The Internet Explorer 7 team’s rallying cry: “Show ‘em what we’ve got.”

OK. They showed us. And reviewers, in general, aren’t exactly jumping up-and-down and spitting nickels.

Beyond “buggy, buggy, buggy,” analysts decry that:

  • Editing Favorites requires using classic menus;
  • Psychotic graphics rendering renders some sites useless;
  • Colors, buttons and alignment of graphics are mismatched;
  • The Tabs feature is awkward and severely limited, and;
  • Toolbar customization is scatalogical.

On the upside, they think the text zooming tool is really kewl.

Paul Thurott is cautiously optimistic:

Only with a more secure foundation–which we’ll hopefully see in Windows Vista (codenamed Longhorn)–can Microsoft turn the tide of bad publicity over its security issues. But in the meantime, IE 7 will be an important stop-gap measure, as important in its own right as XP SP2. I’m intrigued that they’re even making this effort.If my suspicions are correct, IE 7 could surprise a lot of people, including even me.

Other observers are less sanguine. After passing on attaboys for IE7b2’s Zoom feature and enhanced security, Davis D. Janowski of PC Magazine concluded, “Overall, given Microsoft’s timeline and presumed budget for the new browser, it’s disappointing that this first beta version of IE7 feels more like a catch-up than a truly innovative new product.”

Janowski’s appraisal jives with that of Daniel Glazman, the architect of Mozilla Composer and NVU web authoring software. While Glazman is clearly a Firefox fan, his detailed review of IE7b2 is enlightening.

Although he found the User Interface design to be directionless, the RSS implementation unimpressive, and the History Search glacial, Glazman characterized Print Preview as superb, Quick Tabs as cool and Zoom as very nice. But all things considered, he believes Microsoft’s effort still falls short: “Firefox is far ahead of IE in terms of usability, accessibility, extensibility.”

To which Lockergnome’s Chris Pirillo adds, “My guess is that when IE7 goes gold, more people will be driven to start using Firefox. Thank *GOD* for Maxthon.” (Editor’s note: As it actually rides atop Internet Explorer, Maxthon inherits many of IE’s pathologies.)

On another front, Softpedia’s Alex Muradin noted that, “Because [Microsoft] has had some ActiveX Control sore spots, its all but thrown most of them out the window.”

That may be perfect timing. As we’ve reported, after a long string of security and legal embarrassments, even true-blue Redmond fans, like the head of Orlando’s Small Business Server User’s Group, Vlad Mazek, are outraged. After claiming that it is “irresponsible to run Internet Explorer outside of the few company-approved web sites” and it should be restricted to internal-use-only, Mazek roared, “I’ll take it a step further: Anybody purchasing ActiveX driven software should be fired, on the spot.”

A calmer Muradin observed IE7’s troubles when rendering some web pages. This included trashing PC Magazine’s forum pages, in which IE7b2 lost all forum formatting controls, shrank the text box, and filled the window with raw HTML code when posters tried to use the quotes feature. Muradin reported that Microsoft blames the websites, saying they need to update their detection code for the not- yet- officially- in- production browsing software.

“What’s better, being a one legged man in an ass kicking contest or IE7?” Muradin mused, “I’d have to say IE7, but…”

Waitaminnit…

Maybe this is all just a semantics problem. On one hand, Google calls its polished software betas for Heaven- only- knows- what- reason. On the other hand, Microsoft called the original Windows XP a shippable commercial product… And Windows Millennium before that… And Windows 98 before that… And… Well. You get the drift.

When you forget about Google and its New Age ilk, Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 is a pretty doggoned good product by any standard… as long as the standard is Microsoft’s. The question is, if you shelled out cash for the earlier offerings… and most of us did… why won’t you put up with IE7?

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