500 Hour Test of Tomorrow's Windows "Vista"

Internet Explorer

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.