A Look at PC Magazine's Review of Windows Internet Explorer 7

PC Magazine recently took a look at Windows Internet Explorer 7, which despite upgrading only the version of IE on Windows XP SP2 gets high marks for the biggest improvements since "the patchwork quilt IE6 has become." However, while the ZiffDavis publication does herald IE7 as a must-have upgrade, they do still give the nod to Firefox (for comparative purposes, refer to my Firefox 2 review for a look at Mozilla's latest upgrade).

According to PC Magazine, one of the many highlights of IE7, and the most important one, is that "First and foremost, the browser has [finally] caught up, in a general sense, to the other two leaders as a modern browser." That's right - for the first time in years, Softies who continue to stand by IE will not have to give up everything - or even plop in an alternative shell for IE such as Maxthon - to get a modern browsing experience. That mostly means that "it natively supports ease-of-use features like tabbed browsing, which lets you have multiple Web pages open in one window. You can also save tabs to open them all simultaneously at browser startup or in groupings that open at once. Other niceties include built-in hooks that allow you to access other Microsoft Web services you've subscribed to like Live Messenger. Being modern also means customizable and modular. You'll find quite a few add-ons, too."

PC Magazine also took note of the improved security in IE7. And "to be sure, IE7 is much better about helping us with this than its predecessor. By default the application is far more secure and locked-down than IE6. It offers improvements in two general areas: protecting you from downloading malware, and preventing you from giving out personal data.

"For instance, IE7 pops up an automatic warning in an information bar or popup window when it thinks something you're doing is likely to put you at risk-enabling an uncertified ActiveX control, attempting to download something from a suspicious site, filling out a form in the clear, and the like. Many reviewers of the browser, myself included, found the feature intrusive, but no browser can be all things to all people. Microsoft decided to err on the side of caution." You can also choose whether to opt in (or out) where ActiveX controls are concerned, and other security improvements include a phishing filter (which warns you if you may be submitting private information such as bank account and social security numbers), and the ability to add parental controls and a special protected operating mode for the browser simply by upgrading to Windows Vista, since the browser upgrade "has arrived largely in tandem with... [the new operating system such that] this is one area where security features have been designed to take advantage of the tighter integration of code between the two. You will therefore see a few features either built in to the Vista version of IE7 or built to work specifically in conjunction with it."

Of course, there are (and for quite some time to come will continue to be) issues with Microsoft's past security in IE and Windows that must be taken into account, since if you "utter 'security' and "Microsoft' in the same breath, and you're certain raise the ire of IT types," as the review clearly notes. But PC Magazine did say that you can "rest assured... that a small army of Microsoft professionals will continue to fortify the browser with fixes, patches, and advice to cover as many users as possible as much as possible." Even still, you can probably expect that the usual security "problems will continue to crop up after users discover new vulnerabilities (and they will)."

Aside from the myriad of security improvements, PC Magazine also took a quick look at the printing improvements in IE7. These improvements are constructed in such a way that "the browser will force a given page, whether portrait or landscape, to fit into a printed page automatically. That alone should cut down on a lot of cut-off pages filling the recycle bin. You can also zoom in on pages merely by clicking a little magnifying glass icon in the lower right-hand corner of the screen." Web designers will notice a few extra changes under the hood, such as "improved support for CSS (cascading style sheets), a fundamental underpinning of Web design... and improved integration and support for AJAX (Asynchronoous JavaScript and XML) allows richer, speedier, more interactive Web pages." News buffs will appreciate the built-in RSS Feed reader, which "allows people to instantly subscribe to content from Web sites they frequent and have it delivered [automatically]", and for those already hooked on RSS, this "means you don't need to download another app."

The full original review, in its entirety, can be found at the following URL:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2041270,00.asp