Internet Explorer 7: first impressions

There has been a lot of buzz about the new kid in town. I have been using the new browser from Microsoft for a week or so and I have come to the following conclusions:

• First of all a new tool is always welcomed. See it as a toy. Playing with it is certainly a new experience you always like.
• Then it’s not a toy if you use every day and your customers will soon :(
• It supports transparent .png files which is very good.
• At last it handles RSS Feeds and it does it smoothly which is also very good.
• I don’t like the way it renders text. I have used IE7 in two computers and I can clearly see that text is somewhat blurred. When I turn to Firefox or Opera I see the same text the way it is supposed to look: clear.
• It complies to the Web Standards better than ever before but don’t get it wrong: it still loses when compared to Firefox and Opera.
• Like always you have to wait until the whole page is loaded. In the meantime you still wait before an empty screen.
• It is more secure.
• It embraces the tabbed browsing technology.
• It makes browsing easier thanks to the search toolbar, the (almost naked from menus) default appearence and the pleasant colors.

Internet Explorer 7 was an indispensable tool. I mean that Microsoft had to launch it. And as far as I can see it is a good tool and most probably will soon become even better. Thanks to Firefox and Opera we have learnt that browsers are alive. They breathe, play, expand and serve their users. They change according to their users preferences. Microsoft got the message.

On the other hand IE7 reminds me a runner who is meant to lose before the race starts. It looks like a cog-wheel in a huge machine which must work anyway. Nobody will pay attention to it unless it breaks down. Then I may be wrong. Future will tell.