Internet Explorer 7 Review
Written by Alex Iskold and edited by Richard MacManus. Disclaimer: Alex's company AdaptiveBlue has a product called The blueorganizer, which is a Firefox extension.
It is ironic, but the laws of
physics apply to technology. Since Internet Explorer won the browser battle 10 years ago,
it had little incentive to change. So obeying Newton's law of inertia, Internet Explorer
did not bother to innovate. But they got a kick 2 years ago when Mozilla launched a
browser that threatens to dethrone IE. After about five years of silence, Internet
Explorer 7 has made its long awaited debut.
With the bar raised high and the crowd cheering for Firefox, the IE team came out with a solid product. It is not fantastic and does not have a lot of new things that we have not seen before. But it is a good effort and a worthy response to Firefox. In this post, we look at the IE7 feature set and talk about both the good and bad of this market-leading browser.
User interface improvements
The first thing that stands out in the new Internet Explorer is its completely redesigned navigation bar. Besides the URL entry box, everything else is new and it is an interesting design.
The major theme here is to have buttons as short cuts and pulldowns for more detail. For example, the History button is accessible as a pulldown right next to the Back and Forward buttons. The Home button does the usual, but the pulldown next to it allows the user to add more Home pages as well as perform additional customizations. The Print and Tools menus also have detail pulldowns that have a lot of options. This redesign makes sense, as it establishes groupings and also allows the user to quickly switch between using the function and customizing it.
Another interesting change is the addition of the Zoom functionality at the bottom of each page. This feature allows the user to instantly zoom in and out of the current page. This has been part of Adobe Acrobat for years and it is quite handy for web pages as well.
Search box
The new Internet Explorer features a built-in
search box, similar to the one in Firefox. By default it (unsurprisingly) uses
Microsoft's LiveSearch. This is Microsoft's stab at Google's search revenue. There are a
couple of things to note here. First is that LiveSearch is much slower than Google
Search. The second, is that Live search for Images is really well done - and is
better than Google image search.
Like Firefox, Internet Explorer has an infrastructure for adding more search engines. By default there is only LiveSearch, but others can be added by visiting the search engine plugin page. There is a very interesting feature built into this page - create your own search engine plugin. The idea is simple - the user can search any site for the word 'TEST' and then use the result page as a sample to create a custom engine for that site. Intrigued, we decided to give this a try by doing a simple search on Amazon. Alas, it did not work as shown below. What is sad about this error dialog is that it throws us back to the time when computers, and Windows in particular, threw up error messages that made no sense.
Led to...
There is another thing about Internet Explorer's search functionality which is really annoying - the Find in this page dialog. In-page search is one of the best and most elegant features in Firefox - and it is implemented so that it does not interfere with the user's browsing experience. But unlike the tabbed browsing feature, IE decided not to take Firefox's lead with this feature. As a result the IE Find in this page function is really bad.
Tabbed browsing
As we just mentioned, IE 7 introduces tabbed browsing. For the most part this feature is similar to Firefox, but there are some interesting caveats. First, the user can create a new tab by clicking on the small blank tab on the right. If this is confusing, see the picture below. Another interesting thing is an outline view of all tabs, similar to the slide view in Power point. It is not clear whether this is useful. but it definitely looks visually appealing. Like the latest Firefox, IE 7 also has a pulldown that allows the user to switch between the tabs - and this feature is definitely handy.
Favorites and History
Favorites and History have gone through a major redesign in this version. There is now a single bar for both, that can be either pinned or floating. The flexible filters, sorters and intelligent organization make this one a winner - finally IE gets how users like to view favorites and history. However there is no sign of tagging, integration with del.icio.us or storing bookmarks online (rather than on the browser) - so this is Bookmarks 1.0 only.
RSS integration
If there is one thing that definitely stands out in IE7, it is RSS integration. When you navigate to a page that contains an RSS feed, the familiar orange icon lights up. Once you click on the icon, some magic happens:
IE presents RSS feeds using a smart view which lets the user search, filter and sort the entries contained in the feed. This is the kind of smart solution that once you see it, you recognize its brilliance. It would be great if all the browsers did more smart things like this!
Other notable features
This version of Internet Explorer, like of all of its predecessors, comes with a huge variety of features and options. Some other ones that we noted include a popup blocker, the phishing filter and add-on manager. Yes, IE is trying to encourage people to develop extensions! This effort is in its early stages, but there is a strong commitment from the IE team to bring the add-on development up to par.
Conclusion
IE 7 is a huge improvement over IE 6. There is evidence of really good effort and innovation here - but there are also traces of the old IE that just do not fit. It seems like the IE team was pressured to release the tool (because of what Firefox is bringing out) before they had a chance to rethink and redo everything. Hopefully the shortcomings will be cleaned up in IE 8 - and that we won't have to wait another five years before it comes out!
The bigger question is how does IE7 compare to Firefox 2.0 and is it enough to hang on to IE's huge market share? This is a tough question to answer... but in terms of performance, cohesiveness of features and availability of add-ons - Firefox 2.0 is in better shape right now.
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Just as you say, after having won the battle they never bothered improving IE anymore. Now that a new version is out, how about html standards and interpretation ? That has always been it's biggest problem : by not keeping to the standards IE has a bad reputation of screwing up your websites and rendering awfully. has that been improved, too ? Or is it still 'The Microsoft Way' ?
Posted by: Servaas | October 20, 2006 7:22 AM
Good point, Servaas, I did not mention non-compliance with standards, which is a huge problem for designers and developers. I think this version of IE is better, but still is not fully compliant.
Alex
Posted by: Alex Iskold | October 20, 2006 7:28 AM
Very nice and comprehensive review.
The search feature in IE has always bugged me (well ever since I became used to Firefox's inline searching). I'm currently trying out an extension for IE that I heard about on TWiT. http://www.ieforge.com/InlineSearch/HomePage . It will actually add the inline functionality to IE, and it even works with ie7.
Not a perfect solution by any means, but it is much better than the default
Posted by: Dan | October 20, 2006 7:46 AM
Much better RSS integration compared to firefox 1.x! IE7 redirects to the RSS's URL making it easy to copy&paste it and subscribe to other readers. To snag the url from firefox is a chore.
Posted by: JaV | October 20, 2006 8:52 AM
Very nice review. I think that the one major improvement that is not being talked about very much with IE7 is the improved support for printing: the ability to adjust margins within the print-preview, the ability to easily hide/customize the header and footer, and the shrink-to-fit option. Many people, especially in a business environment, print out all kinds of pages. The improved printing is a small change that can be a big timesaver.
As for the RSS integration, both IE7 and Firefox 2 leave alot to be desired. This is one of the areas that both browsers need to improve on.
Posted by: Leslie Franke | October 20, 2006 11:50 AM
Leslie,
Thanks for your comment. Its great that you noted this, I missed the printing improvement.
And, yes, RSS integration needs to be better and smarter!
Alex
Posted by: Alex Iskold | October 20, 2006 12:09 PM
The "Create Your Own" search feature is based on OpenSearch autodiscovery in (x)HTML. A search provider supporting OpenSearch should add an autodiscovery link to their search result page if they would like to be easily added as a search provider in OpenSearch-powered search tools such as IE7 and Firefox.
You can read more about IE7 search discovery on MSDN.
Posted by: Niall Kennedy | October 20, 2006 12:47 PM
Another IE7 thing worth mentioning for the Web 2.0 crowd... the ads. How many of the networks now recognise IE7 and pop up not just PSAs? That'd be interesting to know.
Posted by: Juha | October 20, 2006 2:14 PM
Juha, can you please elaborate on this. I am not sure what you mean?
Alex
Posted by: Alex Iskold | October 20, 2006 2:37 PM
Sure - during the betas and RCs of IE7, the ad networks served up public service ads instead of the usual ones you see in other browsers. Apparently this is because they didn't recognise IE7.
I've had a quick look around to find a sample for you but it seems most ad networks have updated now, so it's probably a non-issue now that IE7 is in final.
Haven't seen the PSA ads with for instance FF2.0 betas and RCs though, so was wondering why they showed up in the IE7 pre-releases.
Posted by: Juha | October 20, 2006 3:02 PM
I support open standarts and use Firefox and Linux on my personal computers. But I don't think the average user will care so much about it, and as always, will stick with what is given as default. And IE seems really shiny.
Posted by: Emre Sokullu | October 20, 2006 6:15 PM
I liked that new Expose kind of feature. It's really usable, prevents getting lost inside your tab hell. A few months ago, I proposed similar features for Firefox 3.0 (or 4.0 whatever) on my blog, you may want to check it out: http://emresokullu.com/?p=15
One of them, Deep Tabs, was supposed to automatically regroup tabs in semantic order.. Tabs allow us to work in threads, their use is increasing day by day, so we need more innovation there.
Posted by: Emre Sokullu | October 20, 2006 6:22 PM
I don't like using this new version of IE because you can't view video in most cases, that I could view with 6...for example, yahoo news, CNN news...I think there are problems with it still...
Posted by: rachael | October 21, 2006 6:44 PM
The main thing I don't like IE is the refresh button has became too small. I often tries to find it from where it used to be, but it's gone (T_T..so sad)...
In terms of compliance with standards, I found it suffices but still has margins of improvement. Well, at least crossing browser scripting became less tedious, although the problem will still be there before IE6 extincts...
Posted by: Terry Xu | October 22, 2006 6:11 PM
All of these features have been available in FireFox, Safari, and Opera. IE needs to innovate and take the lead for once instead of sitting back and letting others innovate. Microsoft is playing the safe position by sitting back but they have lost and will continue to lose support if they don't step it up.
Posted by: George Morris | October 22, 2006 8:10 PM
What about a BookMark manager? Has managing a multitude of bookmarks from several computers and user accounts been made any easier?
Posted by: binar | October 31, 2006 10:09 AM
A step backwards.
IE6 used to let you drag your toolbars around and it would remember where they were. In IE7 they are returned to the default location every time. Firefox is now better. IE6 is better than IE7.
Don't upgrade.
Posted by: Joshua Prowse | October 31, 2006 5:41 PM
Hi Alex,
Nice review. Few questions though. How is IE7 compared to Firefox 2.0 or 1.5 in terms of security? Secondly, is IE7 more resource hungry than Firefox? Finally, like about:config feature in firefox, does IE7 has any inbuilt feature for optimizing performance?
thanks
krish
Posted by: Krish | November 1, 2006 8:29 PM
I've been using IE7 for a while now (started with the beta) and really wish I could get back to IE 6. IE 7 won't remember passwords no matter what I do (really annoying) and I am getting messages from a lot of our vendors saying IE 7 is incompatible with their systems and interfaces.
Posted by: Mark | November 2, 2006 7:25 AM
Someone decided to load it at the company I work for and now they cannot access our intranet site. Seems to be having an issue with the SSL cert being used. Also don't like that I cannot Alt/Tab to switch between open browsers.
Posted by: Darcy | November 3, 2006 11:55 AM
I installed IE7 yesterday and what I really dislike is the way Favorites are handled. With IE6, it would display your most recently used favorites first, then let you see them all. I can't figure out how to replicate that feature....even worse, the favorite list is alphabetical with thh folders first and I can't seem to rearrange the order in an ad hoc fashion the way I could with IE6.
Am I just missing something here or am I stuck with the stupid full list and "history" features? I like to delete my history daily for privacy reasons.
Posted by: Joan | November 5, 2006 2:30 PM
OK somehow I got "back" what I wanted. I got "Favorites" on the same bar as file, edit, etc. At this point I am not sure what bar that is --menu or command-- and I don;t care. That gives me the pulldown list that I can manipulate. I then deleted all the "links" and don't use the "star" favorites icon except to access history, etc.
Posted by: Joan | November 5, 2006 5:19 PM
What ever! The average user will always use IE.
Inovate or not. They are a lazy bunch to change not they will care.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
Posted by: Zoli | November 7, 2006 8:06 AM
I do not like the new tab button -- in the old ie under file new it generated a new window with your current web page. If you are moving between pages in the same directory this was a very good thing all you had to do was to type over the last part of the web address now you have to type in the whole thing. What a waste of time I am not getting any younger.
Also you use to be able to find a word on the page you were looking for I do not see anything like that in the new ie 7
Posted by: Ernest | November 8, 2006 2:02 PM
I just remembered ctrl F use to pull up find and it still works but just how are you suppose to remember what the short cuts are and now that the old ie is gone from my windows just how do I find out what other short cuts are missing from sight but still there.
Posted by: Ernest | November 8, 2006 2:07 PM
More junk from MS. ie6 needed better security plugs more than a face-over. When i want firefox, i use firefox. lousy layout. now even more web pages that don't load properly or not at all. stay with 6 for now.
Posted by: Grizzly | November 12, 2006 1:12 PM
I am not a techie, so I may not ask this question corretly. Our web site has several pages, for example our "downloads" page, that under IE7 go "blank" for 1 or two screens. Any clues that I can pass on to ur web master?
Thanks,
GJR
Posted by: George Ripol | November 13, 2006 6:54 AM
For those who wish they still had IE 6, the following is what I read before finding this review.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/updatemanagement/windowsupdate/ie7announcement.mspx
Excerpt:
"Internet Explorer 7 will replace Internet Explorer 6 on a user’s machine. However, users may roll back to Internet Explorer 6 by uninstalling Internet Explorer 7 via the Windows Control Panel Add/Remove Programs utility."
Posted by: Panda | November 13, 2006 9:51 AM
SCREW Microsoft!
SCREW IE7!
GET Firefox 2!
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
Posted by: Critik | November 15, 2006 6:02 AM
I'm all for better security but this inability to remember passwords (and expect us to pay for a bit of software to do it) is just the pits.
Very annoying and totally pointless.
I might look again if the fix this (tbh I could care less about the rest of the 'improvements')
So, it's either roll-back or move to another non-MS product.
Way to go guys. Not.
Posted by: gixxerman | November 15, 2006 4:32 PM
Microsoft needs no standards, because we are the standard. Now kneel down and kiss my ring, for I am the Pope of Computing. You will be assimilated!
Posted by: Bill Gates | November 21, 2006 3:29 AM
#29, screw Firefox. Get IE6.
Looks like you can't install IE7 without validation, and can't validate without activation. Shame since I was going to test it out in VirtualPC to see if I could make it look exactly like IE6, and I'm not wasting any valid activations in VPC.
Posted by: Red Frog | November 21, 2006 6:07 AM
For those of you who like me was looking for the MenuBar, right-click beside the tabs and choose the MebuBar option, now for some reason it shows up under the address bar, but atleast having the MenuBar will help most of us have an easier transition.
In my opinion the major flaw of IE7, was not to put the MenuBar by default, most users (even the most inexperienced ones) know that as a standard all functions and tools can be found in the MenuBar, by not making it visible by default it was a major break from standard accepted design practices. Wheter this works out or not is still to be seen. Either was a bold design decision here.
Posted by: Silver | November 21, 2006 9:01 PM
Your IE is very bad and I need to go back to my old home yahoo page.
Posted by: Don Pearson | November 22, 2006 9:49 AM
Hate the new tool bars. I can't move them around. I don't mine the icons and I could get used to the tabbing but I HATE HATE HATE having my Home icon stuck beyond the tabs. I would rather have the Home, print, page, Tools etc. aligned beside the Favorites and put the tabs out to the right. If someone would let me know how to pin/unpin the toolbars to move them around I might rethink my first perception which is find Mozilla quickly....
Posted by: Cameleora | November 22, 2006 10:02 AM
Why is Microsoft pushing this as a Critical update? From the reviews it doesn't seem like something critical, more of usability and general catch up on lost ground.
Any ideas?
Posted by: niru | November 23, 2006 5:20 PM
hello mates,
Great review by Alex.Racheal mentioned above that internet explorer 7.0 is does not open videos and news on stations like CNN and Yahoo. I would appreaciate it if some one could advice me on that before i upgrade from IE6 to IE7.
Posted by: Sam | November 24, 2006 1:32 AM
IE7 was released too guick. It leaves out methods of contact necessary to save to sites when using OE.
So, how did the EEs save their material when using OE? To My Documents, for example. Was the non-compatibility between Windows XP and Firefox with AMD computers solved? I am becoming shell shocked with MSN "improvements."
Then, some of the info is not fully displayed, leaving off the bottom parts.
Posted by: Roy Wolford | November 24, 2006 7:53 AM