Internet Explorer Finally Catches Up?

With the recent update to IE7 Microsoft finally improved Internet Explorer in ways that are user oriented. They have a strong desire to inform the consumer of this as evidenced by the graphic (below) on their IE7 homepage. In inclusion of tabs, more flexible menu bars, RSS feeds, “zoom”, and better security. “Quick Tabs” is fun and visually oriented thumbnail option to view all your open tabs (websites) at a glance. This is similar to the PowerPoint option for viewing all your slides on a single page. A new 1-click browser cleanup allows users to clear their browser history in order to hide their sordid browsing tracks. The interface is more slick and stylish to boot. What I do not see thus far is a skinable interface.

With limited exposure to IE7 I need to devote more time to browsing with this new version before I solidify my opinion. At first blush this looks like a strong response to Mozilla and Opera. I switched to Mozilla’s FireFox (now FireFox2) years ago because they offered a superior product with many of the features that Microsoft is finally producing. While Microsoft was extremely slow to join the browser savvy world of knowledgeable users it may finally have done so with IE7. Mozilla and Opera offer open source as a major advantage but IE7 may at least put the Microsoft browser in the running. Time will tell.