Internet Explorer 7 - Beta Preview

Microsoft just released a Beta Preview of Internet Explorer 7. I'm not a fan of IE having long ago switched to Firefox with it's tabbed browsing features and lately have begun to use Flock when writing posts for my blogs.

Nevertheless, I was curious enough about IE7 that I downloaded the beta version and took it for a test run. If you are interested in checking it out you can get it here. When you go thru the process of downloading the software you will encounter Microsoft's usual user agreement language and validation processes that will result in their eventual "ownership of your soul", but what the heck I was feeling wreckless.

This new version of IE offers a spruced up cleaner and smoother looking interface, but aside from it's shiny exterior and a nifty features such as the RSS feature, I could not find much else to be excited about. It seems to me that IE and Firefox are setting themselves into a pattern whereby they copy one another, take for instance the tabbed browsing, extensions and plugins, but are neither seem to be adding any significant technical features that take into consideration social networks and event driven tasks. In fact the only browser currently focusing on the aforementioned is the "social browser" Flock.

But, before I move onto Flock, I should note that the Beta Version of IE7, which I should have expect from MS, created problems when launching MSWord and a number of errors when the install tried to validate my copy of Windows.

The browser I choose when interacting on the net and with my blogs is Flock. I find it very useful when creating content for my blogs because the blog editor, shelf and topbar tools are very efficient. I'm looking forward to an updated version beyond their current offering of Developer Version 0.4.10. Reports are surfacing here and there that a new version is expected sometime the middle of is month.

As of now, I will continue to utilize Firefox mostly because all my extension and plugins are already there and the browser has worked well for me. After previewing the beta version of IE7, I don't see myself being enticed to change browsers, although my feeling is that may eventually change when Flock releases an updated version later this month.

Overall, my feeling is that the browser of the future is more likely to be Flock as opposed to IE7 or Firefox.

technorati tags: IE7, Internet, Browsers, Microsoft