Until now, security holes have been the most common reason why Internet Explorer would make headlines. That's probably why Microsoft invested heavily in security features for Internet Explorer 7. A "protected mode" of operation restricts active Web content to running inside a well-defined "sandbox", which isolates it from the normal Windows file system. This means that Web sites can inflict far less harm, if and when security holes are uncovered.

A Phishing Filter watches to see if Web sites spy on their visitors, or if they try out password hashes.

Microsoft appears to have researched and adopted a mass of know-how from its competitors. In particular, many functions of the Firefox browser appear to have been adopted in the new IE7 version; for example, this new Explorer offers tabbed browsing, as well as an integrated RSS newsfeed reader.

A page from the Firefox book: The new Internet Explorer 7 supports tabbed browsing.

A preview function makes switching to other Web sites particularly simple.