Microsoft has launched beta versions of an updated Internet Explorer version 7. When Mozilla unleashed their flagship web browser, Firefox, computer users rejoiced. There was finally a web browser to rival Microsoft's omnipresent browser, Internet Explorer. For years IE was considered the only usable browser for surfing the web.

Most websites were specifically optimized for IE compatibility, and IE came pre-installed on mostly every PC and with every new release of Windows. It may not have been on the top of anyone's favorites wish list, but it was convenient, it worked most of the time, and most people didn't think they had much of a choice in the matter of web browsing software.

When you're on top of the world, and your competition is paltry, there's really no reason to invest any money on improvement; this was Microsoft's mentality when it came to improvements and maintenance for their ubiquitous Internet Explorer.

Without any real competition to galvanize the IE team into improving their browser, Internet Explorer soon degraded into a breeding ground of exploits and a portal for new viruses to crawl through and infect your PC. Users got fed up.

When the first version of Firefox was released, users soon discovered the joys of having a browser that did the same job as IE, but had improved security, a built-in popup blocker, and the widely popular option of 'tabbed' browsing. When Microsoft got wind of Firefox taking away a large chunk of Internet Explorer’s user base, the IE team got their backsides in gear and cranked out Internet Explorer 7'a huge improvement from IE's predecessors.

A Tour of Internet Explorer 7

Installing IE 7 is a relatively painless process, and you shouldn't run into any problems. One of the first things you'll realize after installing IE 7 is that Microsoft finally introduced the cool feature of 'tabbed browsing'.

Tabbed browsing is a method if viewing multiple web pages inside of a single web browser window. Instead of having multiple web browsers opened to different web pages, overflowing your Windows taskbar with browser buttons, you can have just one browser window opened, but you're not limited to just one web page at a time.

This popular web browsing feature was too important for the IE team to leave out of the 7th incarnation of Internet Explorer. Opening a new browser tab is a cakewalk. Simply go to the 'File' menu and select 'New Tab', or if you're into hotkey shortcuts, do a 'Ctrl+T' to launch a new tab. One annoying thing I noticed after installing IE 7 is that the menu bar is hidden by default; this is probably to save space.

To make your menu bar visible, right tap anywhere below the URL text box and select 'Classic Menu'. Open as many tabs as you want. The freedom is refreshing!

Like Firefox, IE 7 now comes with a Google search bar right out of the box. There's no need to install a 3rd party toolbar to get the search box. Simply type in a search query, and hit enter and IE 7 will send off your query to Google to mull over for several seconds. It's a convenient way of doing a quick search without surfing on over to Google's main home page.

Quick Tabs: Viewing all your Tabs at once

IE 7 comes equipped with a really neat feature called.'Quick Tabs.. This viewing mode allows you to view all of your tabs at once. IE 7 makes this possible by shrinking down all of your tabs into a kind of thumbnail view and displays them all inside the browser’s window. This view mode allows you to get a quick view of all your opened tabs and makes switching to your desired tab quick and easy.

Give 'Quick Tabs' a try. Open up a few web pages in several different tabs and go to 'View' and select 'Quick Tabs'. IE 7 will display all your tabs in thumbnail view. It's a really cool browsing feature that alleviates the problem of not knowing what tab points to what web page because of 'tab overload'.

Internet Explorer 7 comes equipped with enhanced security improvements, the ability to do tabbed browsing, and some other nice features that finally made it into Microsoft’s aging web browser. The introduction of Firefox was the impetus that sparked the creation of Internet Explorer 7' the best incarnation of IE to date.

Major Jane Raymond USAFA

MER/IT

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