Insider blogging: Microsoft updating its IE browser (finally)

Posted Jun 3rd 2006 1:59PM by Sarah Gilbert
Filed under: Products and Services, Launches, Consumer Experience, Blogs, Microsoft (MSFT), Insider Blogging

It's not the endlessly customizable interface that the open-source-hungry are begging for, but Microsoft's next beta release of its next-gen browser, Internet Explorer 7, will fix problems with some popular features when it comes out some time in August. Jeremy Reimer from arstechnica notes that the design of previous releases seems "bizarre" and confirms that users won't be able to change the layout -- with "the menu bar being sandwiched between the address bar and the tab bar" -- in Beta 3 according to a recent Microsoft chat.

In a bit of rather technical mumbo-jumbo about caching behavior (why you care: it greatly increases bandwidth requirements in the Beta 2 version), developer Eric Lawrence explains some of the fixes that will be available on the IEBlog.

Last week, the developers announced the official name of the new browser would be "IE7+" or "Internet Explorer 7+" rather than tying it to the Vista moniker (as Tony says, " 'The version of IE7 in Vista' doesn't roll off the tongue as easily...")

Tags: august, beta, beta 3, Beta3, ie, ie7, ie7 beta, ie7 beta 3, Ie7Beta, Ie7Beta3, internet explore, internet explorer, internet explorer 7, InternetExplore, InternetExplorer, InternetExplorer7, microsoft, msft