Microsoft Posts IE 7 Beta 2

Published: April 26, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Microsoft on Monday posted for download the second public beta of Internet Explorer 7, the first new release of the company's Web browser software in years. If all goes as planned, the software giant is expected to ship IE 7 by the end of the year.

"We heard you" reads the welcoming page to Microsoft's IE 7 beta download site. "You wanted it easier and more secure." Whether Microsoft actually delivers better security with IE 7 has yet to be seen, but the software giant claims it has made giant strides with a "robust new . . . architecture" and new security features designed to prevent malicious software, such as viruses and worms, from infecting Windows through IE. The new Web browser also affords protection from phishers and identity theft, the company says.

Other new features, such as tabbed browsing and support for RSS feeds, will bring the world's most popular Web browser up to par, on a feature basis, with its number one competitor at the moment: Mozilla's Firefox, which came out of nowhere to grab 10 percent of the market by the end of 2005, compared to IE's share of 85 percent. While Firefox is often perceived to be more secure than IE, it isn't immune from security woes, and it was recently updated to patch a number of security vulnerabilities.