I don’t want to be snarky about this – I really don’t. But since we’re at Beta 3 stage with Internet Explorer 7.0, it’s time to unleash the bitching. I’m not expecting any more features to be added to this version, but I am expecting a lot more spit and polish before IE7 is officially unleashed. If ever there was a time to be critical, it’s now.

1. I still get prompted when I want to create a shortcut to my desktop – by right-clicking the page and choosing “Create Shortcut.” Yes, I want to create a shortcut – don’t ask me again!!! Dean, please add a toggle for this annoyance.
2. You still get prompted when dragging and dropping an item from the browser to the desktop. “Do you want to move or copy files from this zone?” Yes, I do – or I wouldn’t have tried it in the first place, you fool. There’s no clear or easy way of eliminating this prompt, other than applying this registry hack.
3. The information bar has got to go. It was annoying in IE6, and it’s even more annoying in IE7. I tried opening information from a trusted desktop app, and IE7 infobar’ed me – then when I told the infobar that it was okay, IE reloaded and showed me another warning dialog – just in case I missed it the first time. This is absolute madness. Let’s not even go into how the information bar reloads the entire page when you want to download a file from a URL! You have to make this far less annoying before going gold, Dean.
4. I really, REALLY don’t want to go into all the UI inconsistencies, though the page properties icon is an old one, the History icon looks ass-nasty, and the Print Preview dialog is using Arial and a non-standard toolbar in Classic Mode. I could easily turn this into a “top 100″ list if I broke down all the ways that the IE7 UI is still rough around the edges.
5. Why on God’s green earth is the RSS icon in the toolbar?! It’s a modal icon – meaning it should only show up when there’s something there to see! Safari puts an RSS icon in the address bar, Opera puts an syndication icon in the address bar, and we all know that Firefox puts it in the address bar as well. Who thinks they’re being innovative by putting the indicator in a place where most people will ignore it?
6. Okay, I know I didn’t want to get into the UI problems in IE7b3, but the command bar’s Home icon menu items sport a different vertical height than others (like the Print menu). Why… why?! And why does the Quick Tabs button look different than the Home button, even though both of them have drop-down menu items?! The window flashes when I select options in the Favorites Center, WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE WAKE UP OVER THERE?
7. You still can’t control the specific point size of a default font. IE7 would have you walk through a convoluted process rather than let you, for example, say that you wanted 9pt Courier New for the default fixed width font. That would’ve been too simple, methinks.
8. The “Delete Browsing History” dialog is still a kludge compared to the Firefox one. What’s the fear in making it work just as well – if not better – than the competition’s? Initially, I was also confused by the labeling of this feature – believing it only pertained to my URL cache. They should be using another word instead of History. Might I suggest… “Delete Browsing Social Studies?”
9. Why does the entire window freeze and stall for a second (sometimes) before it closes completely? Seems to be a problem when I have more than one tab open. When I click the close button, the window should disappear instantly. It doesn’t.
10. When “ico” files are rendered in the browser, why are they just as aliased around the edges as they were in IE6? Firefox doesn’t have this problem, and Opera doesn’t have this problem… so I’m waiting for a damn good reason why Microsoft can’t fix it.

Despite these snags, IE7 is certainly a better Web browser than IE6. I’m not even close to switching from Maxthon 1.x (though I don’t like the way Maxthon 2.x is shaping up). The Firefox faithful won’t be returning to the Internet Explorer brand anytime soon, either. IE7 puts Microsoft back into the game; they’ve fixed hundreds of known bugs and added a small amount of “new” features. My question is: will IE8 blow us away – or just blow?

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• IE Makes it Impossible to Troubleshoot Feeds

I received an email from Daniel Goldman earlier today regarding Mozilla’s filing for a trademark on the feed icon, requesting that Opera Software sign an agreement before using it in their Web browser. Daniel asked me if I thought this was a good thing or a bad thing for the feed icon. Let me start out by saying that the blogosphere has to get over the whole “copyrights and trademarks are evil” jihad.

Daniel asked: “Do you think that a trademark on a universal feed icon beneficial or detrimental?” I answered: Beneficial if Mozilla allows anybody to use the icon to indicate a feed – and detrimental if they don’t. They’re likely serving as the icon’s protectors, which is what I’m inclined to believe.

Daniel asked: “Do you have your own opinion on what a universal feed icon should be?” I answered: Yeah, theirs. It’s the only one that put the orange XML vs. orange RSS button debate to bed. If Microsoft signed the agreement for usage in Internet Explorer 7.0, then so should Opera – and so should anybody. I don’t think Mozilla is doing this to hurt the community, but to protect it. Would anybody rather have a crazy greedmonger holding onto the trademark? Doubtful.

Opera, please sign the agreement.

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