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IE7 Beta released to public

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bucknut11

bucknut11

Defense still wins Championships
Download it

They've had a beta out, but this one is publicly available. Pretty big download (11.2mb as compared to 4.9 for Firefox1.5) so who knows what extra stuff is in there.

I haven't used it yet, but I'll get around to that sometime this afternoon.

It's got a lot of Firefox's bells and whistles, tabbed browsing, RSS, search bar, etc...


EDIT: first strike. It won't let me install because Firefox is my default browser. IE install requires "genuine windows validation" which is a service that will only run in IE (ActiveX).
 
The beta version of IE7 released today by Microsoft is meant for developers and tech enthusiasts, and it's a good thing. This is not (yet) a browser for the faint of heart; in fact, if you've become accustomed to the minimalist approach of alternative browsers like Firefox, IE7 might actually feel like a step backward. The product's proper name—which should tell you most everything you need to know—is Internet Explorer 7.0 for Windows XP SP2 Beta 2 Preview. We'll refer to it simply as IE7 beta, though.

Read the Internet Explorer 7.0 (beta) full review here.
 
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Nice find, Jwins. From that article, the bottom line is....

Overall, given Microsoft's timeline and presumed budget for the new browser, it's disappointing that this first beta version of IE7 feels more like a catch-up than a truly innovative new product.
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They said by the time IE7 is officially released (late 2006), Firefox will already have had version 2.0 released.
 
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any idea whether you can add your own extensions/widgets? Even if you can, they'll never have a comparable community providing so many extensions to add on at your leisure.
 
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Microsoft can't touch the open source community in the regards of Firefox's extensions and themes. Even if they did open their API to the public (highly unlikely), I doubt anyone but hardcore Microsoft fans would program anything for it.

The only nice feature I see in the IE7 beta that isn't in Firefox is it shows the address of toolbar-less "popups." See the pic for an example.
 

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jwinslow said:
any idea whether you can add your own extensions/widgets? Even if you can, they'll never have a comparable community providing so many extensions to add on at your leisure.
Click to expand...

It seems like they have something with "add-ons" here http://windowsmarketplace.com/content.aspx?ctId=63 . However, A lot of these are just general programs that weren't written specifically for IE, and some of them ARE NOT FREE.
 
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First IE 7 Beta 2 Bug Found

Robert McMillan, IDG News Service Thu Feb 2, 9:00 AM ET

An independent researcher needed just 15 minutes to find the first bug in the Beta 2 preview release of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 browser.

Tom Ferris, of Mission Viejo, California, published his findings just hours after Microsoft released the beta code. His findings are posted online.

Ferris discovered the bug, which causes Internet Explorer to crash when it tries to read a specially crafted HTML file, using an automated security testing tool, called a "fuzzer," that he wrote to test Microsoft's browsers.

"Whenever they patch, I normally run IE through the fuzzing iterations, just to see if there [is something new]," he says. Ferris posted his findings at 8:30 p.m. Pacific time on Tuesday, the same day IE Beta 2 was released, he says.

Right now the bug can be exploited only to crash the browser, but Ferris says it's likely that his attack could eventually be modified to run unauthorized code on a user's machine.

The vulnerability appears to be exclusive to Internet Explorer Beta 2 browser, he says. "This is a completely new bug. I've never actually seen this in any browser before."
Looking Into It

Microsoft was not immediately able to comment on Ferris's findings. A spokesperson for the company's public relations agency says Microsoft is "looking into this."

Ferris has previously discovered bugs in the Firefox and Safari browsers, as well as in
Windows XP, but even he was surprised at the quickness with which this latest vulnerability popped up.

Ferris's discovery is one of the quickest such bug-findings on record, says Mikko Hypponen, manager of antivirus research at F-Secure in Helsinki. "It's probably the fastest from launch to exploit that I've ever heard about," he says.

Microsoft spent millions to improve its software development process to make it more secure. The company has promoted Internet Explorer Beta 2 as a more secure product. But Ferris believes that his research shows that the software giant still has work to do in this area.

"I think that they're still lacking very common security testing methods. I looked at it for 15 minutes and I was able to find a clean bug," he says. "They still have a lot of work to do."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/200...5RHo1Gs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3cjE0b2MwBHNlYwM3Mzg-
 
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It wouldnt have whiped it out. Go under add/remove programs, click on "show updates" at the top, then it should add a section for Windows Software Updates, and IE 7 shoudl be listed there. You can uninstall it, drop it back to IE 6.

Told you not to mess with it :biggrin:

If it looks like IE is totally gone, just go to add/remove, click on windows components, look for IE in there, and maybe uncheck it and recheck it.

Oh and if WORSE comes to worse...........do this. Have your XP cd handy. Go to start, run, type in rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 %windir%\Inf\ie.inf

That will reinstall it from the cd.
 
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BrutusMaximus said:
It wouldnt have whiped it out. Go under add/remove programs, click on "show updates" at the top, then it should add a section for Windows Software Updates, and IE 7 shoudl be listed there. You can uninstall it, drop it back to IE 6.
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Did that.


BrutusMaximus said:
Told you not to mess with it :biggrin:
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I know.


BrutusMaximus said:
If it looks like IE is totally gone, just go to add/remove, click on windows components, look for IE in there, and maybe uncheck it and recheck it.

Oh and if WORSE comes to worse...........do this. Have your XP cd handy. Go to start, run, type in rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 %windir%\Inf\ie.inf

That will reinstall it from the cd.
Click to expand...
Will try this tomorrow.
 
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I'm certainly not as computer savvy as many others here but couldn't you just as easily pick a restore point prior to downloading IE7?
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Some of the computer savvy people sometimes over think the problem.........yes you probably could do this, as long as you have system restore enabled, and have a restore point set before that of course. I would honestly try that last reinstall method I mentioned though, might be quicker.
 
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