Tabbed browsing is a feature added by Microsoft in Internet Explorer 7. Released back in October 2006 for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, and then in January 2007 concomitantly with the availability of Windows Vista, Internet Explorer 7 was late to the tabbed functionality game. Alternative browsers such as Firefox, had featured tabbed browsing long before IE7. However, as the saying goes, better late than never�so IE7 managed to correct the impediment to the navigation of multiple websites from a single browser window. But as far as end users are concerned, IE7 is still lacking functionality.

In all fairness, when you try to close down an IE7 window with multiple websites opened in different tabs, the browser will present a dialog box allowing users to open back all tabs when the browser is relaunched the next time. Of course, one of the largest caveats of IE7 is the fact that the browser does not come equipped with restore last session capabilities. An IE7 window closed by accident or due to an error means that the users would have completely lost all the opened tabs.

IE7 does keep a History of all the pages visited that users can navigate by Date, Site, Most Visited, together with the options to display the websites visited that day and to actually search for a certain address. But this also means that the user has to do it all manually. This scenario is fine if you are looking for two websites. But what if you had 10 tabs opened, or 20 or more?

An IE restore session that will automatically store and relaunch tabs has to be at the top of the list for functionality enhancements in Internet Explorer 8. But in the meantime, there is somewhat of an alternative solution provided by "IE7 Open Last Closed Tab" a browser plug-in available as a free download. The solution comes with the promise that you will never lose a closed tab again, and the best thing about it is that you will remember you have it installed when you'll need it. IE7 Open Last Closed Tab supports Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista.

"IE7 Open Last Closed Tab is a plug-in for Internet Explorer 7 that makes "Alt-X" reopens the last closed tab. This is very useful when you accidentally close a tab that you didn't mean to close. Instead of trying to find it in your browser history, you hit "Alt-X" and it automatically reopens in a new tab. It also supports a Quick Tab Style View, shown when you hit "Alt-Q", which gives you thumbnails of the previous tabs you've closed (like the built-in IE Quick Tabs, but for previously closed tabs)", reads a fragment of the plug-in's description.