microsoft firefox?

Yep. It's awesome.

http://www.msfirefox.com/

that said...

I know I've been down on Internet Explorer 7 the past couple of days. I'm not trying to make undue peace with it, but here are some things I like:

• DevToolBar. It's something you can download from Microsoft, and it's in a Beta version right now. It gives some nice tools most casual surfers don't need. You can get some similar addons for Firefox, but I like the way these are grouped.
• The zoom tool on the bottom right. Very handy for viewing ill-designed sites with too-small stuff.
• The Anti-phishing thang. I always look at the URL to make sure I'm at the right place before entering personal information, but this will help quite a few people who aren't terribly savvy.

So I'm keeping it. I won't be using it much, but I'm keeping it so I can be sure gratemusic.com and LDSmusic.us don't look too dumb in it. I just care that much.

i.e. 7 again

I still don't like it. OK, it's been less than 48 hours, but a few things drive me nuts about Windows Internet Explorer 7:

Most notably, the text menu bar is gone (you think). You actually have to press ALT to get it to pop up. You have to do this to get to some of the features. And when you click anywhere besides the text menu bar itself? Yes, it closes. This was obviously not designed with mouse klutzes like me in mind. I hear that you can make it "sticky" so it displays all the time (rumor only - I have not done this yet), but either way, it still displays below the address bar, which is wrong.

A principle of good design is that you don't move something from a familiar location unless there is a really good reason. How did Microsoft do?

Suddenly the icon to access the Favorites menu has moved from top center to second row left.

The reload button looks different and now lives where the Go button was. You can't find it by muscle memory anymore.

Go is gone. Oh, wait. When you type an address, Reload becomes Go. Confusing.

The Home icon has moved from left to far right along with Print.

Where is help? You don't have the text menu bar right at your fingertips, and there is no help icon. Of course it's there, Silly! If you need help, all you need to do is go through TWO drop-down menus easily accessible through the 2-millimeter double-arrow thingy (>>) on the FAR RIGHT of the screen. Don't worry that it doesn't look like a button (or anything, for that matter) until you roll your mouse over it. When you try to drag that little help icon onto the bar with Home and Print where it belongs, of course it is not allowed. Asking for assistance is harshly discouraged.

i.e. 7 - watch out!

After my post about IE7, Dieter sent me a message on my Vox account about a security vulnerability in it. Already. Frightening, no? I am not an alarmist, and I don't believe that Internet Exploder Explorer will be the end of society as we know it, but I am less than pleased with it at the moment. You can read about the vulnerability here. If you don't have Firefox, you can download it at the bottom of this page.

i.e. 7

I just upgraded (not positive about that term) to Internet Explorer 7. It seems like everything new about it that is good and useful on the consumer end has been essentially copied from Firefox. Tabbed browsing, for example. I don't like that the menus at the top of the window are gone - it just doesn't seem right without File, Edit, Tools, etc., but maybe I'll get used to it.

I'm not an expert on the security side of things, but since IE supports ActiveX and Firefox doesn't, that automatically makes IE more vulnerable. Maybe the new version will be better, but when I'm surfing around on sites I hadn't previously known (like when doing research), I still always use Firefox.

I was also quite happy to discover that gratemusic.com and LDSmusic.us still work fine in IE7. No emergency redesign! Woohoo!