IE7 makes its Debut

The much-awaited Internet Explorer 7 has finally made its appearance - 18 months after it was first announced - and is now available for download from the Microsoft website. IE7 is already a part of Vista, the upcoming new Windows release.

Positives

There are some good things about IE7 which have been needed in IE6 for quite some time:

  • Tabbed windows. Finally. Firefox and Opera have had this for some time.
  • Support for RSS - again, supported in other browsers for a while.
  • Better security. ActiveX off by default.
  • Possible quick upgrades from IE6 through Automatic Updates, starting early November. Can be downloaded now, though.
  • Improved support for HTML and CSS over IE6. Numerous bugs have been fixed, and more features have been added.

Negatives

While there are a number of compelling reasons to upgrade, there also seems to be several reasons not to celebrate just yet.

  • It will be made available as a security update through the Windows Update tool in early November. I’m somewhat mixed about this…it doesn’t seem right to provide such an upgrade as a “security update”, which is usually reserved for serious bug fixes and the like.
  • Because of the changes made from IE6 to IE7, the new browser will only work on newer versions of Windows - versions of Windows before XP will not be able to upgrade. This will keep IE6 a relevant browser for years to come, as the older systems (e.g. Windows 98, 2000) are still very prevalent.
  • Apparently two security bugs have already been found in the browser. No surprise.
  • Still no complete standards support. Some CSS bugs in IE6 are still unfixed in IE7. Numerous current CSS features are still not supported in IE7, although other current browsers have had these for some time.
  • Numerous comments on the web from people who dislike the new interface. The way tabbed windows were introduced changed the layout around some, and it is apparently not easy to control based on preferences.

Personal Positives/Negatives

For me, the most positive part about IE7 is the better standards support. Getting websites to appear and work correctly is easy in other (more) modern browsers, but can be difficult in IE6. This situation should be somewhat improved now with IE7. Getting web sites to appear consistently across browsers will be a little easier.

The most negative aspect is probably going to be the relatively slow upake of the new browser what with all the older systems not capable of installing the new version. This will remain so for some years. The bottom line is that it will still be necessary to support IE 6 for some time.

Multiple IE’s

This issue is more for developers than users. It is not (officially) possible to have different version of IE installed at the same time. This is important if you need to test websites in IE5, IE6, and IE7. There are essentially 4 ways to deal with this:

  • Use hacked versions of IE which are modified so they may be installed and run side by side, on the same Windows computer.
  • Use another computer, with a different version of IE installed.
  • Dual-boot a computer with different versions of Windows, and each with a different version of IE.
  • Use a virtual computer solution; like the dual-boot option, allows multiple operating systems, each with a different version of IE.

#1 does work, but some features are broken in the process. Most noticeably, conditional comments no longer work correctly.

#2 requires multiple computers, which may not be possible for some people. Although this way, if you had a Mac computer available, you could also test in Mac-based browsers.

#3 and #4 are similar; they differ in execution. Dual-booting means restarting the computer, then choosing from a menu which operating system to run. Only one OS can be used at a time. Virtualization allows to use one OS as a host, running one or more guest OSes within. So can essentially have multiple versions of IE open, almost side by side.

I think #4 is the most flexible; it allows multiple OSes to run simultaneously, so there is no restarting or going from one computer to another. It does require better hardware and extra software, but it does work. There are of course advantages to dual-booting versus virtualization, but that’s another story. I don’t think option #1 is a good one, since it breaks conditional comments, which can be crucial to get websites to work correctly in different versions of IE.

Conclusion

There seems to be some cynicism around the web that this is an upgrade we should have had years ago, considering Microsoft’s resources, and especially when compared to free browsers such as Opera and Firefox. Said cynics also believe that this update doesn’t go far enough in “catching up” with other modern browsers. I agree with the sentiment; an improved IE6.5 could have made web development easier a couple years ago. Although the IE team has declared that they are already working on the next version of the browser…I hope it doesn’t take 5 years! Yearly updates could be a good thing to aim for, insofar as gradually adding on more standards support and additional features. It might take a while, but keep at it!

Bottom Line

I personally use Firefox (which, incidentally, has recently had a major release) for everyday needs, so I’m unlikely to be going back to IE except for testing websites. But I’ll be watching the news about the browser, and when I feel the time is right, I’ll download the update and start testing with it.

Additional Reading

The following links contain (much) more information than this post, going into detail I couldn’t hope to cover. This includes exactly what bugs were fixed, features added, and so on.

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