Internet Explorer 7 (Beta 1)

Microsoft also claims a 'streamlined, redesigned user interface', but places the caveat that it's 'currently in its early stages in Beta 1'. The interface is a little strange in that the standard toolbar containing History, Home, Favorites buttons and so on can't be moved and is placed below the tabs; this is in contradiction to every other major Microsoft application for years, which let you drag the toolbars around to where you want them. The Back and Forward buttons are given a great deal of prominence and have the same look and feel as those in Vista's standard Explorer windows.

This edition of IE certainly isn't the sea change that marked, for instance, the introduction of IE 4 back in the late 1990s; not yet, anyway. But tabbed browsing and the perception of better security were arguably the biggest draw to those who switched to Firefox from IE 5 or IE 6, and there's every reason to believe that with all the feature boxes ticked the flow of defections will be stemmed. As such, Microsoft's competitors may need to get their thinking caps on and come up with a new killer feature.

Author: David Fearon