Microsoft launches private beta of Internet Explorer 7

Microsoft launches private beta of Internet Explorer 7

Longhorn Beta 1 was not the only thing Microsoft launched today. It also released the much-awaited beta of their next generation web browser Internet Explorer 7. However, the release of this updated browser is also private similar to the release of the private beta of Windows Vista. The release was made quietly with no major fanfare as the company hopes to get comments and bug reports from IT administrators, developers and enthusiasts from the Technical Beta Program and MSDN.

The company raised user expectation when they announced earlier this year that they would indeed be releasing this next version of Internet Explorer browser for the current generation operating systems. Earlier, this update was only meant for the next version of their flagship operating system Windows. Many experts claimed that the move was to counter the growing popularity of the Mozilla Firefox browser, which has since its first version release last year taken around 10% market share.

This next major update to the most used web browser around contains enhancements like support for tabbed
browsing. This feature enables the users to open several websites in a single browser window preventing a clutter on the taskbar. It is also expected to come with enhanced support for web standards and anti-phishing features. Microsoft has also added a Firefox styled search box on the right side of the address bar, which enables the users to search online using various search engines.

Internet Explorer 7 also supports the popular RSS feeds, which are auto detected by the browser on a given webpage. Users can subscribe to these feeds to keep updated with the new additions to the relevant sites. This feature was first introduced by Opera Browser and Apple Safari and later made an entry into Mozilla Firefox. The company has for now not revealed any expected date for the launch of the final version of Internet Explorer 7.