Review: Developers now have their hands on the first IE 7 beta, and at first glance it has better security and some rather familiar Firefox features.The first beta of Microsoft's new standalone Web browser, Internet Explorer 7, is now in developers' hands.
Microsoft wasn't going to release a new IE browser, apart from the embedded version in Windows Vista, but then increased security worries and the rise in popularity of Mozilla's Firefox browser may have changed the Redmond giant's plans.
This new version of IE only runs on XP SP2. Eventually, there will be a version for Server 2003, but Windows 2000 and 98SE users are out of luck.
There will be no IE 7 for these systems.
Gytis Barzdukas, director of product management in Microsoft's security business technology, hasn't completely ruled out porting IE 7 to other Windows platforms.
In an eWEEK.com interview, Barzdukas said, "When we do all this engineering work, the architecture is changed significantly. In some cases, it's more expedient for customers to just move to a new operating system where the enhancements are easier to deploy."
The new IE boasts several improvements for browser security. The first of these are a variety of defenses against malware (malicious software).
For example, IE 7 now has a single data handler for Web addresses. By "drastically reducing the internal attack surface," Microsoft hopes to make it much harder for crackers to use malformed HTML links to trick browsers into running malware.
In addition, the new IE includes a feature that appends the originating domain name to any script you might run. The browser will also restrict a script's ability to only interact with its own domain's Windows and content.
Click here to read more about MS beta-testing in tandem the IE 7.0 code that is part of Vista and the stand-alone IE 7.0 release.
This feature's intent is to prevent cross-domain scripting.
These are commonly used in phishing attacks—attempts to swipe your user login and password information.
In informal testing, this first beta of IE 7 did do a better job than earlier versions of IE in preventing both malformed HTML and cross-domain scripting.
Some of the new anti-phishing tools may not be to everyone's taste.
The Microsoft Phishing Filter, which users may opt out of, checks all sites you visit against a Microsoft-hosted list of phishing sites.
Also, support for administrators setting group phishing restrictions is not present in this beta.
IE also sports a new look, some of which closely resembles Firefox.
For example, you'll find a search box to the right of the URL address bar. As with Firefox, users can search through one of several popular Web search sites by entering text into this box.
Additionally, IE now supports tabbed browsing—a feature that has been previously available in Mozilla, Opera and Netscape.
This feature worked well during first hours with the browser.
The new IE is also following in the footsteps of the other browsers by including RSS support. The program currently supports the RSS 1.0, 2.0 and Atom 0.3 formats.
Read the full story on eweek.com: IE 7 Beta: Improved Security, Resembles Firefox
