Internet Explorer Beta 2 – General Review
This is a follow-up post to the announcement that Internet Explorer Beta 2 was released to the public for previewing and testing and such jollity. You may or may not be interested in it.
REVIEW
I just perused through the new Internet Explorer. My overall opinion is that, at this state, there is no reason to switch back to IE from Firefox, and no reason not to switch to Firefox (from ie) if you're not already using it. That said, it's certainly an improvement to the old browser, so you might as well download it and use it (as long as you've got a valid windows installation. They have some sort of security validation. If you want it, just ask me. [I think it will work just transferring the file.] )
Test it out, see what you think. You've got nothing to lose, as after 5 long years of a major lack of development for Internet Explorer, it can't have gotten worse than it had already sunk due to obsolescence.
This review may be updated multiple times throughout the next few days.
FEATURES / CHANGES:
Tabbed Browsing
Seems to work as expected. Besides the new tab button, and the close tab button on each tab, it's fine. There is a weird tab-switching interface, where you can see a thumbnail of each of the open tabs and choose based on that, but I can't actually imagine myself ever finding that useful.
New User Interface
The layout of the browser is a bit weird: having toolbars above the "File | Edit | View" toolbar. Besides that, it seems like they're wasting a bit of space: the tabs toolbar is the one that should be the largest, and it's the one that's sharing most of its space with other buttons.
Favorites Center
Simple enough. Has an "open links in a tab group" for folders, and a delete button for links. The favorites center has a feeds tab and a history tab. Pretty simple, good integration.
BUGS / Problems:
Interface Bug
There is a weird gap between the tab bar and the browser display that I'm certain isn't meant to be there. It disappears when I close the "Favorites Center."
CSS Issues
As of now, it seems it needs some CSS adjustment. The most blatantly disgusting bit: it doesn't support fixed positioning. It doesn't even seem to have changed its support of positioning at all. It had BETTER improve in later betas. Or I'm going to murder something.
That said, I haven't tested it thoroughly. I don't really know how much css has improved or not, I just tested a page that I've been working on lately and saw almost no changes. Expect me to complain/rejoice about it in the next few days.
By the way, hover states now work on all elements. (At least they work on LI's, and they used to only work on anchors. This is a beautiful thing.)
User Interface
Biggest annoyance: lack of customizability of user interface. I can't seem to remove the "new tab" button, nor can I get rid of a particularly useless toolbar. I can only remove all of its buttons so that it takes up the least amount of space.