News
IE7 "Preview" -- Nearly Ready for Prime Time?
- By Stuart J. Johnston
- January 31, 2006
Microsoft released a preview of Internet Explorer 7 beta 2 to the general public
on Tuesday.
The preview runs only on Windows XP Service Pack 2.
“I’m very excited we’ve released a public preview of beta
2 that everyone can download,” Chris Wilson, Microsoft group program manager
for the IE platform and security, said on the company’s IEBlog
site this morning.
The release is not a surprise. Microsoft announced
in December that it planned to release the beta 2 build to the general public
sometime this quarter.
Microsoft officials are clear to point out that they are not touting this “preview”
as the full-scale consumer beta, however. In fact, this is not the beta 2 release.
New features coming with IE7 are tabbed browsing, an updated user interface
meant to be easier to use and less demanding of screen real estate, support
for real simple syndication (RSS) feeds, built-in “switchable” search,
and improved security.
“[The preview is] a release for everyone involved in making the Internet
work [so that] before we release a consumer-focused beta, we want to make sure
anyone with a Web site can look at the changes we’ve made,” IE product
unit manager Dean Hachamovitch said on IEBlog.
Interested parties can get beta 2 at Microsoft’s
IE7 site.
About the Author
Stuart J. Johnston has covered technology, especially Microsoft, since February 1988 for InfoWorld, Computerworld, Information Week, and PC World, as well as for Enterprise Developer, XML & Web Services, and .NET magazines.