it off, so shut up about that)I guess their little code of conduct was just another smoke screen.

Another forced download from Microspud (I know you can turn it off, so shut up about that)

Long Translation:

"It's a forced download (I know it isn't, but I hate MS, so I'm gonna make sh1t up to try and start sh1t)"

Short Translation:

I'm an MS-Basher, Ignore me.

I guess their little code of conduct was just another smoke screen.

Do tell how this violates that code, you goat fornicating, wet-brained, knee-biting, halfwit.

(Yes, I've resorted to name calling. Nothing personal, I'm just bored.)

Decaf my son, Decaf! :)

*applauds*

Maybe a little overkill on that last part, but still a good show. lol

LOL I am sooooo insulted. NOT

I agree, calm it down PC. were all people here.

What, no-one can take a joke anymore?

*grin*

Glad to hear it. Just having a bit of fun. Like I said, I'm bored.

Interesting you didn't answer the question though... How does this violate their code, eh?

Let's see... they are building IE7 with "enhanced security" features, and removing a lot of its tight OS integration, and IE6 really does have more than a fair share of security issues, so it makes sense that this is considered a high security update.

At the same time, they acknowledge that plenty of people won't want it anywhere near their system and provide options to opt-out and delay the install.

Satisfaction to all but whiney people... I like it.

Satisfaction to all but whiney people...

You, sir, have nailed it.

I have news for you, no matter what Microspud says, if you continue to use Windows XP IE 7 doesn't work without the basic files of IE 6 installed. The same security holes will always be there. And this isn't a security update, it's a forced download of software they want you to use. If you are satisfied with more Microspud BS more power to you. Is this a whine? If it is too bad, it's the truth.

it's a forced download of software they want you to use.

You, sir, are an idiot. You are purposefully spreading this FUD even though, as you admit above, you *know* better.

Is this a whine?

No. It's Trolling. Please go back to slashdot.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha. I'm a troll? Another dipwad speaks.

Right.

Someone points out your complete failure to be reasonable...

...and you prove it.

Good job, mate!

I use IE7 beta 3 on my laptop. Just like IE6, pop-ups are stopped in their tracks. Pop-unders, that's a different story. Cannot seem to rid myself of this malware. Tried everything- root cleaners, etc. IE7 isn't helping my dilema.

Solution: Firefox + Adblock extension

Well personally I'm happy they've decided to put it as high priority.
I'm a web designer, and it makes me want to cry the amount of times IE 6 and below has struggled with CSS.

The faster it's out the door, the better.

I've downloaded (and reversed) each of the 3 betas and each time there is something I can't access...the latest being the videos on the CNN site. Hopefully, it will be fully operative before it is finally rolled out.

Dont forget options to uninstall it, if user did not want it after try it.

If I had my way I would erase IE 6 and 7 off of
every computer!
How about an automatic update that installs
FireFox....
no that would be cool!

You know, you just described Ubuntu Linux :)

- no IE (nor OE ;)
- upgrades all system packages, which includes Firefox
- very cool ^_-

You know, you just described Ubuntu Linux

...along with just about every other Linux distro. ;-)

Is it me or does IE7 make images or sites (in general) look blurry? Also, when the hell will Microsoft add in the option to force links to open in the same window (but new tab)???

Tools | Internet Options | Tabs | Settings | When a popup is encountered... | Always open pop-ups in a new tab

This is for IE7 in Vista Beta 2, but it may work in the IE7 for XP as well.

For some strange reason Microsoft decided it would be a good idea to turn on cleartype by default in IE7. It's a very bad idea though, as it looks horrible on a CRT. There is a setting in the options however to turn it off thankfully.

Tools, Internet Options, Advanced. Scroll down and uncheck "Always use ClearType for HTML". You'll need to restart IE for the changes to take effect.

Yeah, let's continue to promote the use of bad displays from the 20th century rather than move into the 21st...

Some people are incredibly resistant to change.

This browser is designed for Vista, basically. Any new system sold with Vista will be sold with an LCD screen. Thus, the browser was designed for *gasp* and LCD screen.

It can be changed to standard, or, for those unwilling to change a minor setting, it can be avoided entirely by sticking to old software to go with your old hardware.

It's all pretty simple, actually. You wouldn't try to run IE7 on a 486, why try to run it on a CRT? Old hardware is old hardware. If you're stuck with it, deal. The rest of us will be waving to you from, as GT2L said, the 21st century.

I'm not saying LCDs are bad, just that many if not people are still using CRT displays. Since this is intended for XP it's reasonable to say it's not going to be coming with a shiny new system with LCD. I just think on the XP version it should be off by default. Most novices are not going to know why their text is blurry or want to go digging into the advanced options.

But they might ask...

Yeah... Thanks a lot MS. I *know* that's going to make our tech support department just giddy with joy. But what the heck, at least it isn't me. =p

They could, but they really shouldn't have to. There is already a cleartype setting in XP, it makes no sense to have two of them. If you have it turned off in XP it should be off for IE as well. Just my opinion but I believe more people are going to want it turned off than on.

More folks running XP have CRT than LCD? Hmmm.. I'd have though the opposite.

Well by the same token some one that has an lcd shouldn't have to find out how to turn cleartype on should they.

"More folks running XP have CRT than LCD?"

I would think so, LCDs are still pretty expensive. I don't know anyone who has one. Either way there should not be a seperate ClearType setting in IE when XP already has one. The setting should be global.

Take it for what it is worth - but quoting John Dvorak in latest PC Mag from his column... "and the biggest buzz was speculation about when the LCD flat panel would finally take over market-share leadership from the CRT. Estimates very from later this year to 2009. But that includes TVs."

My 19" Mag 986FS isn't going anywhere until it dies (haha which sadly based on some funky warming up needed to display the top 1/8 or so of the screen isn't going to be much longer I suspect), but I predict my next monitor will be LCD.

Problem I continue to have with LCD is that text in non-native resolution still look bad, but I can put my CRT into any of several resolutions with good looking text.

...and I presume that market-share leadership is in new units SOLD, not in existing units. There are plenty of CRTs out there which have been sold over the past many, many years. Personally speaking, my next monitor may be a USED 21" CRT. No point in dumping my current 17" CRT for a more expensive 17" or 19" LCD, just for the sake of saying that I have an LCD.

IE7 is like the Xbox 360. They tell you it's next-generation, but internally, it really isn't.

I don't blame Microsoft for using its own product in Windows to nudge people into downloading the browser.

IE 7 is an important update as the security in IE 6 basically sucks. I very much support their efforts to move customers to the new browser. Most people use IE so it's better they're using something more secure than the older versions. I use Opera myself, but IE7 looks to be a huge improvement.

How on earth can IE7 possibly be considered a "next generation" browser, when it's still
using a fourth generation rendering engine first introduced with IE4 back in 1997?

IE7 is little more than IE6 with a few tweaks, an almost totally uncustomisable crap GUI,
and a heap of features that most other browsers have had for ages now.

If anything, the only unique feature I've found in IE7 is Quick Tabs, which shows thumb-
nails of the sites in all current open tabs. Eitherway, that particular can be added to
to browsers such as Firefox and SeaMonkey by means of an extension.

Just because it's supposed to be the "next generation" browser does not mean it has to have unique features, in my opinion. Companies and software having similar features is not uncommon.

How do you figure that IE's rendering engine is still "fourth generation" anyway. I know it's old, but other than that... I'm not seeing what you are here.

What is the source of your claim that IE 7 is still using the same rendering engine as IE4, because you are wrong.

"large amounts of the underlying architecture, including the rendering engine and security framework, have been completely overhauled."

http://en.wikipedia.org/...rnet_Explorer#Version_7

FACT: IE7 still uses the technically obsolete Trident rendering engine introduced in IE4.
The only difference between the engine in IE6 and 7 are a handful of tweaks that only
slightly improve the very ropey support for web standards.

The Wikipedia article claims it's been "completely overhauled". And when did Microsoft
start to publish official software documentation on Wikipedia? A website that consists
mainly of publicly submitted articles that should be taken with large pinches of salt.

The proof is in the first part of the user agent string. Ever since IE4 was released, this
has showed as "Mozilla/4.0". The UA's of other major browsers show 5.0 or higher.

If MS want developers to take IE seriously, Trident needs to be ripped out, and the
whole thing rebuilt from scratch. Or, at the very least, port the abandoned Tasman
rendering engine (from IE5.x for Mac) over to Windows.

"The proof is in the first part of the user agent string. Ever since IE4 was released, this
has showed as "Mozilla/4.0"."

LMAO, that's just for compatibility, something from the past when sites would check for Netscape and if they didn't find it they'd present an uglier or less functional version of the page. IE does not use any Mozilla code. Apparently you need to read up on what a user agent string actually is.

http://webtips.dan.info/brand-x/useragent.html

Oh, and because anyone can edit Wikipedia, it means wrong information is quickly corrected. Sorry but I'll take their word over yours any day.

The Trident engine has been updated, they are not using the same one from IE4. There is no need to throw it away and start over. NTFS was introduced in 1992 or 93, does that mean it's obsolete and should be thrown out? I'll admit IE isn't perfect but the endless whining and MS bashing gets tiring.

Too bad, they didn't make the rendering engine faster while they were doing all this supposed overhauling. It's still slow as hell. Other than that it's just peachy.

Hint to beta testers:

Do not judge a products speed during beta. The speed of any given application or OS will always be slower in Beta than on final release.

This is due to many things, but generally revolve around the fatc that there is either debug code still running, old code not commented or removed yet, certain features still not functioning properly, etc...

They generally wait to begin focusing on performance until *after* the major bugs are worked out. This is generally *after* the beta phase when the product reaches RC status.

I'm sure you knew that, though. You were just looking for something to b**** about, right?

Well duh, I knew that....anyone should but when a Firefox 2 alpha....ALPHA is fatser than and IE7 beta....BETA that's pretty pathetic.

Beta 2 worked perfect for me beta 3 was horible and removed after a couple days unless the final is improved it will not be on my system probaly go back to opera or give fire fox another chance but all the other times i tried it i didn't like it.

Did you completely uninstall beta 2 before putting beta 3 on? If not, you are most likely barred form any stable IE release until you reload your OS.

Many folks have had that problem.

""Did you completely uninstall beta 2 before putting beta 3 on? If not, you are most likely barred form any stable IE release until you reload your OS.""

MS gives instructions on how fix that problem in their KB. There is no need to wait or reinstall the OS.

;) If they installed IE7 beta 3 over the top of IE7 beta 2, you can rest assured that this is not the only problem plaguing their system. :p

ok.. I'm a Windows fan... I'd let Mr Gates autograph my underwear, but from my experience with IE 7 betas.. calling it a 'High-Priority' Update is just like saying "Quick, we have to screw up your browsing experience... ITS IMPORTANT!"

More along the lines of, "Quick we need to stop you from doing stupid sh**&^&$ and getting yourself infected!"

But you were close....

Um... I've tested Beta 2 and Beta 3. IE7 has got better features than IE6 and maybe more secure but it still doesn't render sites properly and still has lots of problems.

If all the problems the browser has are all ironed out before release though, I'll welcome IE7. I just hate using computer that still only have IE6 as their browser. Yuk!

It's amazing that IE6 has been around for as long as it has when the WWW has moved on so much!

The only problem I've had with Beta 3 is a bug with the favorites menu. You cannot delete any bookmarks unless you switch the focus away from IE and back first. Hopefully they'll fix that.

Excellent, I put IE7 though it's paces, and I discovered out of 15 live, unpatched exploits I tried for IE6, only 10 or so worked on IE6 (I think some of them required Office or some other ActiveX components that don't ship with Windows) and only 2 worked with IE7. A definite improvement. IE lovers can worry less about having malware pop onto their desktop while they're surfing around.

On the other hand, none worked in Firefox (obviously, since it doesn't support ActiveX). Take that any way you want.

Unfortunately, anyone running a pre-XP OS is going to be stuck with IE6. They should definitely consider migrating to a different browser.

or *gasp* a more modern OS....

Microsoft does something right.

Maybe web page development will finally get a kick in the ass.

Nope. The list of required browsers to support just got one bigger. IE7 sure sounds like an improvement, and will hopefully be so, but IE6 will be around for 5 more years at least. I'd be willing bet there's a significant number of people still using IE5.x, and whatever Windows 98 shipped with (4?).

If a site supports Firefox, it supports IE7.

You exaggerate for the sake of complaining.

I wish that was true.

Name one that does not.

Up until just recently (Beta 3 with the latest upgrade from Win XP patch page my bank's website www.wellsfargo.com would not work with IE7 which I thought was odd since it has worked fine with Firefox and told me I needed IE6 for it to work with IE7.

As of today though after installing the patch it now works.

So far I find both IE7 and Firefox to be good products at least as far as they do what I need with decent features. Opera (haven't tried the latest beta) has consistantly crashed for me more than IE anything or Firefox anything so I've stayed clear of it.

I downloaded betas 2 and 3 and both failed to install. It might be interesting...

No problems with either one here. If you have problems with IE7 final you might want to consider installing a fresh copy of Windows, as your problems could be symptoms of too much @$%& (not necessarily malware, but too many programs install shell extensions, "new" items, send to items, and generally hook into Windows in ways they really don't need to and eventually something breaks).

too much @$%&

You mean it might have a problem moving into a machine thats already in use?

No, just one that's been abused.

Not all necessarily abused. And, not everyone (i.e., LOTS of people) cannot simply reinstall Windows. They only have recovery disks from the manufacturer that will wipe their entire hard drives clean. Therefore, not a viable solution.

And then there are those that don't even provide a CD, but everything is on a FAT32 partition. Again, not a viable alternative.

Picking out no one in particular, why do some people here always assume a problem originates with an "abused" system? Clearly, they don't see very many computers other than their own. I've seen too many "abused" systems (i.e., ones that had installation problems) that have come out of a brand new box.

Picking out no one in particular, why do some people here always assume a problem originates with an "abused" system?

When a system (like IE7) installs on 90% of the test systems without a glitch and some twit whines about it crashing his system and fscking everything up. Call it an informed guess.

Clearly, they don't see very many computers other than their own.

Clearly, you don't.

I used to do it for a living (Now I have someone do it for me). 90%, easily, of install problems arise due to crap software having been previously installed. Hell, 90% of *all* windows issues are either due to crap hardware or crap software. Windows works *beautifully* on compliant hardware running well-designed software.

"Windows works *beautifully* on compliant hardware running well-designed software."

Well, till you resume from hibernation and then try to shutdown.

(Note, I am referring to the infamous Windows shutdown "hang" after suspend or hibernation. Disclaimer: Does not impact all computers your mileage may vary)

Couldn't help it, heh

Jerk.

I hate you now. :P

Enterprise environments should really be using WSUS anyway, and approving updates individually.

Bugs and all here we go.

Such as...?

I'm not arguing that there are none, as that would be incredibly ignorant, but unless you have something specific to back it up with the comment itself is pretty redundant.

ALL complex software has bugs.

If you'd take the time to read the article you would have seen this:

"the browser would arrive sometime in the fourth quarter of this year."

By my calander that's at least 2 months away.

Software resemble Orwell's animals from "The Animal Farm": "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

I hope they don't release it within 2 months. this thing is still kind of crash happy and tries to freeze like a block of ice when closing tabs.

Gee, that's big reason why I switched to Firefox (then Phoenix) years ago.

FFx 2.0 beta 1 has a few problems, but it's still 10 times more stable than any IE version I've ever run (caveat: I have not tried IE7).

I use Firefox and honeslty can't stand IE. I've just been seeing what new screw ups Microsoft has in store for their poor victims.