Though Internet Explorer 7 is still in the prerelease phase but it is now publicly available for testing with the Beta 2 Preview. Let's have a quick tour of the new features in IE 7:

New Interface:

IE 7 introduces a clean, sleek and streamline interface. Say goodbye to bulky toolbars and heavy menus. The streamlined toolbar makes it easier to add websites to your favorites, search the web, clear your history, and access other tasks and tools you use most. You can perform the entire tasks now with the help of new simply to use toolbar. Finally all the old icons have been replaced with the new and smart ones. Even the first glimpse of IE 7 reminds you the Microsoft's traditional rich and eye catching interfaces.

The cleaner look of the IE 7 puts the tools you need right on your fingertips. The new and optimized design, including consolidated menu items, smaller icons, and an overall decrease in toolbar height, optimizes the space on your screen so you see more of the websites you are visiting. The new Favorites Center makes it even easier to manage your favorite websites, your browsing history, and your RSS feeds with just a few clicks. RSS feeds are the newest and most awaited feature of the IE 7. All the contenders of the IE like Firefox and Opera already provide this facility.

Tabbed Browsing:

In modern browsers tabbed browsing is the newest and the most convenient way to switch between websites. Before the inception of this idea, if you wanted to browse several websites, you needed to open several new windows. But thanks to this tabbed browsing now you can open several tabs in the same window. So next time if you're searching the web, comparing prices, or just staying on top of your favorite topics, let the IE 7 open many different websites at one time and all within one organized window for you.

Management of these tabs is also very easy. To view other sites at the same time, just click the new tab button in the toolbar and then type the address of the site you want to visit in the address bar. Your previous page stays open in the first tab. Closing tabs is as easy as opening them. Just click the close button that appears on the right side of the selected tab and you are through. When you have several tabs open, use quick tabs to find the site you want to view or to close sites you're no longer interested in viewing.

Searching:

Thanks to the intelligent thinking of Microsoft, now IE 7 brings many favorite web search providers to you. Yes, other than MSN as well. With the integrated search box, you can search the web at any time without having to open a search provider page like www.google.com. You can display search results in a separate tab, and then open the results in other tabs to quickly compare sites and find the information you want. You can even customize your search by setting your favorite search provider as the default.

Just type your search terms in search box at any time and press Alt-Enter, IE 7 displays your results in a new tab so you don't lose the site you're currently viewing. You can also choose which search provider you want to use as your default. You can also add new search providers by selecting Get Search Provider from the dropdown list.

RSS Feeds:

IE 7 brings the information you care most right at your desktop. Thanks to the RSS feeds. Now don't waste your time in checking many different sites and blogs for updates. Just select the sites or topics you care about and IE 7 delivers all the new headlines and updates to your Favorites Center. RSS feed was one of the technologies which IE always lacked. Finally IE 7 is shipped with the default support of RSS feeds.

If the RSS Feed icon on Internet Explorer 7 is illuminated, it means the site offers a feed. You can subscribe by clicking the Add/Subscribe button . Come back to the page later by opening your Favorites Center. Now you can read news when it arrives and click headline links to get the complete webpage.

Security:

Security is the area where Microsoft is always cursed and abused. But we hope that this time the security concerns would have been addressed properly by IE 7. As claimed by Microsoft, IE 7 helps keep information safe by alerting potential Phishing sites. Phishing sites are the sites that look legitimate but actually are designed to capture your personal information. It's also easier to see which sites provide secure data exchange, so you can shop and bank online with confidence.

IE 7 tells you instantly whether the site you're visiting has a valid secure sockets layer
( SSL) certificate or if there are irregularities in the certificate information. Phishing Filter warns you of suspicious sites that might attempt to collect your personal information. And while you browse the web, IE 7 automatically monitors your computer to protect you from unwanted and malicious programs that can be installed on your system as a result of surfing the web.

Summarizing the whole discussion, it can be concluded that IE 7's futuristic appearance and promising vision looks lot better than the preceding versions. Let's see if Microsoft also honors or not all the commitments which it is making with the launch of IE 7.

The IE 7 can be downloaded from
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/default.mspx


The writer is a pedagogue, researcher, IT professional, IT evangelist and bla bla bla or computer scientist in short. He holds M.S. degree from Sweden. He has worked on variety of softwares at assorted positions ranging from project manager to software engineer. He has taught at various universities of Pakistan as well. Right now he is working at CIIT, Islamabad.

He can be reached at atif_mashkoor@comsats.edu.pk.