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On the IE developers' blog, Dean Hachomovitch, general manager of the Internet Explorer team, said he was constantly being asked for a public beta and promised: 'an updated pre-release build of IE7 for Windows XP publicly - no MSDN membership required - during the first calendar quarter of 2006.

'We want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to try a pre-release version of IE7 and tell us how it works with their websites, their applications, their add-ons, and how they use the web overall,' he wrote.

A first beta of the browser was made available in October across the Windows Vista Technical Beta Programme, MSDN and Technet networks.

Testers said they expect the new browser to compare well against Firefox, its more technically advanced and closest rival, using less memory and offering greater security when teamed with Vista - the next version of Windows.