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.
If you think IE7 is starting to make Firefox look weak, think again. On or around October 24th, Firefox 2.0 will be released. This new version packs just as much of a punch as IE7, and then some. Most notably, Firefox 2.0 will feature live spell checking, a phishing filter, and an updated interface. Haters of interface changes will be happy to hear that Firefox 2.0’s new interface is mainly functionality and visual enhancements. Nothing moved too far from its original position, unlike IE7.
I don’t know about you, but it’s a great time to be an internet user. Two new browsers, and loads of features. What more could a geek want? Vista? Leopard? Ah, yet another battle which is just starting to warm up. Which reminds me, Safari users won’t be out in the cold too long. A new version will be shipping with Leopard. Now go download those new browsers, it’s time for some surfing.
4 Comments
Of course, with IE6 things could only get substantially better.
I don’t care for how Mozilla keeps changing the options menu dramatically. It took me ages to find the proxy settings since my office makes uses of it. I find it rather irritating and annoying on their part.
I have to admit though, Opera is still a pretty sleek browser and damn fast on my mobile phone. As for IE7, it is okay but still a garbage Microsoft product. Like everything else they do, they are joining in too late. They joined too late with the internet initially, and took way too long to make a new browser. Microsoft just doesn’t get the internet.
From a different perspective, the next few weeks will be hectic for some web developers like myself, and it’s hard to stay excited knowing how many things will be broken by IE7 (and how annoying it is that FF 2.0 still won’t pass ACID2). I’m on the team of a large website on-the-job, and when you’re already testing your work in Safari 2, Camino, FF 1.07, FF 1.5, IE 6, and Opera 9, adding two more major browsers just means more work.
The broken auto-update system in FF 1.0x has led to a large number of users showing up in our web analytics/stats still using FF 1.07, who have no idea that 1.5 came out, much less 2.0.
adam: when i was a web developer for my university, nutscrape 4 was the de facto browser. so we had to ensure it worked for it, not ie/6 or even phoenix/firebird/firefox. though my personal belief was get to be perfect for FF, then tweak it for nutscrape. eventually i convinced the department to stop supporting NS4. This coming from a 20 year old at the time telling full time people what to do. pretty damn cool coming from a part-time employee/full time students perspective.
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