IE 7

[monk222]

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Last week, on the Yahoo page, Monk saw a ready offer to download Internet Explorer 7. Monk had heard that Microsoft was finally catching up with the other browsers, but he was afraid to venture to that undiscovered country. Not long after that, Al posted about downloading IE7, and he was rapturous, going on about all that tabbed browsing and all the new gee-whiz features. This whetted Monk's appetite all the more, but he still could not find the nerve.

Then, this morning, I come across this article in The Washington Post, and it looks like Microsoft is going to spare the spineless likes of Monk the agony of downloading the new browser:

But some users can't or won't make the effort to download and install new software. So now Microsoft will do it for them. Starting Wednesday, its new, Windows XP-only Internet Explorer 7 will be automatically installed on their computers through XP's Windows Update mechanism.

So, that is something to look forward to. Apparently, though, there is some reason to be a little worried:

But none of those features will be as immediately noticed as IE 7's new interface. This browser, like many recent Microsoft releases, ditches traditional text menus in favor of toolbar buttons that sometimes double as drop-down menus. This sleek design takes up much less space, but it also lacks consistency and bumps some often-used functions, like the home-page button, to odd locations.

In any case, if you've been using IE 6 for years, you may not know where to click when IE 7 lands on your computer.

This could prove to be an adventure, even good for laughs, as Monk struggles frantically to come to grips with twenty-first-century Internet surfing. But I am looking forward to it.


(source: Rob Pegoraro for The Washington Post)

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