Internet Explorer 7

IE7 is finally upon us. It has taken Microsoft more than 5 years to get to this point. A lot has changed since then. In the last 5 years Mozilla"s Firefox has stolen a march, both in being technology compliant and browsing safety, and has eaten into IE"s market share. In 2002, IE had a 96% market share. In 2006, it has fallen to 85% and will continue to fall further as Firefox finds more adapters.

To add to Microsoft"s woes, they have faced a lot of flak for the various security bugs that keep popping up every second day. Keeping this in mind, Microsoft has overhauled IE7 significantly. The browser has had a significant security overhaul and is more standards compliant. It has received a re-designed UI and added tabbed browsing. It has even introduced new features like anti-phishing technology (which for a change has been copied by other browsers like Mozilla), RSS support and a new approach to the favourites /bookmarks folder. We ran the browser through its paces to see how significant this update really is.

Installation

The installation of the browser remains the same as earlier versions. You can either get it from Windows Update in a few days or if you are eager to try it out get it from here. The installation procedure is relatively simple. It first verifies if your Windows XP is authentic and will only proceed to install the browser if your Windows is a legal copy. Do remember you need to have Service Pack 2 installed or the browser will not install. If both the above conditions are satisfied, the setup will then proceed to ask you if you wish to check for malware through Windows Defender beta 2.

Since I was getting a little impatient at this point (I know I have a clean PC!), I proceeded with the next step. An actual install. Once the install was done, it asked for the traditional reboot which left me a little surprised. Other browsers don"t ask you for a reboot when you install them, so why does IE need a restart. Even the recent beta copies of Office 2007 have not needed a reboot and work fine out of the box after install. For this I poked around a few forums and sites and finally came upon the answer. IE7 has added a new RSS feed engine which allows IE to render existing RSS feeds as a readable web page. Hence the reboot is needed and well essential for IE to work properly.

First Impressions

After the reboot was over, I fired up IE and was greeted by a typical options screen which allows you to turn on the anti-phishing filter and set up various options such as default language etc. Once you are done with the options, the first thing that strikes you is the re-designed interface. You will either love it or hate it. I had mixed feelings on the issue - finding it quite functional but a little too sparse for my liking. The back and forward buttons have been kept in place in the corner on the left side, but in a break from the traditional design, the standard drop-down menus are by default hidden and become visible only if you use a shortcut like ALT-F or the mouse. The address bar has been moved right on top which is a good thing as this will prevent spyware toolbar"s from hijacking it. In a bad move though, the refresh button has moved next to the address bar and is not easily visible. Its odd position will make people search for it initially.

Internet Search & Favourites

The right side of the screen gets the new built-in Internet search box which is a straight lift from other browsers such as Opera and Firefox. By default it uses Windows live search which is right now still a WIP. The box does allow you to set other search engines such as Google.com as default.

The favourites sidebar is now been rechristened the “favourites centre” and is accessible via the standard star icon which now finds its presence along the tab status bar. There is also an “add to favourites” icon given for quick bookmarking of your websites. The favourite"s centre handles more than just your bookmarks now - both RSS Feeds and surf history are a part of it. This is a great move as everything is present in one place and makes life easier for managing bookmarks and RSS feeds.

Tabbed Browsing & Quick Tabs

IE7 finally adds tabbed browsing which was highly overdue. It"s been present in Firefox and Opera since ages and its good to see its presence in IE. In an amusing but logical move, Microsoft has cleverly used the same shortcut CTRL-T which is used in Firefox. Like other browsers, the tabbed browsing allows you to view, open and close multiple sites and pages within a single window. The tabs can be dragged around and re-ordered as per your requirement.

An interesting feature is the quick-tab view preview which is accessible from through the short-cut key Ctrl-Q or near the start of the tabs. It shows you thumbnails of all tabs instantly, which makes finding the tabs an easy visual affair. This is similar to Apple"s Expose which allows you to preview all open windows in the same and switch to any by just clicking on it.

RSS, Cleartype and Printing support

The second part this section brings us to the RSS feed reader/client. Microsoft has really done wonders here. Built from scratch, it treats RSS links as a fully formatted, AJAX-ish blog site. When the RSS button is pressed it checks the website you have visited, for RSS feeds and if it finds one it will open the feed as a webpage with all the contained headlines and updates. The blog way of displaying the RSS feed is vastly different from Mozilla and Opera"s RSS feed readers and is a far better experience, bar none. The RSS button of course allows you to subscribe to a feed.

For checking the browser"s website compatibility I did the most practical test. I visited every site I normally visit (I visit a LOT) and checked it out on how it has rendered the page. By and large, there were no problems though some sites did display odd behavior in the way of garbled text. In some of the early previews of IE7, Tech2.com and the older Tech Blog looked a little messed up, but with the final version, the sites look perfect.

IE7 also finally gets its own ClearType Sub-pixel Anti-Aliasing technology. Though Cleartype has been around a while now in Windows itself, this is the first time it is system independent. ClearType really improves the viewing experience as the text is smoother, sharper and generally cleaner looking. This is a great move, as it makes webpage surfing on an LCD a pleasurable experience.

One of the important things Microsoft has been promoting in IE7 is enhanced printing support. One of the biggest changes has been the introduction of automatic page resizing while printing. If a document is overflowing its boundaries, the browser will automatically resize and shrink it to fit the paper. This is a bit annoying as a few printouts I took out had their text compressed so much that they were unreadable, however most people will find it a time-saver as you no longer need to mess around with print settings for most web pages.

Security and Privacy

I chose to keep this section towards the end due to the rather large number of changes that have been made in IE7. The biggest change is that IE7 is now independent from Windows Explorer. In earlier versions, typing a drive name would change the web browser to a Windows Explorer and you could browse your HDD. Similarly an HTTP address typed in an Explorer window would switch it to IE. This no longer works. If you try and type in “C:” into an IE7 window, it starts a new Windows Explorer instance with that location, instead of converting the IE window into Explorer.

The protection just does not end there. In Windows Vista, IE7 will run in a “protected mode”, which gets its own, restricted memory space. Under this mode, the browser runs on an account with minimal permissions and the only place it can read or write files to is the temporary folder. This is a good pre-emptive move as it will prevent a lot of Trojan and Virii from hijacking your system.

The previously mentioned anti-phishing technology has also been given a lot of focus. Phishing sites are those that pretend to be legitimate sites such as your bank website and gather your personal data that you may enter into the site. A lot of people have fallen prey to this over the years. When you visit any site, IE7 automatically checks the site for the validity and if found to be fake, it will show you a big red tab, letting you close the website. I visited a few phishing sites and it was a hit and miss event. It caught some sites and failed on others. In its defense, this is still a new technology and will take time to evolve. Till then, continue to pay attention to the padlock icon next to the address bar.

The question…

In the end, IE7 is a mixed bag. It improves on IE6 by a fair margin, in terms of new security measures like anti-phishing and the protected mode execution. ClearType font rendering does make make web browsing more pleasing. Where the browser does fail to impress is the UI overhaul and the fact that it is still based significantly on IE 6 code. That means most vulnerabilities might find its way to IE7 too. In fact, an IE7 vulnerability has already been discovered within one day of its final release.

The question finally arises. Should you upgrade? Yes, despite its subtle flaws, IE7 with it tightened security offers enough compelling reason to upgrade as IE remains the default web browser for most surfers. It"s not the most secure browser out there, but it is more secure than IE6, so upgrade away.

Jayesh Mansukhani