Well, it’s here.
Microsoft has finally unveiled the full version of Internet Explorer 7 (oddly enough, the link to download IE7 from Microsoft’s homepage doesn’t appear to be working so you have to download it from IE7′s own website).
I installed it and I am, in fact, using it to update my blog right now. So far, it doesn’t seem to be that bad. The browser feels faster (it certainly loads a lot quicker), the new RSS center is nice, and, of course, it’s just a blast to have tabs in IE. Quick tabs is pretty sweet too. There’s really no question that this is a vast improvement over the craptastic trash that is IE6. And it’s nice to know that features like tabbed browsing and RSS feeds will finally get an introduction to the mainstream. With Firefox 2 just around the corner, this will prove to be quite a browser-filled month!
It’s not Firefox of course, and I already have two pet peeves with IE7: (1) hitting ctrl + L to type in a new web address still brings up a separate “open” window, which really just adds unnecessary window clutter, and (2) no inline find feature. Still, I think I’ll actually use IE7 exclusively for a while just for the sake of getting a new IE experience.
I haven’t tried out Firefox 2 yet (I’m probably gonna wait for the offical release) but I just tried out IE 7. Just comparing it to Opera 9, it takes up ridiculous amounts of a memory. With only 4 tabs it was already hitting 100 mb of memory usage. Page loading is a slower compared to Opera and hitting the “back” button is ridiculously slow. So, I’m not convinced. I’m gonna stick with Opera.
Yeah, I’m waiting for the official release for Firefox 2.0 as well. I want to go in new and fresh.
IE 7 is a nice improvement, but I still prefer Firefox. IE’s favorites manager is so ridiculously horrible. If you want to move a set of links to a different folder, you have to move each of them over ONE AT A TIME. How retarded is that?
Sorry, Firefox for me. And as for Opera… yeah, I think that browser will pretty much stay exactly where it is for the rest of its life so… have fun with that!