I realized that despite all my poo-pooing IE 7, I hadn't actually used it. So last week I loaded up the IE 7 Beta 2 on my laptop, and I have to say that I do like it quite a bit. I don't think it's a Firefox killer, but it does bring IE 7 back on to the playing field after years of being pretty outdated. Once it ships with the OS, it could very well be enough to keep some people from looking elsewhere.
One feature in particular that I like is the button that lets you view all of the open pages as thumbnails to quickly find the page that you want. It takes a bit too long to finish rendering when you click on it, but otherwise that's a pretty nifty feature that I'm sure will soon be emulated. Maybe Opera already has it; I don't use Opera. No particular reason, I just never got in to it. One other thing I miss about the old IE is that IE 6 would load almost instantly, not so with 7. But it's no worse than Firefox (which I've always thought is slow to start).
I think I still agree with Dvorak that IE 7 might be a bit of a drain on Microsoft's resources that could better be put to use elsewhere. After all, it's not like they're making money on IE or likely ever will make money on it. But I suppose as long as they are determined to keep it up, IE 7 is a promising new horizon on a browser that we'd all but written off forever.
Yes, I have IE 7 BETA 2. Its a big change from IE 6 and for the better. Its more compact and easier to use.
"One feature in particular that I like is the button that lets you view all of the open pages as thumbnails to quickly find the page that you want. It takes a bit too long to finish rendering when you click on it, but otherwise that's a pretty nifty feature that I'm sure will soon be emulated. Maybe Opera already has it; I don't use Opera. No particular reason, I just never got in to it."
Oh yes, my friend. Opera has indeed had this feature since version 9 =) You simply hover the cursor over your tab and the thumbnail is almost immediately displayed. You may also see the thumbnails of a list of tabs when you use a key macro to switch tabs.
I installed 7.0 Beta 1 and I liked it. After I was used to the tabs, Beta 2 was released. Beta 2 would only half install because of conflicts with Beta 1. The installation ruined Beta 1 and instructions on the net for how to fix the problem didn't work. Then I emailed my issues to Microsoft through a web site and never got a response. Screw Microsoft and their "improved" technologies. If I didn't have to use IE for work, then I wouldn't use it at all. I'm back at IE version 6 and it sucks. M$ sure likes spending money, but they never get anything right! Quantitiy will NEVER replace quality.
I'm deeply disappointed that IE 7 is/will be the first experience of tabs for many people. That's just terribly, terribly sad. The technology is a decade old, now. What in the Hell does it take to switch people to a modern browser?