Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta released to public

[Jeff]

Microsoft has opened the beta test of their new Internet Explorer 7 to the public. Right now it requires Windows XP sp2, though they promise it will run on other systems soon.

If you're interested, you can download it here.

[Gandalf]

Thanks for the link! <goes to download...>

[MartinBradley]

Nice Jeff, thankyou!

[Lucifina]

Ok, guys, I don't know if this will mean anything, but I tried the beta a few months ago and it crashed my computer! Yes, I know it's beta, so you take your risks...just BEWARE!

[Kudo]

I tested it on my work PC (never on my own ) much, much worse than IE 6. This program is ugly, it renders badly, and it's just a pain to use.

But it's a beta!

[MrEggsalad]

What do I think? Well it is UGLY. However, I was flattered by the .png rendering and how it was actually displayed correctly. The menu bar(File, Edit, View...etc.) is now hidden at first, you must go to the Tools Button >> Toolbars >> Classic Menu. So I guess now the menu bar is old, heh I guess Microsoft thought now we should only have tabs and buttons (Office 12 also has this getting away from menu bars, if it even has them). I don't like it, the new features are old for Opera and Firefox users, it's still Internet Explorer, and nothing can change that. They can take away menu bars and give tabs, but they can't hide the truth.

[Eagle_Kiwi]

I tried IE7 last night.
It hurt my YM!
Thread on similar alleged drawbacks, here

[DrBroccoli]

Well I am super happy is has PNG alpha tranparency support now, make life easier for my website . I am agreeing with Eggy, I want my toolbar, end of story. Don't make me go through "button menus" to get back what we've had since the begining, that is like GM making car's with the Gas and Brake peddles flipped, and then make Park -> Drive and Drive -> Park, I mean common!

I've been using Opera for the past year or two, and every other browser I try is slower, Opera is just fast, but IE7 was horribly slower than Netscape or FF. Also, just like Ryan said, these "new" features are old to Opera and FF, but it's going to be new to a whole lot of people, just becuase of MS' monoloply. I don't exactly agree that it's ugly, but the new style is a signifigant improvement on the current IEs that we have all had pounded into our brains.

Bottom line, I am all for IE7, only becuase it supports Alpha Channels in PNGs, and that we'll lower my stress level for my website, becuase I refused to make it ugly for the loyal Opera, FF, Netscape, Flocker, and anything buy IE users. (If you go to my site in, let's say, Opera you go to index.php, but if you go in with IE, you go to index2.php, the only difference is graphical on the "transparent" border, but on index2.php that transparency is faked, but I assure you, on index.php it's 100% transparent).

[narayanan]

Having just 2 tabs open, the memory usage for IE7 is at 53MB. If I open the same page in Firefox 1.5 the usage is at 23MB.

I felt a page loads much slower in IE7, the same page loads much faster in FF 1.5

My experience was pretty bad with the earlier BETA, so instantly downgraded to IE6. BETA 2 is a step better than the previous BETA.

Win 2k is one of the stable Win versions I've used. Donno why none of their own BETA releases support Win 2k

[DrBroccoli]

Originally Posted by narayanan

Having just 2 tabs open, the memory usage for IE7 is at 53MB. If I open the same page in Firefox 1.5 the usage is at 23MB.

I felt a page loads much slower in IE7, the same page loads much faster in FF 1.5

My experience was pretty bad with the earlier BETA, so instantly downgraded to IE6. BETA 2 is a step better than the previous BETA.

Win 2k is one of the stable Win versions I've used. Donno why none of their own BETA releases support Win 2k

Simply becuase W2K is being replaced (or in most cases, has been), XP is pretty stable, and Vista is coming out, and they officially moved Windows2000 into extended support as of June 30th 2005. It's been a long time, and a few upgrades since 2000, things of changed, it's just not logical it port something to a insubordinate OS, yes 2000 may have been extremely good, but it's time to let it go, time for it to be replaced. Why support something that is 7+ years old, when XP is only it plus more, besides aren't they both based of NT technology?