IE7: IE Still Sucks, But It Could Be Worse

Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 1011 hrs

I admit it. I was championing Internet Explorer 7 as Microsoft's big return to the browser market. After all, IE has been the weak link in the "Big 5" (the Big 5 being IE, FF, SF, OP, and NN. If you don't know what those mean, you must not be a web designer), so how could they not improve their browser?

Well, here it is; not from the horse's mouth, but a little bird that talked to the horse.

I have downloaded and installed the IE7 beta. The good news so far is that things are working much, much better. Some of the problems that IE6 was having are gone and a bunch of them still exist, but as Eric Meyer points out, no browser is perfect.

The new UI is... Interesting, to say the least. It features tabbed browsing (TABBED BROWSING!) and the toolbars are hidden until you need them (try pressing the "alt" button. You can also turn the menu on permanently by right-clicking and selecting "Classic Menu"). It's all a little weird, but definitely very refreshing. In fact, I feel closer to the new IE already. Perhaps it's not so bad after all...