IE7.0 will work only for OS XP SP2 and above. It is bundled with Vista, the new baby of Bill Gates. It is directly downloadable from Microsoft site but will be registering you online so the OS on your desktop or laptop has to be legal. It will instantly recognize the pirated OS and will not install IE7. IE7.0 is claimed to be have the rich features of security like antiphishing, antimalware et al. It also has an RSS reader inbuilt along with many other features discussed below. Unlike Opera its installation requires reboot of machine and still feature wise it is far behind Opera 9.10, even Firefox is a better browser.
Security and features wise Opera and Firefox are still ahead of IE7.0. Certain features and full usage is possible by using IE 7 with Vista as operating system. IE 7 features a redesigned interface, tabbed browsing, new Favorites Centre and an add-in RSS feed reader. The browser took almost 2 and a half years of development and still is not fully secured as it is using the same coding of IE 6 and carries all the flaws existing in IE 6. IE 7.0 conflicts with any antivirus installed on your system and hence antivirus is to be disabled while installation of IE 7 unlike Mozilla Firefox or Opera. The malicious software removal tool is responsible for this confliction with antivirus software while getting installed. RSS feed engine is the main differentiator from Opera and Firefox, this engine gathers information from various web feeds (as per your requirements and settings) and provides you in readable form. Opera on the other hand has similar feature called newsgroups that picks news posted on web servers and provides in its browser. Only difference between a RSS feed and Newsgroup is that RSS feed is capable of any posts on web servers and newsgroup pick only from News Sites. Similarly Firefox although doesn’t have its own RSS feed engine but it allows you to add-in any third party RSS feed in its browser and there are plenty of those available free of cost over the internet. (for Vista you can read my earlier review on the same)
The antiphishing feature (for understanding Phishing you can read my earlier review) by default is disabled when you install IE 7. The buttons and bars of toolbar have been redesigned and are different from IE6.
The address bar too has been placed right on the top and Microsoft claims that it will be difficult for malicious spywares will not be able to hijack it. The address bar also displays antiphishing and site certificate information that makes it slower while fetching the site. IE 7 by default takes the search box to Windows Live.com site which is not so popular as compared to Google and MSN Search, but it allows adding other search engines you want to use and make any one of them as your default search engine. The new tabbed browsing feature in IE 7, that was already existing in Firefox and Opera, will allow you to open, view and close multiple sessions withing one IE 7 session or window. Till IE6 it used to open a new session or window for opening a link or new site. Beauty of opening one set of sites in different tabs in one browser window is that you can save them all in your Favorites in one go rather than saving one by one.
For example if you open 10 best reviews of Mouthshut in different sessions and want add them in Favorites in a new folder or group, you will have to add them one by one which will be time consuming and painful. But the same can be done in one click if you open all these reviews in one session or window in 10 different tabs. To browse between different tabs you need to click on the thumbnail display of the tabs. I enjoy this feature more in Mozilla rather than in IE 7. Accessibility features of IE7 include zoom technology and the new Clear-type page technology (the same technology that I mentioned in Microsoft Reader review earlier) which MS claims will present the fonts and letters on your screen same as they appear in a printed book. This feature is really good and the maximum zoom i.e. x400 will give very clear font, and the picture will be repixled rather than merely increasing the space between the pixels (or dots) (Zooming is of two types – Magnification or a general increase and Text Zoom i.e. increasing the font size). This magnification zoom feature is available only with IE7 and Opera that not plainly increases the size of a picture but increases or decreases the pixels or dots, something done by a graphics software. The printing from IE7 is more used friendly and does not print oddly by skipping some part of the contents, by shrinking the contents to fit in the page.
Clicking on RSS button will fetch you a long list of the feeds stored on various sites with links to subscribe to new feeds. For security enhancements Microsoft has tied up with companies like Cyota, InternetIdentity, MarkMonitor and Cyveillance.
The features of IE7 that are not there with XP version and available with Vista version are – If you are in protected mode, the malicious software can’t reach beyond the temporary internet files. Parental control to control your kids browsing to unwanted sites by studying their browsing pattern. This is controlled through password and hence your child will not be able to unlock any site that you have locked for him/her.
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