THOMPSON

[inspic=18,left,,0]Microsoft finally released Internet Explorer 7 for public download a few days ago.

The first thing I noticed after downloading and starting the install were the usual dire warnings the likes of making sure all of your important documents have been backed up prior to running the installation, make sure your anti-virus is turned off, make sure you’re not running any other programs, etc. Next was the unbelievable amount of time it took to finish installing. Just under 5 minutes! (this may take less time on machines faster than mine) I have performed numerous Firefox installs, all taking about 2 minutes (including bookmark importing).

After the completed install, a reboot and jetting through the Welcome screens, I was greeted with IE7′s new clean look. The first thing you’ll notice is that the menu bar is gone (you can bring it back in Tools if you so choose) and that most of the familiar navigation icons have been relocated to the right side of the browser window (these can’t be rearranged, I’ve tried). Then, of course, there is the newly designed IE7 logo in the upper left corner.

After the immediate visual aesthetic bombardment I noticed some of the long awaited “new” features: Tab Browsing; RSS Feed Reader; integrated Search Box; integrated Pop-up Blocker. These features have been available in other browsers (ie: Mozilla Firefox) for a couple of years now and have finally made their way into IE7.

The tab browsing feature works pretty much as I had expected and it is very easy to adjust the settings once you know where they are (Tools » Internet Options » General » Tab Settings). The very cool new feature that also comes with IE7 tab browsing is Quick Tabs. This feature allows you to view all of your open tabs as web page thumbnails on one page, where you can then select which tab you’d like to view full size.

Unlike the familiar Tab Browsing feature, the RSS Feed Reader took some getting used to. The RSS Feed Reader in Firefox adds a feed to your bookmarks when you subscribe, where you can just mouse over the feed folder and view any new titles. The RSS Feed Reader in IE7, however, requires that you first click the very familiar orange RSS Feed icon to ‘view feeds on this page’ before selecting ‘subscribe to this feed’ and organizing its location. That’s just the subscribing part, now the reading part. To read the saved rss feed you have to open the Favorites side bar and select the desired feed which then loads any or all new posts in IE7′s custom RSS Feed Reader. Only if you click on a post title will you finally arrive at the website that actually posted the feed. This took a little getting used to and I don’t think I’ll become comfortable with it.

The integrated Search Box and Pop-up Blocker work as you’d expect. The Search Box resides in the same spot as it does in Firefox and is customizable with various search providers. The Pop-up Blocker is easy to configure and has been long awaited. The days of downloading the Google Toolbar for these features have finally come to an end.

Next are the touted improved securities including the anti-phishing filter to help ensure users are not providing personal information to known phishing sites. The anti-phishing filter uses Security Badge icons to indicate whether a site you’re visiting is suspicious or known for phishing.

Lastly is the new printing feature. By selecting the print preview from the printer icon drop down menu, you can see how the web page content automatically shrinks to fit on a page. There are also additional customizable printing options allowing you to adjust margins, customize page layouts, remove headers and footers, and change print space.

Overall, if you did the smart thing and dumped Internet Explorer years ago for another browser like Firefox or Opera (as I did!), I say stay the course. IE7 will just take up space on your hard drive. However, if you’re devoted to IE and have stuck with it I think you will find IE7 a feature filled, long awaited and well deserved upgrade. If you’re one of the latter, you can download IE7 here from Microsoft’s website or wait until it is forced upon you in one of Window’s automatic updates sometime in November.