Microsoft Ships IE 7 in Final Form

Published: October 25, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Microsoft took the wraps off Internet Explorer version 7 last week, marking the first release of the market-leading Web browser since the release of IE 6 in 2002. The new Web browser, which boasts better security and other must-have features like RSS support and tabbed browsing, was also hit with its first security vulnerability a day after its debut.

Microsoft focused on the new security aspects of IE 7 last Wednesday during the official unveiling of the new Web browser--which Microsoft insisted for some time didn't even need to be built. "We listened carefully to our customers and are delivering a safer browser that makes the tasks they do every day much easier," Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of the Internet Explorer team, said in the announcement.

Microsoft's IE 7 home page describes six areas where IE has been improved. In terms of security--arguably IE 6's greatest weakness and the area Microsoft needed to make the biggest improvements--Microsoft made several enhancements.

A new icon in IE 7 alerts users when they visit a Web site that has known to be a phishing site, or an illegitimate Web site designed to steal users' personal information. Another icon is designed to let users know when they're using a connection secured with SSL.

Another notable new feature is the capability to open several Web pages in one instance of IE (a feature known as "tabbing" that helped Mozilla's Firefox challenge IE for Web browser dominance). Microsoft has also improved IE's printing functions. Users can now shrink text to make it fit on one page, remove headers or footers, and adjust margins to get a less-cluttered printed page.

The new browser, which works with Windows XP SP2, also features a more streamlined interface that makes it easier for users to add Websites to their Favorites file, search the Web, and clear their history files. Support for RSS news feeds and an integrated search bar round out the top six.

Meanwhile, security researcher Secunia raised the ire of Microsoft by announcing, a day after the launch of IE 7, that the new Web browser is susceptible to a particular security vulnerability. The vulnerability in the "MHTLM" URL handler was discovered on fully patched systems running Outlook Express and either IE 6 and IE 7, and could result in an attacker stealing personal information.

Microsoft objected to Secunia's findings and said that the problem lies in Outlook Express. Secunia stuck to its guns, however, and pointed out that IE 7 users are just as susceptible as IE 6 users who also use Outlook Express.