14 DAY TRIAL // After criticisms and studies showing that Internet Explorer 6 is starting to lose its market share to Firefox, the open-source solution is about to meet the final version of its mortal enemy.
The software giant announced that the last beta for Internet Explorer 7 will be available towards the middle of the year, in August.
Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 won?t contain major interface updates, but will fix some bugs. For one of the issues, the developers have preferred to use an older setting from Internet Explorer 6.
Microsoft recently ordered an audit study for the built-in phishing filter in IE7 to show that the new browser doesn?t violate the users? privacy.
Jefferson Wells concluded the Phishing Filter client does not transmit any personally identifiable information without explicit user consent and that URL information transmitted for rating cannot be traced back to the user?s personal information.
Microsoft assured users that the study would be repeated each time changes are made.
?We want you to understand this is a long-term commitment to protect your privacy. To prove our ongoing commitment, we?re going to repeat this audit periodically so that even if the service changes in some way, you?ll still have proof that the web service protects your privacy,? Rob Franco, lead program manager for IE security at Microsoft, said at that time.
Another Internet Explorer 7 novelty is the new name for the Vista version. For the OS, whose release date is scheduled in January 2007, the browsing solution will be called ?Internet Explorer 7+?, or, ?IE7+?.
Internet Explorer 7 beta 2 has been certified by Softpedia as being 100% FREE and is available for download here.