Now that I finally got Internet Explorer 7 to install, I’m ready to give you my take on the browser. Since I haven’t had enough time to fully sit down with the new rendering engine, I won’t be commenting on that. My impressions will only be coming from the interface, features, and how it affects my website.
Let me start off by saying Internet Explorer 7 renders my website flawlessly. In my earlier readings on the browser, I was worried this wasn’t going to be the case. My site uses a whole slew of CSS hacks to conquer IE6 problems such as no support for transparent PNGs, and I thought IE7 was either going to completely ignore those hacks, or try to use them incorrectly, making problems even worse. Now understand I’m quite lucky, because websites such as Digg and even Microsoft’s own MSNBC are broken in IE7. Once again, I won’t know why this is the case until I do more reading on IE7′s rendering engine, which is subject to change. So, by the time Microsoft finalizes IE7, my site might end up looking like some crazy abstract art.
Regarding the interface of IE7, I’m not impressed. If Microsoft thinks the end user isn’t going to be confused, they’re wrong. Not only has Microsoft moved every element of IE6 to a different place, they’ve added a whole bunch of new clutter to IE7′s interface. This may be fine for geeks who will adapt in the first few minutes of use, but for people like my mom, who are proficient in computers when they know the interface, IE7 is going to be cumbersome to learn.
Just look at the horrible interface. Anyone who says this interface doesn’t make them want to kill themselves is lying. Having the “classic menu” (a.k.a. File, Edit, View, etc.) in the middle, when its traditionally been on the top of window is going to take some getting used to. On top of that, it feels very cluttered. Just look at the placement of the tabs. It feels like an afterthought of Microsoft, and not something that was intended to be there from the beginning (which is was). Maybe the interface just looks so terrible because it’s a Vista-style interface on XP, but of this is a preview of what Vista’s going to be looking like, I’m not looking forward to it. A little bit of transparency isn’t going to fix this horrible interface.
Regarding the features, I think Microsoft is making an honest attempt at outdoing Internet Explorer 6 (and Firefox). New features are definitely plentiful, and the features added do enhance the web browsing experience. However, some of the features added aren’t implemented the best way. We’ll get into that as I run down each of the major features.
The biggest and most noticeable feature added to IE7 is tabs. It’s the most noticeable, since Microsoft is basically forcing it down users throats. Whether you have more than one tab open or not, the tab bar is always visible. Other browsers such as Firefox and Safari hide the tab bar by default, only showing it when more than one tab is open. Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and there are ways to turn this appearance off, but for the most part it’s what users are going to notice first.
Tabs work very well, and behave in a similar fashion to both Firefox and Safari. I didn’t have any difficulty using the tabs, as they follow all the shortcuts already predefined by existing browsers. If you’ve used another tab-based browser, you’ll feel right at home with IE’s tab. There’s not too much bad to say about the tabs, other then a couple of minor quirks. The new tab button, which is constantly on the end of your list of tabs, is very annoying. Every time I go to use the tab bar I have this instinct to press it. I don’t know why, I just do. Another quirk is the tab overflow. I don’t think any browser has completely found the perfect solution on how to handle more tabs than can be displayed, so this isn’t necessarily IE’s fault. If it was me, I would prefer to have a scroll-based tab overflow method, where pressing a < or > button would scroll the tabs left or right. Other than that, tabs are solid in IE.
The other major feature new to IE7 is RSS feeds. Other browsers have had this functionality for at least a year, so IE is slow on the RSS bandwagon. IE7′s RSS implementation is very close to Safari, where RSS feeds are stylized in the main browser window. I prefer this method over Firefox’s, where RSS feeds act like a bookmark folder, with each entry being a bookmark. Internet Explorer is definitely heading in the right direction with RSS. Adapting Firefox’s feed icon, while small, is a huge plus for users. The only thing I have to comment on regarding RSS, is IE fails to recognize my website’s feed. I’m writing this off as a bug, and hopefully whatever is causing IE to fail to recognize it will be fixed in a later release.
Well, now that I’ve covered the two major new features, it’s time to get into the small little enhancements. Since there are so many small little enhancements, I’m going to be breaking down each feature as a bullet point, with a small explanation after it. I don’t feel like writing a whole paragraph for each one, and I’m sure you don’t feel like reading a whole paragraph.
- Tab Overview Button: I find it pointless. Rendering of the previews suck.
- Multiple Home Pages: Finally! Doesn’t need to be so obvious to the users.
- Phising Filter: Should help stupid users. I don’t know how accurate it is, so I wouldn’t rely on it. I personally don’t want to be sending my web usage to Microsoft, so I’m glad they include the option to turn it off.
- Favorites Center: Very similar to Safari. I personally won’t use it, but I can see it usefulness to some.
- ActiveX Off By Default: Smart move.
- Page Zoom: May be helpful for some users. Breaks my website design when zooming back to 100%.
- Multiple Search Engines: Another finally! I like how it goes back to your default search engine after changing it.
So there you have it. I probably missed some features, but I think I covered the big ones.
Even though this is a beta version, I don’t expect much to change with the final release. Sure, bugs are going to fixed, and maybe the interface will change, but when it comes to the core features nothing new will be making any appearances. Basically, I feel that Microsoft is playing catchup with Internet Explorer. I just don’t see any features in IE7 that aren’t in other browsers.
With that in mind, this new version will be good for the ignorant computer user, who doesn’t realize they have browser options. For anyone who’s heard of Firefox or Opera, IE7 just isn’t for them. There’s just no reason to use IE7; all the features in IE7 can be found in other browsers.
8 Comments
Well, quite through Ron. But looking at the screen shot, it doesn’t look too bad. I know what every button does. But I would agree with the clutterness. And with the Menu bar shifting to the middle. There was a digg article today done by the Firefox team who have done the same thing. Might want to check that one out.
Nice review, more thorough than mine
. Anyways, I submitted the Microsoft homepage to their phishing filter. That be funny if a lot do it and their website is declared a known phishing site 
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I also heard after people that use WGA and fail, there is a way to disable the plugin, apparently left for IT managers to use. My supervisor told me about it, but he doesn’t remember where the option is.
A nice review. I just installed IE7 on my Windows laptop and it is nice. I do not experience the zoom issue you said with your site, so I do not think it is a bug with IE. It might be a video driver issue or something else. Also, it is quite hard to make out the text in each of the text boxes (Email, Website URI, etc).
Nice review though.
Wayland, the error appears on the bottom of my site on the main page where the “Previous Entries” area is. If you zoom in then go back to 100% there is additional spacing.
As usual, the “geniuses” in the ivory tower at Microsoft have taken a fine interface in IE6 and screwed it up royally in IE7.
This trend goes all the way back to Win 3.0 … every new release has new, smaller and smaller and less meaningful or identifiable icons placed in a new location, etc., etc.
It’s now wonder so many people loathe and despise Microsoft.
I have to disagree that IE7 is bad. I have been using it since they first released it and I LOVE it.
it was a little cumbersome at first, but hey innovation requirea a little flexibility from end users. I’m glad they completely changed the interface. I tried to use IE6 the other day and could not stand the absence of the rss reader, the tabs and the search box (google is my default)
In a perfect world everyone would have Macs and firefox, but that’s just never going to happen in the business world in this decade.
IE7 totally rocks! compared to IE6
I have created this website for which is currently in “beta testing” I am not a website expert (just started messing with dreamweaver) and that is how it turned out (with the occasional help from friends) my big problem is when the website is opened with internet explorer it ‘s all well, but when it is opened with Firefox it changes (Margens, photos disapear, fonts change, it looks “unprofessional) is there a fast and simple solution to this that a non expert can fix?? Thanks
I actually like IE7 i think the layout and colour scheme is nice. I downloaded it but had to go back to IE7 because 4 sum dum reason it does seem to work with adobe flash player and i could watch videos on it and since im a big utube fan this annoyed me majorly. I think it was the “NEW” security system that made it impossible to download anything as they claim it will put ur comp. at risk. Also the phistey checking thinging just slows down the process and there is a pop up on evry page i went on asking to run active x control. i was annoyedso i went back to IE6. howver f any1 knows hw to fix these problems plz leave a comment and ill check cus i like the layout:)
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[...] Let’s get ready to rumble! This past week Microsoft released the final version of Internet Explorer 7. I’ve been doing some playing around with it, and my initial impressions still apply. While it’s still not the greatest browser in the world, the latest version does carry some substantial improvements. The new version should do wonders for the average PC user, provided they can learn the new interface. [...]
[...] I have with IE7 is twofold. First: the development team, in an effort to achieve innovation, has eliminated UI browser paradigms to which users are accustomed. The top menus are gone, their contents buried behind crytpic icons. [...]