Microsoft Watch has an article online about the upcoming next-generation of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser.
With the sudden gain in popularity of web browsers such as Mozilla’s Firefox due to concerns about security and spyware, it’s no surprise that Microsoft’s main focus behind Internet Explorer 7 is improvements in browser security. There’s also been talk about making the web browser able to directly integrate with Microsoft’s newly acquired anti-spyware technology. Besides security upgrades, other end-user features Microsoft is integrating into the new IE include tabbed browsing and RSS feed collection.
On the web developer’s side of the table, news of IE 7’s support of 32bit transparent PNG images will be welcome news, though it’s a feature that probably will not make its way onto larger sites until the majority of the current IE 6 user base upgrades, which could take some time. Unfortunately, Microsoft has decided they will only support a subset of CSS2 features, which is disappointing when many of their competitors are already beginning work with CSS3.
Betas of the new browser are expected to arrive sometime later this year.