Internet Explorer 7 has been released

[Larwee]

Microsoft has finally released Internet Explorer 7. There has been a long wait for this new browser. IE7 is seen by most people as an attempt by Microsoft to catch up with the new features added by Firefox and others.

It has been more than 5 years since their last browser release and Microsoft has lost a share of the market as a result.

Since there are a lot of details, I have added links to several articles which contain these details

BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft's browser gets upgraded

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/10/19/ie7_released/

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/interne....ap/index.html

ABC News: ABC News

[Linda Buquet]

Yea, I was going to post about this.

I have read HORROR stories from people including Danny Sullivan about installing this upgrade and I NEVER like to upgrade before a new release is stable.

BUTTTTTTTT I really would love someone who already has it to check my main site, blog and forum to be sure everything displays right.

Affiliates really need to test their sites - warnings below:

Warning, reports indicate Ie7 still has trouble displaying some types of CSS and there are other anomalies that could affect how visitors view and access your site. The last thing affiliates want is to find out mid November that people have not been able to view their site with IE7 all month.

I also read that links from Tribal Fusion ads do not work or display at all.
So if I were an affiliate I would REALLY TEST everything before everyone starts upgrading.

Beware, from what I have read so far you cannot keep IE6 after you download IE7 so it will be impossible to do cross browser testing. It will take time for all users to upgrade to Explorer 7 and many like me are hesitant to even download it all all until its stable, so you still need to be able to check your site in IE6. That's another reason I hesitate even downloading and testing right now.

Here is a site that shows you a screenshot of what your site will look like with IE7. I was worried because someone told me the beta of IE7 didn't display my site when they tested it.

My site looks OK now from what I can tell with this IE7 Preview Tool.

[Larwee]

It should be added that Internet Explorer 7 will be a part of Windows Vista, which will be the new Microsoft operating system. It is scheduled for release next month (November, 2006) for big businesses and January, 2007 for consumers.

Starting next year many new computers will come with Internet Explorer 7 already in place as part of the Wisdows Vista operating system. Some of the problems with IE7 might have been taken care of by then, but there could easily be some new ones by then as well.

Internet Explorer 7 is a free download. Beginning next month, Microsoft also will start delivering it to Windows XP users who have signed up to automatically receive security fixes. That is because Internet Explorer 7 makes what Microsoft says are major security improvements.

Microsoft predicts it will take months to gradually release IE7 automatically, but they didn't say how many months.

Usually security updates download with little or no user intervention, but with Internet Explorer 7 users will have an extra chance to decide not to upgrade. In addition, even people using automatic updates will have to agree to allow Microsoft to check to see if their copy of Windows is pirated before they can get Internet Explorer 7.

[Larwee]

A flaw in the Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 browser could make it possible for important data such as your internet banking details to fall into the wrong hands.

The vulnerability is due to an error in the handling of redirections for URLs. If exploited it could be possible to access documents served from another web site.

Attackers can steal user information that's being entered on a separate website, provided the user is visiting a site exploiting the flaw in another window.

One solution to the flaw is to disable active scripting support.

This link is to an article with more details Flaw found in new Microsoft browser - BizTech - Technology - theage.com.au

[freinhm]

Hi Linda,

I had IE7 for about 3 weeks now. And didn't notice any flaws untill
yesturday when I updated my brother's website. I could see the changes
but my brother wasn't able see the changes. The browser he uses is
Safari. Fortunately Microsoft had an update which corrected the problem.
After I downloaded and installed the update which took about 15-20 minutes. I put the webpage the page through the browser and uploaded it again. Everything is okay now. --freinhm

[Larwee]

In case any of you have been wanting to read a good review of Internet Explorer 7, I have found one. It is two pages and covers some important points. The pages aren't very long pages and could be covered in a normal one page review. There is also a slide show.

This link will take you to the review IE 7: Finally, Something to Write Home About

[apondonet]

Kudos to FireFox -- They didn't do a "Netscape" on us!

The Google | ForeFox Combo is forcing Microsoft to "compete" ....even while Microsoft still corals 80+ percent of the browser market.

Reliable sources indicate that the release of FireFox 2.0 is imminent, and they are already working on FireFox 3.

A Mozilla-Wiki for has been setup for Firefox/Feature Brainstorming.

Paul Thurrott who has been working with Windows for as long as I can remember, posted a very nice review here: http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/ie7.asp

P/S - Stuff for your USB Flash Drive

[Larwee]

Microsoft is big and they have had some problems with some of their products. Because so many people are Microsoft users, this makes them a natural target of hackers.

The media reports on a lot of the problems people experience and some people just don't think too highly of Microsoft products and often look for other sources if possible.

Some say the media is bias against Microsoft while others say they are just telling the public what is going on.

Here is a link to an article that takes a look at this and how the media covered Internet Explorer 7.

Actually it is some interesting reading and it isn't a long article. You might want to read it and express your comments in this thread.

Here is a link to the article » Media bias rears its ugly head on IE7 ‘flaw’ | George Ou | ZDNet.com

[Larwee]

Yahoo now has a display at the bottom of search results pages for Firefox users.

Yahoo is trying to get Firefox users to download Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 (IE 7) with Yahoo as the default search engine. This looks to be some type of a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo.

Yahoo is hoping this will be effective but the fact remains that many people who use Firefox do so because they don't want to use Internet Explorer.

[Teli]

The Yahoo! and IE7 combination is no real surprise to me because I'm sure IE had a black eye once Google started displaying the "download Firefox" link to IE users and we all know that Google started dominating over Yahoo! - Yahoo! wants to recover some of the search engine share and IE wants to recover the browser share it lost.

Personally, the only time I even think about opening up IE is when I need to test something or a site doesn't support Mozilla/Gecko for whatever reason.

And, for the not too faint of heart, you can have multiple installations of Internet Explorer. It's not recommended unless you do some heavy duty testing, but it is possible - just download the standalone IE packs from Evolt. The site also has previous releases of just about every other browser out there as well.

A note about the standalone IE installs is that they may be missing some functionality that comes along with IE. The main purpose is just for testing web pages and that's all they should be used for.

If all that seems like too much, then BrowserCam is a great alternative (one I use and can recommend).

~ Teli