IE 7: Feel the love

Since it's been nearly four years since Microsoft has issued a major update to its Internet Explorer Web browser, you'd expect some, eh, excitement over a new version.

And that's just what we got when Microsoft recently announced a beta version of IE 7--although the folks in Redmond might have hoped for a warmer reception.

While most bloggers welcomed news of a long-awaited update, many also criticized IE 7's lack of support for key standards, like Cascading Style Sheets.

Some bloggers were quick to credit Microsoft, however, for coming clean about IE 7's inability to pass a standards compliance test. "I wanted to make it clear that we know Beta 1 makes little progress for web developers in improving our standards support, particularly in our CSS implementation," Chris Wilson, a lead program manager on IE development, wrote in a blog posting last week.

Blog community response:

"IE 7 beta is a bitter disappointment. The fact that IE 7??s Dean Hachamovitch and David Massy have been mum about meeting standards in the build up to IE 7??s beta release usually predicates bad news. And IE 7 is very bad indeed."
-- Keep an Open Eye

"The introduction of IE 7 Beta has me thinking that Microsoft should get out of the Browser business. Why not just concentrate on building a strong secure Operating System that ships with, or links to a range of fine standalone Web Browsers?"
--wow factor

"While it doesn't hit everything we might like, and we won't see most of it until Beta 2, it's a pretty impressive list for a release that by all accounts is primarily about security and UI features. Even more impressive than the contents of the list, though, is that it's even available outside the Redmond campus...I can assure you this sort of openness is a radical departure from the Microsoft of old..."
--The Web Standards Project