Michael Dolan Dot Com

Monday, October 30th, 2006

Internet Explorer 7: I Actually Like It

I actually like IE7 - I said it. I think the reason why is b/c it’s so much like Firefox. That doesn’t make IE bad in my mind (unless you’re one of the religous types and it’s just like copying Mac windows).

Now it remains to be seen whether the security holds up. I’ve already had to download a boatload of updates since booting into XP which I haven’t done for a while. I didn’t read the whole list to know if any were IE7 related but I’m sure they’re coming. I know my wife’s work sent all employees warnings not to install it…. wonder why…

Anyway, this is my first post here from IE7 and Windows XP (it’ll probably be a while)… I just had to test things out and see how they were. I like the “Quick Tabs” feature the best. Second best would be closing with multiple tabs open - it gives you options for what to do next time. The integrated RSS feeds are ok… but to be honest I’m so used to having a separate feedreader with a preview pane that I really don’t use it in Firefox (and wouldn’t in IE7).

One other thing that I have to mention: it’s about time. This finally brings IE to the Firefox age. It looks like a great piece of work, but ultimately I still think Firefox wins. The openness of Firefox, the underlying XUL technology for building apps, and it’s closeness to the userbase needs/desires will probably keep Mozilla ahead of the game for some time. Oh and I forgot to mention that Firefox doesn’t allow for ActiveX (yet at least). IE7 still has ActiveX controls (why oh why doesn’t anyone see it’s a huge gaping security hole…).

Oh… and one more thing. IE7 does this odd repost thing when there are multiple form controls in a page (like in Wordpress admin posting) and if you’re using Wordpress be careful when opening say the categories list b/c IE7 will try to post… hmm….