New Tricks of a Browser Look Familiar

ABOUT 85 percent of the Internet population uses the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser to surf the Web, even though it's relatively ancient, crusty with neglect and about as secure as a screen door. In what other industry would 85 percent of consumers choose such a product - when better ones, also free, were also available?

Skip to next paragraph Stuart Goldenberg

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Microsoft has redesigned the Internet Explorer browser to open more space for Web pages. This version also accepts material sent by R.S.S.

Trick question. Those consumers aren't actually choosing Internet Explorer; in fact, they're not choosing. They just use what came on their Windows computers. Thanks to this built-in following, Microsoft hasn't felt much need to keep Internet Explorer current. Version 6 has been creaking along for five years - an eternity in Internet time.

But hope is in the air. Earlier this week, Microsoft took the wraps off IE 7. The new version is a public beta - Beta 2 - and therefore technically unfinished. Still, Microsoft feels that this release is ready for average people to try out; you can download it from www.microsoft.com/ie. Phone help is available, and you can easily restore Version 6 if necessary.

How this new browser measures up depends on the ruler you're using. If you've never used anything but Internet Explorer, you won't be able to wipe the grin off your face.

But next to rivals like Firefox, Opera and Safari, IE 7 is a catch-up and patch-up job. Some of its "new" features have been available in rival browsers for years.

For example, IE may be the last Web browser on earth to offer tabbed browsing. This useful feature lets you keep several Web sites open on the screen simultaneously - not in a hopeless mess of overlapping windows, but all in one window. File-folder index tabs at the top of the window keep them straight.

Truth is, Microsoft's version of tabbed browsing offers some very nice features. (And yes, dear e-mail correspondents, I'm aware that many of them also made their debut in other browsers.)

For example, you can summon a sheet of Web page miniatures, offering a handy, visual, clickable table of contents for your open tabs. IE 7 can also memorize a fleet of open tabs, saving them as a single bookmark. Later, one click opens them all again, arrayed just as you had them. Similarly, when you quit the browser, it offers to memorize the current open-tab setup, so that later you can pick up where you left off.

SCREEN real estate has been given a priority in Internet Explorer 7, too. ("Say goodbye to bulky toolbars," says the IE Web site - never mind that Microsoft gave us those bulky toolbars in the first place.)

The menu bar (File, Edit, View and so on) is gone, having been replaced by tiny pop-up menus at the right side of the window. (Those feeling disoriented can still summon the menu bar by tapping the Alt key.) And a single, noncustomizable toolbar contains the address bar, Back and Forward buttons, and the welcome new Search box, which can be programmed to use Google, Ask.com, MSN Search or whatever you like. Even with the added height of tabs, Microsoft has conserved so much space that you can see an additional inch or so of Web goodness without scrolling.

R.S.S. feeds represent another major new feature - new to Internet Explorer, anyway. R.S.S. (for Really Simple Syndication) is the Web's version of home delivery: instead of having to slog on over to your favorite sites, you are sent their latest articles and news automatically. To receive these convenient, free "subscriptions," though, you used to need a piece of software called an R.S.S. reader, which you had to download and configure yourself. No wonder R.S.S. doesn't yet play in Peoria.

But IE now joins the list of browsers with built-in R.S.S. readers. Whenever you visit a Web site that offers an R.S.S. subscription, a special logo lights up in IE; click it to see a sample of the R.S.S. broadcast (usually one-paragraph summary blurbs), and click Subscribe if you like what you see. The reading window offers a useful assortment of searching and sorting controls.

Other IE 7 enhancements include a Shrink to Fit printing option that eliminates chopped-off printouts; a print-preview mode whose draggable margins let you print only the useful parts of Web pages; a pop-up menu that magnifies the entire Web page (not just the text); and a single Delete Browsing History dialogue box that can erase all your tracks at once: History list, saved cookies and passwords, Web form data and temp files. (Who will find this feature useful? You know who you are.)

Now, if you currently use IE 6, those are all good reasons to upgrade, perhaps when the final version becomes available this summer. But the most important reason is mostly invisible: security.

As a bulwark against frauds, viruses and spyware, Internet Explorer has been about as solid as a sieve. It was such a fat target for Internet bad guys that using it was like hanging a blinking neon Hackers' Entrance sign on your PC.

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E-mail:Pogue@nytimes.com

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