Internet Explorer 7 Goes Beta…Way, Way Beta
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Written By Reprise Media | February 1, 2006 | Share This
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Yesterday Microsoft released a beta preview of their Internet Explorer 7 update, which anyone can download and test. Well, anyone who’s running Windows XP. And who’s got Service Pack 2 installed. And who can pass muster with Windows’ software licensing authentication process…anyone at all!
Users of rival browsers Firefox and Opera will be familiar with IE’s brand new improvements, among them tabs for ease of surfing, enhancements to the search box and RSS capability. But for people already using either of those others browsers, the IE train has already left the station. Search Engine Journal thinks (and we agree), “It looks like the aim is to please the current users of Internet Explorers who are being lured away by alternative offerings.” Perhaps Microsoft can pick up some new users when it bundles the new browser with those internet-cell-phones-to-the-third-world Bill Gates has been talking about.
By the way, this isn’t a beta test like Google News was a beta test. Cnet’s Ina Fried took a bullet for many when she volunteered to read IE 7 beta’s end-user agreement. Sifting through legalese that often leaves us glassy-eyed, she found language that seems to suggest most people shouldn’t even install the thing: “You may not test the software in a live operating environment unless Microsoft permits you to do so under another agreement.” While this would seem ordinary for a traditional beta test, Fried explains:
“…Betas have taken on a somewhat different meaning in the Internet world than in traditional software. We have grown immune to the ‘beta’ label that appears on all sorts of software from Yahoo, Google and MSN, in some cases for years.”
And while IE 7 is supposedly pretty airtight, it seems that it really wouldn’t be a Microsoft product if someone didn’t discover a security bug within 24 hours…oh wait, they did. Beta News caught a missive from security researcher Tom Ferris indicating that IE 7 contains a flaw that crashes the browser and leaves the user vulnerable to a denial of service attack.
Hey, weren’t we just saying something about Firefox? A couple of days ago their parent Mozilla released Seamonkey 1.0, a suite of internet software including an email client, a chat client and a web page editor. Hey, we just thought you should know.
Topics: Technology |