Internet Explorer 7
Internet Explorer 5 was a nightmare. It caused untold problems for developers and users. When IE6 came out we all let out a great sigh of relief. In general I'm in no hurry for new browsers. Past experience causes me to cringe at the thought of buggy new browsers messing up all our existing websites. They tend to cause more problems than they fix. But even I have to admit that five years (IE6 was first released in March of 2001) without a major upgrade is way too long. Internet Explorer 7 is way overdue. Additionally, while I like the new version of IE, it really only catches up with what innovative browsers like Firefox have had for years. And the new version of Firefox is already raising the bar for the new Internet Explorer.
Nevertheless, its nice have these new features in Internet Explorer.
Tabbed Browsing - Tabbed browsing is one of those browser features that, once used, makes one wonder how we ever got along on the web without it. Firefox has had tabbed browsing for years and its about time Internet Explorer caught up. Rather then opening new browser windows for every open website, tabbed browsing allows each new site to be opened within the same browser under tabs. Toggling between tabs is much easier than navigating multiple open browser windows. Internet Explorer 7 has added a nice Quick Tabs feature, which displays, in thumbnail view, all open sites in one window. This makes toggling between open sites a breeze.
Page Zoom - Internet Explorer's page zoom is kind of cool. It allows you to view the page at various percentages of zoom. This is especially helpful for web developers that need to make sure thin rules or subtle changes to text are set precisely.
Print Preview - IE7's print preview is also a nice feature. Print preview shows how a web page will print before it is sent to the printer. There are options for scaling, shrink to fit, multiple page views, and headers and footers can be turned on or off. This feature will save lots of paper. I don't know how many times I've printed something from the web and had to re-print.
Add-Ons - Another way that Internet Explorer has caught up is implementing an add-on program. Firefox has offered extensions for some time. And because Firefox is open source their list of extensions is impressive. Internet Explorer now has add on support so developers can create their own add-ons. But since the browser is so new there aren't nearly as many add ons as are available in Firefox (over 1600). But this will certainly change since Internet Explorer enjoys such a large share of the browser market that developers will quickly build many IE add ons to extend the performance of the new browser.
