Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 has been released to the public to test.

A note to people who want to install IE 7: Internet Explorer 7 WILL OVER WRITE INTERNET EXPLORER 6.

Now if you'd like to run it along side IE6, you can either use a launch script (recommended) or this method. The launch script correctly writes registry values needed for IE7 and IE6 to operate correctly. The latter method supposedly works for Beta 2 as well but I have not tested it.
  • It doesn't pass the ACID 2 test (but who expected it to?)
  • The UI is very inconsistant. First off, Microsoft established a well known standard to have the menu at the top of the application. IE7 has no menu... at first. You have to go into the tools bar and add it on and then, it places itself between the address bar and the tabs. Even if you unlock the toolbars, you cannot move the menu back to the top of the application. Also, every browser ever created to this point keeps the back, forward, refresh, and stop buttons next to each other. In IE7, they decided to break apart the refresh and stop buttons with the address bar. Also, they are now using a red X (synonymous for deleting or closing something) as the stop button. Very inconsistant as far as I'm concerned.
  • Microsoft fixed a lot of the hacks used to make IE render things correctly. The problem with fixing the hacks is they didn't fix the real issue that made the hacks necessary so this will be a real nice problem for web developers (). Like my website works great in IE5, IE6, Opera, Mozilla/Firefox, Safari, Konquerer, IE for Mac and MSN for Mac. With IE7, my ad on the right side is actually put between my navigation and my content so there is a HUGE gap. Also, Slashdot no longer renders correctly with a HUGE empty black space at the bottom (sometimes text will overlap as well). So it seems like the rendering might have gotten worse.
  • There is PNG support (WooHoo!). Unfortunately, it's limited. Some PNGs with layers won't display correctly and if you go into the QuickTab mode (it shows you a mini verison of each page opened) it won't display PNGs with ALPHA transparency correctly at all (my site looks quite... messed up in QuickTab mode).
  • If you are using Themes, there are some odd lines that look like someone messed up with painting the menu control. They seem out of place and they have no functionality.
  • The navigation buttons and the favorites center icons look jaggied, yet the refresh, stop, and some other buttons look very smooth and actually look nice. Kind of inconsistant.
  • The phishing filter shows up in the task bar and it has an exclamation point over it all the time. It's on but I have no idea what it means. There is no indication anywhere what that means. No tooltip. No nothing


All in all, it does seem like it's improving but not in the areas it should improve apon. They won't even add proper XHTML rendering support until after version 7 or maybe even past 8 (according to a blog posting on the IE Development Blog).