Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft IE 7 Goes (More) Beta
Hans W. Smith writes "Microsoft has unveiled Internet Explorer 7, releasing the new "preview" version of its Web browser to the general public for testing. The latest version works only with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and includes many of the features Microsoft has been touting for months such as: privacy protection,tabbed browsing and a search box similar to Firefox. They tried to outdo Firefox tab browsing with a feature call Quick tab which shows thumbnail view of all open tabs in a single window."
Yup, you saw it yesterday. Posting before coffee never works.
I have had these features with konqueror and firefox for the last two years.
such innovation
developers developers developers
A CNET reporter has an interesting article on the IE7 beta. http://news.com.com/2061-10805_3-6033611.html
Noting that M$ really means beta .
Admittedly, this would be easier to take for most users if it didn't kill IE6. Bearing in mind also that the publicity this release has will likely mean that many inexperienced users will download and click through the install buttons blindly.
I'm thinking that M$ should really come up with new terminology for their releases. Any first final release of a M$ product in the past few years has been little much more than a final RC than the actual final product. Being the reason why the large enterprise company that I last worked for didn't install SP2 until the last minute after really really thorough internal testing.
While I have some sympathy for most companies releasing new software, as it is hard to predict what will break when you can't predict what users will do with it, or want to do with it - and there's always conflict with some guy who wants to run Word Perfect for DOS from the hard drive he built from a Pringles can, a cd of Dark Side of the Moon and parts salvaged from an old dot matrix printer.
But... my feeling is a company the size of M$ should be able to release software in a manner that is either safe or with the risks more prudently stated.
For example, forget alpha, beta etc:
Release 1. Good Luck and may your god help you...
Release 2. Keep a fire extinguisher nearby at all times, only use in a well ventilated room.
Release 3. May cause seizures or induce vomiting
Release 4. Still a bit iffy
Release 5. Fingers Crossed.
Release 6. (after about a year of general release) Um, yep, seems to work...
I guess the only reason they don't is because the marketing dept won't allow it.
Anyway, I'm sticking with Firefox. I'll only be upgrading to IE7 when there is absolutely no choice.
Sorry, I start running at the merest mention of Internet Exploder
:P
Sorry to inform you that this name's outdated. Internet Exploiter is the latest one.